sea spray//l.h

chapter 15: lying on a fake beach

{slightly triggering/mentions self harm}

I wake up to the sound of Luke singing. His hands were lightly playing with my blue hair. The sunlight peeked through the cracks in the blinds and hitting his face.

Hey we're taking on the world

Take you where you wanna go

Pick you up if you fall to pieces

He stops when he sees I'm awake. He smiles, then pecks my lips softly. They're still sore from yesterday. After Luke had seen my newly blue hair, we laid on my bed and made out until our lips got tired and our eyes got weary.

"Morning babe", he said.

"I didn't know you could sing". Luke had sounded really good before. I wanted to listen to him sing more often.

He chuckled. "I can't"

"Bullshit, Lucas. You sounded beautiful", I said as I got out of bed. Slipping my fuzzy bed shoes on, I shuffled to the bathroom.

"I sounded like my vocal coards went through a garbage disposal", Luke retorted.

I thought about it for a while as I picked up my toothbrush.

"Yeah you're right, it does sound that bad". I grabbed the toothpaste and squeezed it onto the brush.

"Oh my gosh, Luke!!" I exclaimed with toothpaste in my mouth. In the mirror, I saw my neck, peppered with love bites. I gently ran my fingers over them, smiling internally.

By this time, Luke was standing in the doorway. When he saw my neck, a smirk spread over his face. "I did good, didn't I?"

"No, now let me shower". I spit out the toothpaste and went to close the door. Luke moved out of the way, but before I could close it all the way, he stuck his arm out.

"Can I join you?"

"No", I said as I opened the door, got on my tippie toes, and pecked his lips. "Just wait outside, then we'll go do something"

•••

"So what do ya wanna do?", I asked as I flipped my damp hair over and pulled it into a bun.

"I wanna take you somewhere special to me." Luke grabbed my hand and interlocked our fingers.

"Oh and where might this special place be?", I questioned with a smirk.

Luke huffed. "The beach"

"No offense Luke, but I go to the beach almost everyday", I say.

"But you've never been to this one. My dad used to take me there", he replied.

The room got quiet. We had talked about my parents before, but we had never really talked about Luke's. I gave his hand a supportive squeeze. "Let's go"

•••

"How much further" I groaned, extending the "r". Luke had driven me down to the normel beach, but he took me inside a cave. It was dark, the only source of light were the few lanterns flickering inside the caves crevices. There was a pair of stairs in the cave and we were currently walking down them.

"Not much longer, come on", he replied as he grabbed my hand. His hands were always warm and soft unlike my rough cold ones. In this cave, he smelled more like sea spray than ever.

I could see some sunlight ahead of me. Luke let go of my hand, and started walking faster to the light. I had to start running a little to keep up with him. The light was actually the exit to the cave. There were rocks all around me so I had to be careful as I stepped out and into the light again.

Before me, was a normel beach, except there was no one there. The waves crashed against the rocks on the right.

I kneeled down to grab a hand full of damp sand, but it wasn't damp nor moldable like normel damp sand would be.

"It's fake", Luke says. He had seen me trying pick up the sand.

"This is a fake beach. The sand isn't real sand. Its plastic particles. The rocks are also plastic. The water is real, but its cut off from the ocean. My great grandpa built it for my great grandma. I guess its sorta a way to say 'life is fake except anything that really matters'"

I gasp. "Wow". The beach really was amazing and I couldn't admit that I didn't love a good metaphor.

Luke chuckles to himself. "It's actually tradition a Hemming's man proposes here"

"Luke if you are gonna propose, I'm gonna say no." I liked Luke but I didn't think one month of knowing someone could count as "love".

"Relax, I'm not gonna propose", Luke as he got closer to my face. I looked into his eyes. They matched the real ocean water breaking onto the fake beach.

I took a step back, and started taking off my clothes. I looked over to see Luke confused.

"Let's go in", I said. I was in my bra and underwear, which probably covered more than a bikini since I didn't wear very flattering lingerie.

I ran towards the water, and felt a cold shiver run through my spine when I reached it. Turning around, I saw a shirtless Luke running towards the water with a grin.

"Oh my gosh it's co-". Luke stopped midsentance. I had splashed him with water.

"Oh now it's on", Luke said and he splashed me back.

I laughed and started sending waves towards Luke. He did the same. Our giggles and groans filled the air as we continued to play like children.

I decided to go with a new tactic and swim away from the waves.

I didn't get very far when I felt a hand snake around my ankle.

"I gotcha!" Luke exclaimed.

"That's really unfair since you're like 8 feet tall", I proclaimed.

"That does sound unfair." Luke let go of my ankle. I turned around to face him. The water was up to my neck, so I was treading a little, but Luke easily stood with the water touching his collarbones.

He grabbed my arms and pulled me into him. His lips found mine and his arms wrapped around my waist. My arms latched around his neck. Our lips moved in sync with each other. I could feel his arms going down my waist and resting on my hips. His fingers lightly drew circles on my hip bones, but he suddenly stopped.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Uh nothing....lets go back to the fake beach", he said.

And with that, we swam back.

Once we reached shore, Luke dramatically flopped on the sand and I giggled a little, lying down next to him.

He squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled.

"Ya know, lying on a fake beach won't give you a tan", I said.

Luke smiled weakly and turned around to face me. He let out a sigh and said "Your scars..."

"Oh" was all I could say. "I had to cope with the pain-"

Luke cut me off. "You are beautiful did you know that? I don't want you hurting yourself anymore."

"I stopped a while ago... actually I think it was when I met you.", I replied. I didn't want Luke to worry about me so I lied.

I hadn't stopped harming myself. There was still a part of the past that haunted me. I was slowly letting go, but not all of it. It would take time.

a/n: that took me three days wow

and what this chapter is not inspired by Marina and the Diamonds song Radioactive whaaaa

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