mr. hemmings // l.h.

52 • luke

"I'm so fucking mad at you, Madeline." I sighed. I rubbed my hands up and down my face. It was 4:03am now, we sat across from each other on my kitchen floor.

She looked so sad.
She was wearing my Grateful Dead tee shirt now, and her black underwear.
Those underwear would have turned me on any other time, but at the moment I didn't even want to look at them.

"I know, Luke." She said. Her expression went from sad, to almost nothing. "I know you're mad at me."

Her makeup was practically falling off her face. I didn't know if it was from crying or being wasted. Maybe both.

"I don't even know what to say to you." I admitted.

"Well, think of something." She demanded.

"Why now?" I shook my head, "Why now, that everything is actually starting to work out the way you wanted it to?"

She raised an eyebrow, "The way I wanted it to?"

"Oh shut up," I mumbled, "don't do that. You know I wanted it just as badly."

"No, Luke." She said. "I don't know that. I have been begging for you, for the last few months."

"You've had me!"

"No, Luke! I haven't! I've had intimacy. I've had fucking. I've had kisses, and long phone calls, and flirtatious texts, and sleepovers, and all of the fun stuff that comes with a relationship without any form of title."

"What's in a title?" I asked. "Why does it have to be titled to be real? For crying out loud, I'm in love with you! Does that not mean anything?"

"I'm not saying it wasn't real Luke, for God's sake. I'm saying a title brings security. It makes us a unit. An actual relationship. It validates my feelings. Your feelings. It shows commitment. It creates boundaries."

"Boundaries," I repeated, "boundaries like not kissing anyone else?"

"Oh, you asshole. I didn't kiss him, he kissed me!" She sounded desperate.

I looked away.

"Why can't you just trust me?" She pleaded.

I looked back at her, "Why can't you trust me?"

"What are you even talking about?" She asked.

"You don't trust that I'm really here for you, you won't trust that until I give you that title. Whatever I'm doing right now clearly isn't enough."

"Luke, enough!" She snapped. "I have never, ever said that what you're giving is not enough. You don't get to do that."

"Madeline," I sighed, "did you stop him when he kissed you?"

She didn't answer.

"Did you?"

She looked down at her lap for a moment.
"No." She admitted. "I didn't."

"Why?" I asked, tears unwillingly forming in my eyes.

"I don't know, Luke." She sighed. "He got in my head. I got in my head."

"What do you mean? What did he say?"

"He said that it was weird that I talk about you, but they never see me with you. He said that if he was my boyfriend he'd show me off and he'd be proud to claim me. And, some other stuff."

Alright, Luke, mental note to fail Logan's final exam if at all possible.

I sighed, and put my head in my hands. "Madeline, you know why I can't do that. Of course he doesn't understand. But, you know."