» à deux // luke hemmings « [editing]

20

 wild heart - the vamps

[Ivey]

I’ve never seen Luke cry, or at least the memory of him crying was washed away; so seeing him choke up surprised me.

I took the first thing I felt in the shoebox that rested on my stomach and handed it to Luke without a word, still staring at the ceiling above me. There was a minute of silence until I heard someone breathe deeply, and when I sat up to check on Luke, he was frowning down at the object in his hands.

I was still mad at Luke, but I honestly wanted to forgive him. The only thing holding me back was the fact that he said he knew I was going to end up forgiving him soon. Was I that predictable? I wasn’t forgiving Luke to prove a point.

His eyes were stuck on the item and he didn’t move a muscle when I scooted over to him to peek at what I brought out of the box.

On Luke’s hand laid two bottle caps. They were rusty around the edges and the top, and it made it hard for me to distinguish what brand of beverage it was.

Luke continued to stare at them until I grew impatient. Cautiously, I put my hands on his and slowly closed his left hand on his right, completely burying the caps between his palms. His hands were cold and shaky.

“Luke,” I whispered.

He swallowed hard. “No questions asked.”

“It’s okay,” I didn’t know why I said it, but it felt right. I kept my hands on his.

He cleared his throat, finally releasing his bottom lip from the grasp of his upper teeth. “Uh, I’ve always had these bottle caps in my pockets. When we were together, you kept one in your pocket and I kept the other one in mine. After Jack, I got your cap from your pocket in the hospital and kept it. I brought both with me everywhere until just a few nights ago when I gave you the box.” Luke’s eyes stayed on our hands.

“Why do you keep it in your pockets all the time?” I asked quietly, trying to look for his eyes.

His mouth twitched to a small smile for a second. “It kind of became like a promise ring, kind of thing. You hate tacky things, so instead of giving you a ring, I got you two bottles of A&W. A&W played an important part of our relationship, Ives. Whenever we had a first, root beer was always somehow in the picture.

“We barely had serious fights, they were always petty ones, but the first time we ever fought involved root beer. It was funny, actually.” Luke’s frown turned back to a complete smile, and he finally looked at me. “I spilled root beer on your shirt by accident,” he stressed, “and you got really pissed off, so we had a little fight, which was really just not talking to each other for an hour.

“Our first kiss, we were arguing over root beer. Which was better, A&W or Barq’s? You chose A&W and kept rambling on about it, so instead of defending Barq’s, I kissed you. We were on top of a tree, for some reason.

“The first time I introduced you as my girlfriend to the guys, they freaked. Not in a bad way, don’t worry. They love you. We celebrated with no other than root beer and did a contest on whoever could drink the fastest.

“You always forgot our firsts, but I never did. When you went on tour for six months, it was the first time we weren’t going to see each other for at least one day a week because you were going to Europe while I was at Australia. We drank root beer and I kept your bottle cap and you kept mine, and you told me, ‘this way, you’re mine and I’m yours, always.’ You called them promise caps, and they worked like wedding rings. I never went anywhere without your bottle cap ever since then.”

I bit my lip as I watched a single tear fall down Luke’s cheek. “Do you want to have them back?” I whispered.

Luke shook his head. “No, you’re not mine anymore, remember? You’re Ashton’s.”

--

I wanted to give the bottle caps to Luke. Not out of pity, but because I couldn’t stand looking at them and remembering the reason why they were with me in the first place.

I made a promise to Luke, and I technically didn’t break the promise; I broke it without knowing, and that makes it worse.

I left both bottle caps on Luke’s bunk before getting off the bus and back to the arena, an hour before the show.

The pre-show adrenaline rush was something I never got used to. Actually, I don’t think anyone got used to it. Everyone in the dressing room was panicking: Mandy was reapplying her makeup every two minutes; Alice was munching on her third blueberry muffin; Jackie was sitting upside down on the couch with her eyes closed, practicing the bridge of a song on her guitar; Sam was still vocalizing; and I was hitting everything in reach with my drumsticks.

We didn’t talk until Tuffy peeked in the room with his white teeth displayed.

“Showtime, girls.” He grinned excitedly. Ha, you wouldn’t be that excited if you were playing in front of thousands of people.

Alice cleared her throat and walked to the middle of the room with her arms on her head. “Come on,”

We huddled with our faces pressed against each other.

Sam was the first to speak. “Let’s make this a good one.”

Playing live was what I lived for. The sweat, the deafening screams, the blinding lights, and the pain from standing too long, none of that mattered to me. It was great to know that thousands of people waste so much money just to see us play for only a few hours.

After the show, when we went back to the dressing room, I couldn’t feel my legs. My toes felt numb and all of my fingers were bleeding nonstop because of the blisters from my drumsticks.

We sat quietly together once again, not speaking a word. That was my favorite part.

After the show, when we’re all quiet and breathless. It’s what I loved to witness; seeing my four best friends dehydrated and gasping for air and downing three bottles of water, yet still having full-size grins on their faces from a successful show. I loved it.

“That was great.” Jackie said in between gulps of water.

I bandaged my hands while walking to my assigned mirror, wincing at the pain from my feet. I took note to bandage my toes as well, after taking a shower.

I went to grab the water bottle waiting for me on my dresser and noticed a familiar item laying on a yellow Post-it.

It was a bottle cap.

“I forgot: we had root beer the morning after we first did it.”