» à deux // luke hemmings « [editing]

5

terrible things - mayday parade

[Ivey]

I hated myself a lot, but with Luke, he made me forget.

Ever since the accident had happened, I felt like I couldn’t do anything right. I was forced to visit a shrink thrice a week for two months and it made me hate myself even more. I felt like there was something mentally wrong with me. I felt like I couldn’t make friends and no one would want to talk to me.

I couldn’t speak. The shrinks claimed that it was a posttraumatic thing, but I knew that it was more than that. I didn’t talk to anyone at all, not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t. I tried my hardest to make any possible sound with my voice, but every time I opened my mouth, I felt like I was going to get hit.

Luke came back to my life a few months after what had happened. He has been there for me ever since then, but gave me a more or less two months before actually talking to me. For a while, our conversations consisted of him talking and me writing on a piece of paper. I knew it was hard for his side because he probably felt like he was talking to no one, and it broke me inside.

I tried every day to learn how to speak again, until finally, I was able to talk. Alice would tell me that the only time she heard me speaking during those dark months was when I was asleep, sleep talking.

Luke and I were alone at a bookstore when I started talking again. I caught Ashton shagging some girl that morning and Luke had brought me to the bookstore downtown to stop me from literally stabbing him with a spoon.

I saw a book that reminded me a lot about Jack and I couldn’t help but pull Luke to the corner of the bookstore and tell him everything about the book I had spotted resting on one of the tall wooden shelves.

“Jack bought me this for Christmas last year.” I remember whispering to him.

Both of our eyes widened at the sound of my voice, his lips forming into a huge grin. “Oh, my god, Ivey!”

I recall being shocked at the sound of my own voice, covering my mouth quickly. I remember wincing when he reached out to me, expecting him to punch my face, but instead feeling his arms wrap around my body warmly.

That day wasn’t just the day I started to speak again, but it was as well the same day that I caught Ashton with another girl for the first time. Everyone remembers that day because I finally started talking again, but I remembered it because of Ashton. Because of Ashton, I started to speak, and because of his mistake, I started to smoke. It was all Ashton’s fault and no one knew about it but Luke.

Luke became my anchor ever since then. For some reason, he was always the one looking out for me the most, always trying to stop me from smoking. For months he helped me get my shit together, being a distraction from my messed up world.

“Ivey,”

I was pulled out of my thoughts by Ashton’s voice. I turned around to face him, seeing him walk to me with a bruised chin. His black shirt was crumpled and his hair fell on his eyes.

“What happened to you?” I walked up to him, touching the bruise on his face. He winced at my touch, biting his lip. “Sorry,” I pulled my hand back.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly. “Your boyfriend punched me.”

“Boyfriend?” My heart skipped a beat at the word. I felt my insides warm up, the familiar feeling of complete happiness rushing through my veins.

“Yeah,” he said. “Luke.”

I felt like my heart had stopped beating. That was the thing about happiness, wasn’t it? Once you’re happy there will always be something that comes after it, crushing your world down to little pieces of depression. In order to gain happiness, one must not seek for it nor accept it.