Purgatory (Luke Hemmings)

0.13

I woke up the next day on a Friday morning around 5:30 am. I sighed and stretched out of bed; there was no way I was getting back to sleep from how stressed I was from the night before. Everytime I closed my eyes I saw Michael screaming at our dad, dad screaming back at him, our mom trying not to cry, dad's hand flying across the table and hitting Michael in the face.

"What are you thinking?" A voice asked me in the dark quiet, making me jump.

I scoffed. "You sound like Edward Cullen right now, Luke," I muttered back, grabbing my bottle of anti-depressants and popping a pill in my mouth, dry swallowing it, hoping the bitter taste would leave my mouth sooner rather than later.

"Well, we're both dead, it doesn't surprise me. Why are you taking those again?" He pointed to the bottle that I still held in my hand.

I shrugged and climbed back in bed beside him, snuggling up into his chest, the smell of my dried tears on his shirt somehow making me a bit numb. "Becuase they help me sleep. I wish I could just sleep for a thousand years. Then when I woke up I could be away from this life. Maybe the grass is greener somewhere else, you know?"

"Stop talking like-"

"Why? It's true and you know it." I snapped at him. I wished the pill would've made me sleepy faster than it did. "Where do you think Michael is?" I asked Luke softly, te hole in my chest feeling a bit deeper all of a sudden.

"You know Michael, he'll be fine wherever he is." Luke replied curtly, but even he couldn't hide the worry in his voice. I had tried to call him before I went to sleep the night before. No answer. "Hey," Luke began, a small smile on his lips. "Just remember that I love you, that's all that really matters, okay? Darling, you'll be okay," He whispered into my ear, just as the drowsiness kicked in.

-

I woke up around noon and decided to try to call Michael a second time. "Hey, it's the Cliffoconda, and I don't want your fucking message unless you got buns, hun.'

I sighed. "Mikey, it's me again. This is my second time trying to call you, answer the fucking phone. And change that disturbing voicemail, you ass!" I almost laughed. Almost.

As if things, couldn't get any worse, I heard my father call me from down the stairs. "Meredith! Can you come here for a second?" I knew something was up then. Since when did Dad have anything to say this early in the day unless it was about how ungratefully spoiled Michael and I were and how Luke had poisoned our innocent minds.

Luke sighed beside me. "Here we go again..." He muttered. I took a deep breath before coming down the stairs.

"What do you want?" I eyed my parents suspiciously with sly eyes.

I was done with all their bullshit.

I sat on the small sofa opposite them and folded my arms across my chest, my brow furrowed. Dad frowned and sighed. "Your brother... Is gone, as you know. He won't pick up his phone, we can't find him anywhere. And... When he's found..."

"Shut up, you act like he's dead or something," I muttered, giving them both the most icy glare I could muster.

"The point is-" Dad almost shouted. He stopped and calmed himself before he spoke again. "The point is," he began again, "That when you're brother decided to come home, his home will not be here anymore."

I exploded. "Are you fucking serious?! You're kicking Michael out the house?!" I screamed. I felt like punching a hole in the wall and pulling my hair out. How could they put their own son out the house like this?

"If he isn't home by surfew tonight, then we change the locks tomorrow and that's that." Dad's hands turned into clenched fists and his jaw tightened. "We do not need all this stress around your mother-"