» à deux // luke hemmings « [editing]

24

i could write a book - frank sinatra

[Luke]

Ashton and I have been staring at each other for thirty minutes in the dressing room after a long, tiring show, and, being the awkward human being I am, I couldn’t stand the silence and attention.

“What?” I groaned, giving up. “You’re going to hit me?”

He bit his lip before answering. “Nah, maybe tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the consideration.” I said dryly. “I’ll look forward to that.”

Ashton nodded. “Luke,” he pauses. “You fucked up.”

“It’s not like I made Mandy wear the shirt—“

“I know, I know.” Ashton shook his head and stood up. “I mean, as much as I want to convince Ivey into thinking that you intentionally made Mandy wear the stupid shirt so that she would hate you forever and seek comfort in me, I’m not that bad of a person and I know that you aren’t as well. We’re friends, Luke, I’ll admit it.”

“Again, that’s very considerate of you, Ashton.” I brought my eyebrows together in confusion. “I appreciate it.”

“Yes, but, Luke, you still fucked up.” Ashton sighed. “And you have to fix your mess; Ivey’s not talking to anyone and she wasn’t even laughing at any point during Flames’s set.”

“What do you want me to do?” I looked up at him. “How do you expect me to talk to her when she’s not even talking to anyone, even you? She wouldn’t even look at me during sound check.”

“Talk to her.”

“What am I supposed to say? The girl hates me.”

Ashton shook his head. “She doesn’t, Luke. She loves you. I see the way she looks at you. She might have forgotten that you guys had a relationship, but, God, the way she looks at you. It’s like she knows that something happened before but she just couldn’t put her finger on it.”

I abruptly stood up and walked towards him with a pointed finger. “Yeah, well, do you know how she looks at you, Ashton? Do you know how hard it is to look at her looking at you? It’s so hard to look at her look at you the way she looked at me, and I don’t care how redundant as fuck that sounded because it’s true. She may have loved me, but right now, she loves you. At the end of the day, she loves you. At the end of the day, she doesn’t remember all of the efforts I did to have her.”

“What if she loves Jack?” Ashton half-shouted. “What if she loves me because I resemble him? You know, half of the time I’m with her, I’m so afraid that she’s thinking it’s someone else and not me, and she isn’t even doing it on purpose. She killed my brother—“

“She did not.” I groaned, tired of the same argument. “How many times do we have to go through this? If you’re so caught up with an accident thinking that Ivey killed Jack, why are you still with her?”

He paused. “Because we both lost him.”

We stayed silent for a moment with our heavy breathing the only noise being made. I chewed on my lip, not entirely sure of what to do or say. Ashton’s eyes were closed and he unclenched his fists with a deep breath.

“Maybe we both need to get over losing someone.” I said slowly. “And maybe yours is a harder process than mine.”

Ashton looked down at his feet. “She never said that she loves me.” He said quietly.

“She doesn’t have to say it, Ash.” I said as quiet. “She shows you that she loves you and you know what’s worse? She shows it in front of me.”