Fall.

Chapter 28.

"Hello?" I asked, picking up the phone.

"Hey, are you busy?" Michael's voice appeared on the other end.

"Not at the moment, why?" I spoke softly, standing up from the couch. I began to pace around the room, a habit that I always did when I was on the phone.

"Do you want to come over? We finally bought a DVD player." Michael chuckled into the phone.

"Finally." I laughed. Now he could finally stop asking to borrow mine.

"So, do you want to come over?" Michael asked.

"Um, sure. It's not like I have anything going on here." I shrugged, glancing around my empty living room.

"Luke Hemmings isn't going to pop by at all, is he?" Michael joked.

"I doubt it. He doesn't pop by anymore." I sighed, my eyes quickly filling with tears at the mention of Luke. I missed him a lot, but he wasn't speaking to me.

"How long has it been?" Michael asked, and I knew exactly what he was talking about.

"A month." I said, wiping under my eyes. "I haven't seen or heard anything from him."

"I'm sorry, Stella. I'm sure he'll come back soon." Michael sighed as well. As much as he didn't like to admit it he missed Luke too, the two of them had almost become friends in the short time they spent together.

"Right. I'll be down in a few minutes." I smiled, hanging up the phone.

I got myself ready to go, only fixing up my hair and sliding on a pair of shoes since I wasn't going very far. I pulled open the front door, only to reveal a tired looking Luke standing before me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. All I wanted to do was hug and kiss him, make sure that he wasn't just a figment of my imagination.

"I need to talk to you." Luke gulped. He pushed passed me and stepped inside the apartment, not waiting for me to invite him in.

He looked so different. He was thinner, his skin was paler, his hair was longer. It's like he had hardly taken care of himself in the past month. I hated this, I needed to reach out and touch him. He looked almost like a new person, like I didn't even know him anymore.

"I really don't think there's anything to say." I folded my arms over my chest and leaned against the wall, staying away from Luke.

"I have something to tell you, actually, if you would just let me." Luke gulped.

"You think that you can just show up after a month of staying away from me and everything will be just perfect?" I questioned, crossing my arms over my chest.

"I have a good reason for staying away." Luke said quietly, staring down at his feet.

"Well then, where have you been?" I asked.

"I was in the hospital for a few weeks." Luke shrugged. "I tried to kill myself again."

I knew it, I knew I shouldn't have left Luke alone that night I was upset with him. He had told me all about his problems and I knew about every single one, I should have seen something like this coming. I can believe how mean I was to him, I probably provoked this whole thing. This was all my fault. He tried to commit suicide because of me.

"W-what?" I stammered.

"I wanted to die, Stella. I thought that I had lost you, the one good thing I had in my life, and I felt that dying was the only option. I thought you hated me, and if you hated me then I felt like I had no point anymore." Luke stated simply. He wore the same usual blank expression on his face, looking as though he had told this story millions of times.