Ghost of You

27

-Luke-

"What's happening to you?" Calum asked as we walked off stage. "You really weren't in it tonight. Your head was clearly somewhere else."

I shook my head, "I know, I'm sorry. I just have a bad feeling. I need to go home."

"Well you're lucky that was our last gig." Calum sighed.

I felt guilty for not playing my best at our last show, but I couldn't help it. I needed to fix things with Kennedy. I needed to fix my mistakes before it was too late.

-Kennedy-

I woke up feeling like I had just fallen asleep. I must've gotten a total of two hours of sleep that whole night. It was hard to tell what happened, there were nightmares that continued into my awake state so I must have been hallucinating. I couldn't even tell what was real anymore.

I rolled out of bed, my head throbbing with pain. I had forgotten about last night's drinking fest. I slowly made my way down to the kitchen where I filled up a large glass of water and grabbed a bottle of painkillers. I sat on the couch and switched on the tv as I swallowed the little pills that would hopefully minimize my hangover.

I immediately recognized myself on tv. It was a celebrity news channel and of course they were discussing the rising band 5 Seconds of Summer.

The bleach blonde commentator droned on, "Kennedy Coleman, former girlfriend of the band's sexy lead singer, was spotted yesterday running out of what appeared to be a therapy session. She was unwilling to answer any questions, likely meaning that the breakup was rough. Some fans are questioning whether Coleman was in therapy to deal with the breakup while others are certain that she's been mentally unstable all along."

A picture of me running with distress in my eyes flashed on the screen. "One source claims that Hemmings broke it off due to the lack of mental stability and fame seeking tendencies Coleman displayed."

I groaned and shut the tv off. People were just mean. Even a simple therapy appointment was headline news now. The stigma around getting help for your mental health had always been something that upset me, but this was even more than that. How could they make assumptions about my relationship? Technically we hadn't even broken up! I mean I wasn't certain how things were going to go, but I wanted to give Luke a chance. I really did. He was coming home today and I just wanted to hear from him what was going on.

I decided to use my last ounce of motivation to take care of myself. I jumped in the shower and scrubbed my skin clean. I lathered my greasy unkempt hair with rose scented shampoo. Luke always loved that I smelled like roses. I shaved my body until all the skin was smooth and brushed my teeth, removing the smell of alcohol from my breath.

I dug through my closet for something nice to wear and my fingers met a familiar fabric. It was my gala dress from our trip to Vegas, which felt so long ago. I pulled it out of the closet and admired it. The soft blush color and the delicate appliqué detailing brought back memories of the fun times Luke and I had together. I remembered how he looked at me like I was the most beautiful girl in the world.

I tentatively slipped on the dress. It was looser now and as I looked in the full length mirror I realized that you could see the bones protruding through my back. Since the incident I had struggled to eat or really take care of myself at all. It was suddenly obvious as I stared at the skeleton in the mirror.

I couldn't help but think that maybe that was one of the reasons that Luke got with such a beautiful girl as soon as he left. Her skin was sun kissed and highlighted in all the right places, while mine looked more like the sunken rotting flesh of a corpse. Her hair was a rich black with shine and body to it. Mine was stringy and brittle.