Hold My Hand - Lashton

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

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Sometimes routine has to be broken. In order to survive, you have to break your survival mechanism. Ashton had kept Luke awake way past midnight for the past couple of nights, the pair either conversing in person or through messages. They had become addicted to each other's words.

As Luke had closed down his messages as their conversation halted, he opened his alarm and turned it off. Luke knew he needed sleep, and he was well ahead of his reading schedule so knew he could afford to sacrifice a couple of hours of the next day for sleep.

Luke was subconsciously aware that he shouldn't be sacrificing his sleep for anything, not for work or for Ashton. But, the blonde had yet to become aware of how to take care of himself properly in that regard. As did a lot of people his age.

Nonetheless, as Luke woke up to the sound of rain hammering at his window he sat up abruptly. There was light piercing through his curtains and the blonde began to worry that he had slept through his alarm. But as he woke up he remembers that he had turned off his alarm.

Collapsing back down Luke rubbed his eyes and picked up his phone. It was ten. Luke couldn't think of a time he had woken up that late. It was not in his nature. Groaning to himself he switched his phone off of airplane mode and had a quick scroll through different social media before beginning to start his day.

Sunday was Luke's day of rest. He wasn't religious, but it felt to him the best day to sit back and do everything else that needed to be done - that didn't tire his already overworked mind anymore.

So the blonde would slowly work through his list of chores, the mature life he had not really been prepared for when he left home. From laundry to food shopping, cleaning to relaxing.

Once Luke was ready for the day, throwing on some simple jogging bottoms and a discoloured jumper he looked at his phone once again. It was already ten-thirty and Luke didn't know whether to eat or not. It was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch by his standards. But if he were to eat now then he would have to shift the time of his lunch and then dinner, and Luke didn't want to do that. He already broke the routine of waking up at six, he didn't want to cause anymore chaos to his life.

So Luke jumped straight into cleaning his bathroom. His phone shoved in his back pocket and his headphones tangled awkwardly around his body as he listened to an audiobook. Sometimes the spoken words permeated the blonde's brain, but other times they went in one ear and out the other; especially when his mind was preoccupied.

Luke worried when cleaning that the chemicals from the bleach would affect his other flatmate's waters, which was absurd as the toilet water would not be used for the shower or for drinking. But he also worried that they would knock on his door and complain of the smell, or that he was spraying too loudly. Luke hated himself for worrying about such mundane and simple things but he couldn't help it.

The audiobook continued to play two times speed as he sorted out his clothes, folding them the right way. Despite being a tidy person, he neglected time to ensure his clothes were kept tidy. Once he had worn something he could never be bothered to hang it back up again. Now he knew why his mother complained when one day she would return his clean laundry in his room and the next to find the same item back in the wash after only wearing it for ten minutes.

Luke hated doing laundry. He had to carry it all to the launderette and then go back once to put it in the dryer and then again to bring it back. He didn't want to stay there as he felt it would be awkward sat there watching others do the same thing as him, but there wasn't really enough time to engage in anything else.

The drying took the longest so he made a quick trip to a local shop to buy all his essentials for the week.

By the time he had finished all his tedious chores, it was already four-thirty. Luke had missed lunch and it would soon be dinner time. Making himself a cup of tea, waiting and almost wishing Ashton would appear, Luke eventually returned to his room and collapsed onto his bed.

After scrolling purposelessly through his phone Luke put it on charge and picked up his book. He only had about fifty pages left of the eight-hundred-page book and decided he would finish it tonight.

The book was The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood and whilst he didn't quite feel the hype for The Handmaids Tale, he thought her other work was monumental and relatable.

Luke felt that he was the protagonist through this awkward narrative. She was experiencing his anxieties whilst also unpicking them for him.

The blonde particularly liked a passage about halfway through the book, where Atwood or the protagonist - depending on your stance of literature discussed teenage insecurities. They were the same now as they were fifty years ago.

Whilst Atwood was talking about the beauty of teenage girls Luke still found himself compelled to the description. He wasn't attracted to girls, nor a girl himself. But the beauty of teenagers was universal.

The author explored how the beauty of a teenager could not help but be conserved. To be a teenager was to be beautiful. You are at your most beautiful perhaps when you are a teenager.

It was simply because of the freshness and plumpness of cells that are unearned and temporary. Your cells were alive, just alive as their soul. They had yet to experience the burdens of the world that would corrupt and poison them. Once these cells are gone they could not be replicated.

At eighteen Luke knew that his cells were disappearing. He felt that he was becoming more and more grotesque as the days went by. He experiences exceedingly more hardship in the world that as a result his eyes became dimmer and his skin more worn.

And Luke then began to hate his past self for letting him reject that he was once, to some extent, more beautiful than he was then.

Atwood talked about how those girls were never satisfied and were already making attempts to try and alter themselves. To improve, distort and diminish. To create themselves into some impossible imaginary mould.

And imaginary that mould was. Luke had no idea who he was when he was younger. Whilst he was conventionally better looking he felt he had no sense of identity and he was lost. And now whilst Luke hated himself externally just as much as he did then, he did feel like he had established an identity. He had morals. He had values. And he had an opinion.

Whilst he did think Atwood words were true, he didn't quite think they were universal. Luke thought Ashton was beautiful. He was nice to look at. And Luke knew that Ashton had experienced a lot, he was not as sheltered as Luke. And despite the wear and tear of life, he still radiated beauty. Again it wasn't a conventional beauty, but it was a beauty that intrigued Luke. Luke craved to hear Ashton speak more. He desired to unravel the internal beauty Ashton held and learn too how he could be as carefree as Asthon.

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Please let me know what you think.

Thank you so much for reading.