teeth → l.h

chapter twenty;

Luke sits in his hallway until Sierra walks out of the room in the morning. Part of him wanted to call Ashton back as soon as the man hung up, but he also knew that they were both emotional and that it was a really shit idea. Another part of him was still just confused as to why Ashton even called him.

"What are you doing?" Sierra asks softly, bending down next to Luke. "You don't have to work today."

Luke glances over to Sierra, and back to the wall in front of him. "Bad night."

"Bad night?" Ashton runs his hand through Luke's hair. "You didn't come to bed last night." Ashton's kind of afraid to admit it, but he's grown to hate sleeping without Luke.

"I shouldn't have taken a gap year." Luke shakes his head as tears fall from his eyes. "I don't know what I'm doing with my life, I- I only came here this year to get away from my normal and-"

"Darling, you are exactly where you're supposed to be." Ashton whispers as he pulls Luke closer to him. "You're here for a reason, even if it's just to learn how to live outside the realm of your parents' world, okay? You don't even have to know what you're doing right now. I didn't have a fucking clue what I was doing until earlier this year."

"Are you okay?" Sierra runs her hand through Luke's hair. "How long have you been out here?"

"About seven and a half hours I think." Luke looks down at his phone. "I got up to pee like two hours ago."

Sierra sighs as she plops down next to Luke. "What's going on?"

"I did something really stupid like five years ago and now it's back to haunt me and god is laughing at me." Luke groans as he lays his head against the wall. "I don't know how to fix it."

"I won't ask what the thing is," Sierra swallows. "You'll tell me when you're ready, but if this is about a person-" If it's about Helena. "If it's about something stupid you did involving a person, you should talk to them, and try to work it out."

"Talking to them is kind of what got me staring at the wall for seven hours." Luke chuckles. "I don't know what to do."

"I'm trying to think about what Helena would say to you in this situation." Sierra laughs. "You usually respond better to her incessant bluntness."

"No, you need to grow the fuck up and deal with it, Luke." Helena snaps as she paces back and forth in her bedroom. "You wanted to be in New York, remember?"

Luke smiles softly. "I miss you and your snark." He flops back on his bed. "I'm just- I'm scared I'm never going to figure it out."

"You will," Helena scoffs. "If I have to drag you through hellfire, you will figure it out. I'm not letting you go down before you even try."

Luke smiles. "Thank you." He rests his head against Sierra's. "I'll probably go over there once you go to work; mope around her place for a while."

"Okay." Sierra snorts. "One day you're gonna have to help me understand your relationship with her."

"I'm the one she called when she got arrested." Luke explains. "She knows me better than I know myself sometimes. She puts my keys on the hook when I come over and drop them on the couch, so I don't lose them."

"You can tell me you slept with her." Sierra responds.

Luke sighs as he shuts his eyes. "We were fifteen. Like, actual fetuses. We stole some of her mom's- I don't even know, I think it was smirnoff or something. It was a lifetime ago." Luke wants to take that back as soon as he says it. He probably could've skimmed past the fact that he and Helena were each other's first.