24 Hours.

4.9 - more phone calls

2:10 AM

Luke decided to leave Skylar alone for a while, because he knew that anything he said to her would just come out wrong. He walked back over to the bed, picked his shirt up off the floor and pulled it over his head again. Luke was so confused, he didn't know what to do with himself.

He loved Skylar. He knew that and he didn't understand why he thought that treating her that way would somehow change things. Of course Skylar wasn't just any other girl, she was so different and they both knew that. Luke couldn't just push her to the side and pretend that Skylar wasn't even going to matter to him in the end. She would always matter.

He couldn't believe that he had just done that. It would be one thing for Luke to turn down Skylar nicely, an explain why he had a sudden change of heart, but of course Luke wasn't that nice. Luke was a douche bag and always would be, so he decided to act like a douche and flat out refuse to have sex with Skylar, and he knew that it made her feel bad. Luke panicked, though, and he couldn't do anything about it now.

Luke let out a big sigh as he heard the shower turn on in the bathroom and rubbed his eyes with his hands, because now he was too tired to even stand up properly. He sat down and picked up the phone on the nightstand next to the bed, pressing random buttons for a few minutes to try and distract himself. That's what Luke needed, a distraction.

Finally, Luke gave in and dialed the one phone number that he knew by heart, and would probably never forget.

"Hello?" The call was answered on the third ring, and Calum's groggy voice was heard on the other end of the phone.

"Cal?" Luke choked out. He hadn't noticed how close he was to crying until he actually started talking, and now he could feel the tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.

"Luke? Is that you?" Calum questioned, sounding more awake now.

"Yeah, it is. My phone's dead, I'm at a hotel." Luke explained softly. He didn't know what he should say, or really why he was calling. He just needed to talk to someone else or once and get Skylar out of his head.

"Are you okay? You sound upset, what's wrong?" Calum asked, and that alone almost made Luke burst into tears.

How could Calum be so nice and care so much when Luke was such a jerk to him? Ashton and Michael too, why did they even bother being Luke's friend anymore? If it was anyone else they probably would have left Luke already and let him die from all of the alcohol and drug abuse and excessive partying. Why did the boys keep coming back? Why did they still care for Luke?

"I'm not okay, Cal." Luke said, wiping under his nose with the back of his hand.

"Why? What's wrong?" Calum asked, speaking a little too loudly. Luke heard someone else, probably Michael, sleepily mutter a "what is it?" next to Calum, also wondering what was going on.

"I'm such a bad a friend, I'm so sorry." Luke cried.

"No you're not, Luke." Calum sighed. Luke just shook his head and started to cry even harder, because that wasn't true.

He was the worst friend possible and everyone knew it. It didn't matter that Luke and the rest of the boys had that little heart to heart in the bathroom earlier that day, the fact that Luke was a shitty person and an awful best friend was still there. Even though the boys had apologized for calling each other mean names and being rude to one another they still had other issues that needed to be resolved, and Luke was just trying to fix somehow them all now.

"I'm so mean to everyone, and I'm so sorry. I take it for granted how much you all care about me, I don't deserve to have friends like you. I don't thank you for everything you do enough and I feel so, so bad about it." Luke continued to sob, trying to cover his mouth with his hands. He knew that Skylar had the shower on and was probably crying on her own right now, but he still didn't want her to hear him like this. It was even worse than before, Luke was a complete mess.