Stay (Punk Luke Hemmings)

Chapter 14

Luke’s scent still lingers on the clothes I stole from him.

His scent still lingers on my skin, cloying my senses.

I stand in front of the shower, steam swirling around me, trying to finally just walk in. It’s harder than I expected.

My head is a mess. I’m a complete mess right now, and I don’t know what to do about it. I should call someone, I should go ask for help, because I’m drowning right now and I can’t breathe.

Everything I said to Luke echoes around my head, bruising me from the inside. I had told him too much, had said more than I ever planned to. The one thing I had promised myself I would never tell him about had spilled out in a torrent of anger and repressed feelings, but I don’t think I was the only one hurting right now.

Whatever was between Luke and I, it was far from over, that much was clear from our screaming match. God, he had ruined me, had invaded every part of me, and I still couldn’t let him go, couldn’t start over and fix the mess I had become. I was standing on the edge of the precipice, the waves crashing below me, beckoning with the promise of forgetting everything, the wind pushing my back, telling me to jump, to accept this.

My hands are shaking, the world is spinning, and everything feels surreal. I feel the steam billowing out from the shower that’s still waiting for me, but I’m still stuck in a room that’s not mine, yelling words I can’t control at someone I can’t let go.

I turn the shower off, resigning myself to the fact that I’m not going to be able to get in yet. Right now, I just need to focus on getting myself under control. I’m too numb, too detached to do much of anything. Pulling myself off the floor, I make it to the unmade bed before I completely lose it.

It feels like the chain between Luke and I is stretched taunt, ready to snap. But what I can’t decide is whether I want it to snap or not.

With fingers trembling from the storm inside me right now, I search for the crumpled, stained with age, photo. Its right where I left it, worn with use, evidence of my distress.

I smooth it out as best I can. It’s a picture Rose had given me after I had gotten a positive test. She’d told me it’d help me figure out what I wanted, but she was wrong.

Luke and I are staring at each other in the photo, not really laughing or smiling, just looking at each other. I couldn’t tell when the picture had been taken. I hadn’t even known it had existed until Rose had given it to me.  It was a picture that, by all means, shouldn’t exist. We were the only things in focus in the picture, everything blurry besides us, and it was like we were a black hole. We looked at each other as if the other was the only important thing. Sometimes, when I looked at it, I imagined it was going to burn up from the intensity displayed there. It was evidence of the magnetism that had existed between us, a relic of what had been.

I had wanted to start it on fire. I’d struck a match too many times, ready to light it up, but had panicked at the last second and burnt myself instead of the picture.

Looking at it now, the pang of nostalgia soars through me. Want sings in my veins. I wish I could go back, to that easy and irresistible time where Luke and I existed together, too drawn to the other to do anything but give in, time and time again. We were it for each other, that inconquerable first love that fucked you up for the rest of your life.

I don’t know how long I spend looking at this picture, wishing I had the strength to burn it like I’d wanted to.

The ringing of my phone, innocently placed on my bedside table, makes me fall off the bed.

“What?” I’m still short of breath when I finally manage to answer.

“What?” Rose responds, sounding surprised.