echo // hemmings [completed]

forty-two | improbable

—March 11th—

In the last two weeks, Calum had begun to notice some changes in Luke's behavior. Whenever Michael tried to talk to the blonde he would purse his lips and speak in this dull, monotonous voice that seemed to lack any interest at all. But whenever Michael asked about it, Luke would just flash a big smile and tell him that it was nothing, and Michael believed it every single time. Another thing is that Luke had started becoming more publicly affectionate with Rowan. He would kiss her frequently and his fingers were almost always interlaced with hers. She didn't see it as anything strange, but Calum had started to think that the girl was just blinded from looking through rose colored glasses.

But the most peculiar thing was that his best friend would get into a cab every morning and go to Cafe Bellevue to meet with a man that Calum didn't recognize. The dark haired boy wasn't intentionally following him when he found out, but he noticed Luke walking in as he was picking up a package from the post office nearby. At first he didn't think anything of it, but the next time Calum walked by, Luke was there again, talking to the same man. The second time he entered the cafe and spied on his friend from a table in the back. The mystery man would read newspapers and Luke would just listen.

Before, Luke didn't care about the newspaper. He was the kind of guy who only read it to do the word search on the back and look at the sports section. Calum couldn't hear what the man was reading and Luke's back was always turned to him, but he could swear that Luke was crying as he listened. He wasn't sure so he visited the cafe the next day and the day after that, and every single time he saw the boy cry. He wanted to approach him and ask what was wrong, but he knew Luke would be furious if he found out that he had been tailed everyday.

So Calum kept it to himself and would run through all the reasons why Luke would want to hear the paper from a stranger. He wondered why the boy didn't come to him to read it and what on earth was making him cry every fucking morning. He tried to recall every single news article that would upset Luke, but in the end, he could only think of one: Riley's death.

But his deduction didn't make any sense. Luke thought Riley was still alive and he had no reason to be suspicious. After all, they had been covering their tracks. Rowan had been doing a spot on job of pretending to be his dead friend and the rest of them were being extra careful to maintain their lie. So he decided that he needed someone else to look at the situation, thus confiding in Rowan.

Out of the five of them, Rowan had been spending the most time with Luke and with thorough explanation, Calum hoped that she could provide him with more insight. Yet she too couldn't make any sense of it because all of it lead back to that one improbable conclusion that the two of them prayed was not true. So they sat and talked in Calum's shop and tried to reassure themselves that they hadn't been exposed. They knew that they had to confess soon, as they only had a week left before the operation, but the four of them were having trouble facing the facts and ultimately the duo decided that they had to tell him tomorrow.

Michael and Ashton would surely be upset if the two abandoned their plan of telling him together, so they reached the agreement of waiting until the next day to tell Luke the truth as a group. And as Calum and Rowan pondered over the final steps of their plan, Luke Hemmings himself walked into the store.

He had gotten bored at home and decided to pop by Calum's and was surprised to find out that "Riley" was there too. He awkwardly hugged her and kissed the top of her head, a greeting that the dark haired boy had never seen when Luke was with Riley.

The three of them chatted for a while, but the questions burning in Calum's head made it difficult for him to focus. Yet Rowan's worry appeared to fade when she was with Luke. She had begun to fall in love with him as much as he had fallen in love with her, and that's what made it even harder for her to tell him the truth.

Eventually Luke had to leave and when he asked Rowan if she wanted to go with him, she reluctantly said no, as her and Calum still had much to talk about. But as she walked him to the door to say goodbye, the clumsy girl tripped over an amp cord and Calum swears that time stopped at that moment. Because just before Rowan's head collided with the corner of a table, a hand reached out, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her back upright. And as soon as the girl was back on her feet again, the two of them immediately turned their attention to the cane that had been thrown to the ground and Luke, who cursed under his breath when he saw their expressions.

"Luke," Rowan said shakily.

 Calum could feel the blood draining from his face as he spoke, "You can see."

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a/n: :O

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