invisible string ✾ lrh

0.2 - it

hey! the first few chapters are basically snippets of them growing up and falling in love compiled into sections. it's a quick timeline of how it all started in case you're wondering why there's a few different stories in this chapter. enjoy!!! <3

Luke started to sit by Maggie at lunch everyday.

They both had their own lunch tables to sit at, their own friends to sit with, their own things to do, but they eventually found themselves moving away to a table to sit by themselves, just the two of them, where they'd laugh at things that didn't matter and accidentally brush shoulders with cherry red cheeks.

Luke liked to talk to Maggie more than he liked to talk to anyone else and he had no idea why.

They could've sat in those seats and talked for hours. Maggie never wanted those moments to end. They always talked about the songs Luke was going to sing for his next video and they'd talk about how awesome it was that people were actually watching him, enjoying his voice.

But Maggie was still his biggest fan.

They talked about after school plans and break plans and summer plans that seemed a millennia away, but they felt like they had all the time in the world. They made plans to go the beach over summer break; they'd both be fifteen, maybe their parents would let them go by themselves. They talked about the adventures they wanted to have, the places they'd love to go, and they spoke about it as if they were going to have those journeys together, like they both wanted to be together forever.

"I want to go to the United States," Maggie smiled proudly at Luke.

Luke snorted, "Doesn't America, like- don't things kind of suck there?"

Maggie shrugged, "It wouldn't suck if we were there together."

Luke blushed and smiled lightly at her, "Okay, then let's go to America."

"And maybe London, too?" Maggie perked up, "I think I just want to travel the world."

"We'll do it together," Luke promised, holding out a pinky.

Maggie wrapped her own finger around his and their blue eyes met, adolescent grins on both of their faces, signs of naivety etched in their clear minds and innocent intentions.

They spent almost every day together after school. Maggie would come over to Luke's house to get tutored, and Luke would sit with her at the table. He didn't need the help, but he didn't want the red-haired girl to feel embarrassed that she felt like she was falling behind. He would work on his homework and look over at her when she was really focused, her cheeks a light pink and her tongue subconsciously poking past her lips as she worked out the problems in front of her. She stayed for dinner most of the time, too. They'd sit across from each other at the table and kick their shins, smiling and giggling under their breath as the adults continued seemingly endless conversations around them.

Maggie always sat in the corner of the room when Luke would sit at his computer with his guitar. She'd stay silent from the moment he touched the record button to the moment the guitar left his lap, and then she'd smile brightly to him and tell him that it was her new favorite song.

"You say that every time, Marigold," Luke shook his head at her.

"What?" She feigned innocence, "I just really like that song!"

"You like every song that I cover."

Maggie smiled lightly at him, "I think it's just because I like hearing your voice sing them."

The second time Luke saw Maggie cry was at his house after school. His mom wouldn't tell him why she was crying, and she wouldn't explain the stains on her pretty pink dress that Luke had wanted to compliment at the lunch table that day when he didn't have the courage, either. Luke had answered the door to her crying face and his heart had immediately shattered in ways that he didn't know it could.

"Maggie?" His voice was soft and panicked. He hadn't mastered the art of shielding his emotions just yet. That would come later.

Her entire body shook with sobs and he immediately enveloped her in a hug. His arms went around her neck and she burrowed herself into the crook of his collar. She wailed, crying so hard that Luke wanted to hide her away and never let her go again. One of his hands shot up to her hair and he attempted to sooth her, a fourteen year old boy holding a fourteen year old girl like his life would end if he couldn't get her to stop breaking in his arms.

"Maggie, come here," Luke heard his mom speak over his shoulder. She must've been farther in the house, but he couldn't look behind him to see. It would mean letting go of Maggie, and he refused to do that until she felt safe, until she knew he was there and he would do anything in his power to let her know that he wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.

He was too naive to see what was right in front of him.

He waited outside of the bathroom for half an hour, listening to Maggie sob and attempting to hear his mother's words. He sat on the floor, hugging his knees, his heart beating out of his chest, until his mom cracked the door open and forced a smile to her son.

"Luke, can you go get some of your clothes, please?" She asked sweetly.

Luke nodded and stood from the carpeted floor, exiting the hallway and entering his room. When he returned, clothes in hand, his mother thanked him quickly and closed the door again.

The next time the door opened, Maggie was standing on the other side. Luke's tee shirt went down to her thighs and she looked as if she was drowning in his sweatpants, but she was okay. Without thinking, Luke pushed past his mom and wrapped his arms protectively around her; not asking if she was okay, just making it known that he was there. They stayed like that for awhile, arms wrapped around each other tightly, before Liz broke the deafening silence in the small bathroom.

"Luke," she spoke, "Maggie is going to stay here for the night. Do you want to take her to your room and hang out for a bit?" He knew what that meant; she wanted Luke to calm Maggie down.

'Where is she going to sleep?" He asked.

"The couch should be fine. I'll get pillows and blankets."

The only way Luke knew how to calm Maggie down was to sing. So he grabbed his guitar, sat up in his bed, and started strumming. She laid her head against his legs and looked anywhere but his eyes. She felt bad, she felt that she shouldn't have intruded in the Hemmings house, that she should've kept her problems to herself, but this was the one place she felt safe. Luke was the once place she felt safe, now.

Silent tears began to fall down her face and she tried her best to hide them, but Luke noticed quickly. He discarded the guitar on the floor and pulled her to his chest, one hand wrapping around her waist and the other running through her hair as she shook. He still didn't know what had happened, what had broken her so badly, but he knew that she needed him, and he planned on being there. Every time.

She fell asleep like that, laying on Luke's chest. Her arm was wrapped around his middle and he held her like his life depended on it, and then he fell asleep too.

Marigold Insley's life was falling apart, and she knew it; she just didn't want to believe it was true. She was the result of a very unhappy marriage. A marriage that continued for her sake, but a marriage that forced her to lock her door and try to drown out the yelling, the screaming, the hurting, with music and the new soft lullabies of Luke's songs.

She knew it was her fault. She knew the only reason her parents tried to make it work was for her, and she assumed the reason that they fought was because of her, too. She tried to run away more times than she could count, running through the trees and tripping over mud-soaked grass. And now? Almost every time she ran, she ended up at the Hemmings' house. She had let it slip to Luke's mom early on in tutoring that something was going on at home, and she practically begged Liz to tutor her everyday so she could have an excuse to stay away from her parents. But of course, some days they couldn't manage. Some days Maggie swore that things were better around the house, my mom told me that she was sorry and they aren't going to fight anymore so i can go home today, and she'd go home after school thinking she was going to find everything she ever wanted; a happy house, a loving family.

And she found one. With the Hemmings'.

She slept better than she had in weeks when she was held tightly in Luke's arms, listening to the sound of his heartbeat, enveloped in the embrace of someone she was sure would never hurt her the way her parents hurt each other.