24 Hours.

5.5 - broken promises

23:25 PM

Luke felt bad, bad enough to run after Skylar.

He really didn't want to hurt her in the long run, that was Luke's biggest fear. He didn't trust himself, and he knew (or thought) that even if he tried to make things work with Skylar he'd eventually fuck up and do something even worse to her than what he was doing now. He was trying to protect her, and obviously he wasn't doing a very good job of it, but this was how Luke wanted to do this.

He felt that if he drove Skylar away now, it would hurt less for both of them later.

"Sky!" He called, jogging towards her. She turned around, still glaring at him. "Sky, wait for a minute."

"What?" Skylar asked impatiently, folding her arms across her chest.

"Please don't be upset with me," Luke begged. He looked down and fiddled with the zipper of his sweatshirt. The one that he'd made her give back. "I'm doing this for a good reason."

"Really?" Skylar questioned, but she didn't seem to believe Luke at all.

He deserved that, though, because half the time Luke didn't believe himself. All he'd done for the past two days was feed Skylar lies, he didn't blame her for not trusting him anymore. He told her that he wouldn't leave her, when really he had every intention to ditch her as soon as they got back home.

But he loved her, and that's why he was leaving. He wanted to protect Skylar from all of the shit in his life, all of the fame and rumors and gossip, and Luke was just too stupid to do it the right way. He thought that maybe if Skylar hated him she'd just go away on her own.

"I'll just hurt you." Luke stepped closer to her. He desperately wanted to reach out and grab her hand, but he knew that this wasn't the right time. There probably would never be a right time for them to hold hands again.

"You're hurting me right now." Skylar said blankly, swallowing hard. Luke could tell that she was trying not to cry, and he felt awful, because that was his fault. It was always Luke's fault, he never did anything right.

"You should get going." Luke gulped, looking down at the floor again. He couldn't even look Skylar in the eyes, that's how bad he felt.

"Fine." Skylar snapped, turning away from Luke and beginning to walk again.

"Fine." Luke muttered to himself, staring at his feet. He felt awful about all of this, but there wasn't anything else he could really do. He looked back up at Skylar and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back."Wait."

"What?" Skylar asked, turning around again. She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear, looking up at Luke.

"I just wanted to say good luck, you know, with your mum." Luke said, and he tried to smile, but he just couldn't.

"Fuck you." Skylar said, shaking her head. Luke deserved that, too.

"Okay, fine. Just go, get out of here." Luke waved her away, because he just wanted to get as far away from her as possible. It hurt too much when she was around, Luke just wanted to be alone. "Goodbye, Skylar."

"Goodbye?" Skylar took a small step back, looking surprised. Like the word goodbye had triggered something inside her and made her realize that this was actually happening. Skylar and Luke were actually saying goodbye.

"Yeah." Luke nodded. Skylar began to turn away again, but spun around and faced Luke at the last second, looking angrier than before.

"What about all of the things you said last night, Luke? Were they all lies?" She asked.