invisible string ✾ lrh

0.1 - before

Luke was fourteen when he put his first cover on Youtube.

Maggie remembered because she was at his house when he panicked about pressing the upload button and she had no idea how to calm him down - she was getting tutored by his mom with math that hurt her head and Mrs. Hemmings had told her to go hangout with Luke for a little bit, you guys are the same age, you'll get along fine.

But what Liz didn't know what that Maggie had a crush on her son and she'd been too nervous to talk to him for the last two years. She was pretty sure he didn't even know her name, but she knew him. She knew he was quiet and reserved and didn't have much to say. He didn't seem particularly interesting in any way, he wasn't a jock or a bad boy or anything out of a movie, but Maggie felt drawn to him somehow.

When she walked into his room he didn't look up and it made her nervous, so she knocked quietly on the door. He was sitting on his bed with a book in his hands, homework that probably wasn't due for another two months.

"Is my mom tutoring you?" Was the first thing Luke Hemmings ever said to Marigold Insley.

All she could do was nod.

"I'm Luke," he spoke again, picking up the backpack next to him on his bed and dropping it on the floor messily.

He motioned for her to sit by him and she did.

"What's your name?" He asked, staring at the girl who seemed to have forgotten how to use her voice.

She looked familiar to him, but he couldn't put a finger on where he'd seen her before. What he did know, however, that she was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen, the type of girl that made it look effortless. But Luke was only fourteen. He couldn't say that to her. He didn't have the confidence yet.

He tried not to make it obvious, the way he stared at her.

She had freckles across her entire face, ones that Luke would eventually realize never seemed to go away, no matter how many times he looked at her over the years. Her hair was red, a natural red that made her look like she belonged on a farm wearing a blue checkered dress with a dog named Toto in her arms.

And her eyes. Luke could never forget her eyes. They were a dull blue, almost like his - but he swore hers could light up the sun.

"Marigold."

'What?" She didn't seem to notice him staring at her, taking her in, but he seemed to have been so captivated by her that he forgot his own question.

"M-My name. It's Marigold. Most people call me Maggie," she was sitting up straight on his bed, her hands folded politely in her lap. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a black zip-up covering a graphic tee-shirt, her socks mismatched on her nervously swaying feet hanging off of Luke's bed.

"Marigold," Luke repeated, "pretty name."

His words weren't deep or meaningful, but Maggie found herself blushing at the compliment anyways.

"Where do you go to school, Marigold?"

"Same as you."

"How old are you, then?" Luke realized too late that he was turning the conversation into something of an interrogation, but he didn't know what else to do. They were sitting side by side on his bed, the uncomfortable silence leaking into the air and going straight to his head.

"Same as you," she spoke again.

"Wait," Luke got the nerve to look over at her, "if you're in my grade, why do you need a tutor? The stuff we're learning is really easy right now."