teeth → l.h

chapter four;

"I miss you." Helena sighs as she leans back against the couch cushion. "When are you coming home?" She's been without Luke for over a month and it's destroying her. Luke doesn't know it, but Helena's begun to develop a relationship with this guy she met while touring NYU. It's less of a relationship, more this thing where she calls him in the middle of the night and he's out of the house before breakfast every morning.

"I don't know," Luke shrugs. "Whenever the semester starts, I guess."

"Whenever?" Helena scoffs. "It's your freshman year- you should probably know for certain when it starts."

Luke huffs. "It's fine, Helena. I'll be back in time."

"Is she gonna let you come back?" Helena rolls her eyes and is extremely grateful Luke can't see her.

"What the fuck?"

"I have to go," Helena replies. "Call me whenever, I guess." She angrily ends the call, throwing her phone to her bed. "Asshole." She mumbles under her breath as she leaves her room, slamming her bedroom door behind her. She's well aware she is, in fact, the asshole in this situation.

"Why did you just slam the door?" Ashton calls out from the living room.

"Fuck off." Helena grumbles as she walks through the living room and into the kitchen. Ashton follows after her. He doesn't understand half the things his sister does.

"Are you okay?" Ashton asks, treading lightly. Helena is the farthest from okay, but Ashton knowing that would require him knowing about Helena and Luke, and that was not happening.

"I'm fine."

Helena is coming undone.

Her relationship with Luke had become three phone calls and a few texts a week at the most, and it was killing her. Before anything happened between them, they were best friends- Luke was Helena's support system, and she missed it.

Likewise, Luke is falling apart but no one needs to know about that. No one needs to know that he cries in the shower and barely sleeps and doesn't know how to function because of the direction he's led his life in. It's his own fault, he tells himself, so no one needs to know about the situation he's gotten himself into.

Luke returns to New York on August 26, two days before freshman orientation; and he feels as if his soul has been ripped out of his body, for no apparent reason.

"Are you okay?" Helena gasps as she walks up to Luke. She knows him better than anybody, and the drained look on Luke's face breaks Helena's heart.

Luke nods. "Yeah, I'm fine." He is so far from fine that he doesn't even remember the meaning of the word, but he sighs a breath of relief when Helena wraps her arms around him.

Luke feels a twinge of guilt in heart when he thinks about the fact that he left her all summer. It doesn't take long for the twinge in his heart to turn into a ton of bricks on his chest.

"Is she-"

"Helena, hi!" Helena feels part of her brain die off as she watches Arzaylea run up behind Luke, moving past him to engulf Helena in a hug.

"Hiiiii...." Helena drags out her greeting through gritted teeth, mentally repeating that murder is, quite definitely, illegal. Also, Luke would be pissed. the fake-nice smile that Arzaylea had on made Helena want to rip her own hair out.

"So, we're officially college students."

"Yeah." Luke says softly, staring out at the city from his window.