~No POV~
Emma's words to Luke before she left kept replaying through his mind. 'There can't be an us' and 'I don't think I want to be in that place with you'.
What fucking place? Luke thought he had everything figured out with Emma. He thought he was making substantial progress with her, they've had sex, right? Things should be going in the right direction. Not left, like they were.
Emma also thought she had everything figured out. She thought she felt nothing for Luke. She knew she felt nothing for him. She still doesn't think she does. But she's looked in on their relationship from the outside and now she's not so sure.
Luke has been slowly swooning over her since their first kiss and he was pissed that she hasn't even acknowledged him in any way except that stupid best friend! Em hasn't swooned. Emma doesn't swoon.
She doesn't swoon because she doesn't know how. She doesn't know what it's like to fall head over heels for someone. She doesn't like the idea of free falling into such a deep pit of emotion like that because she can and will plummet down and break herself.
Lu, on the other hand, loves that feeling. Normally the guy isn't supposed to love being hopelessly in love with someone, but Luke is starting to feel that way. Luke loves that risky jump off the cliff, diving into the unknown with people- well, person since the only person he's ever had anything for (besides Em) is Maddie. Look how well that turned out. He loved the fall. He's not worried about the imminent threat of breaking when his feet hit the ground, it's all about going with whatever happens in mid-air. In his mind, it's flying not falling.
Luke and Emma are completely different when it comes to how they like to live.
Emma needs to know what she is doing and contemplates every outcome that could happen and mainly focuses on the negative while Luke is more optimistic. He likes to only look at the positive outcomes but doesn't really think through his decisions.
He's not stupid though. In fact, he thinks Emma is stupid for never having fun. He thinks she's stupid for never taking a day off from school to relax. He thinks she's stupid for having her feelings so locked up to where she seems like a robot. Yesterday, "breaking things off", was a big step for her. Luke thinks Emma is stupid for being that pretty and not realizing it. She puts herself down and Luke kicks back the urge to tell her how fucking pretty she is to him, even when she's breathing heavily from running up the short flight of stairs and how much he wants to grab her by the neck and shove his tongue down her throat. However cliché that may sound, it's true. He thinks she's stupid. But he also thinks she's the smartest person he's ever met.
Emma thinks Luke is stupid too. She thinks his pointless tattoos that cover every square inch of his arms are the stupidest fucking things she's ever seen. She thinks the fact that he got her first initial tattooed on his left wrist was bad luck. And look where that got them. Em thinks that missing two days of school a month at most is stupid and won't allow Luke to graduate. She thinks he's stupid for running his hands through his hair all day, wondering why it's all messed up and greasy. Emma thinks Luke is stupid. But he's her best friend, so he's got to be smart for making that decision.
Emma was sitting on her bed, watching The Breakfast Club for the second time that week. It's her go-to feel good movie. Her roommate, MK, was watching her own Netflix movie that she wasn't familiar with but it had Chris Pine in it so she must have good taste in men. Em still didn't understand why the assface got the girl. The guy who shows he cares should get the girl. She started to reflect that upon her own life, even though she didn't have an assface to choose from. Luke was both the assface and the nice guy but she didn't want him did she? She couldn't want him.
