1994 // Luke Patterson *COMPLETED*

•Chapter 64•

"Luke Patterson? Never heard of him before, why?" He says, showing obviously signs of nervousness, breathlessness, sweating. I quickly pull out the yearbook and flip to that page of the group shot.

"Cut the crap. You were friends with my mom during her senior year. You have to know who these guys are. By the way you're acting, you obviously knew this guy, but just don't wanna admit it." I say pointing to the guy holding my mom. Trevor looks like he is thinking very hard about what he's about to say, as if any wrong word will set off a bomb.

"He was my best friend. So were those other two guys. Reggie, Alex and Luke. We were all best friends up until they died. I thought your mom would've told you about Luke."

"Mom has kept her past in her past. I don't know much about her life before I was born."

"She saved you some trouble then, life got extremely messy when she met us."

"what happened to the other guys. You said you were best friends but I've never even heard you talk about them."

"We were in a band together, Sunset Curve," I instantly remember seeing a shirt in my mom's closet with that name on it, when I was younger, but I haven't seen or thought about it in years, "We were going to be big, we got our gig at the orpheum in 1995, after so many years of hard work. But unfortunately that night, they all died. Luke, Alex, and Reggie were dead, which left me to play on my own."

"That isn't the whole truth Bobby." I hear a voice from behind me.

"Luke? What are you doing here? How are you here? I saw you turn into dust almost an hour ago."

"I wanted to see you, figured you would go looking for answers, you're just as curious as your mother was. I don't know how I got back here, after I left the kitchen, I showed up in the studio."

"I'm sorry, but I am extremely confused right now, can someone just explain what's happening." I look to Bobby and he seems paralyzed in fear.

"Bobby and I go way back. We used to be best friends, but that was until he sold me out for fame and money, which in the end was the reason for my death." I look at Luke to see if he was joking around.

"Death? I'm sorry but this just seems really, well, unbelievable. You aren't dead, you couldn't be." I say.

"So you really don't know anything about your mother, or Caleb." Luke asks me. 

"What does this have to do with Caleb? Just explain in a proper and not crazy-sounding way, please."

"Caleb is your mother's father, he died in the early 90s and became the most famous ghost performer in the world, mainly because he had the ability to make ghosts visible to people. He made a deal with Bobby in 1994, and in order for that deal to be completed, the rest of the band had to die, that would be me, Alex and Reggie. We're ghosts and you can see us, its a trait that you and your mother inherited from Caleb."

"Seeing ghosts? I haven't seen a ghost in my life." I laugh at him.

"Willie." He replies and raises his eyebrow to question weather I know him or not.

"How do you know Willie?" I ask.

"Don't you see it Lila, Caleb's club is called the Hollywood ghost club, the performers there, never age. Including Willie. Willie is a ghost Lila." Luke explains and everything that seemed too strange to me, when I was a teen, somehow makes sense now.

"No! You're wrong. There's no such thing as ghosts." Tears start running down my cheeks, as I start to question what I've been told my entire life.

I sit down on the couch near the window, holding my hands onto my face as I try gain control over my emotions.

"Lila, you have to trust me. I promise you that I would never lie to you." Luke joined me on the couch, and grabs my hand as a form of comfort.

"I'm schizophrenic."

Luke goes silent.

"I don't know what that is." He whispers.

I place my hands over my face again, as Bobby speaks up.

"She sees things that aren't there Luke. Sammy got her a diagnosis when she was 4."

"No, she sees things that only she can see, because she has the ability to see ghosts." Luke raises his voice at Bobby, before crouching down infront of me, and taking my hands in his own. "You can see ghosts, because you inherited it from your mother. I promise that, what I am telling you is the truth."

Everyone falls silent for a few more seconds.

"So, I can see ghosts?"

"Yeah, it's why You can see people that nobody else can."

"I still don't understand what this has to do with my mother." I say on the verge of tears from the amount of stress I'm under.

"Lila, I was your mother's boyfriend in 1995, I'm also pretty sure that I'm your father." He says calmly.

I can't believe what i just heard. No way is my father a teenage boy who died in 1995.

"You're my dad?" I ask, practically crying at this point.

"Yeah, I know it's crazy and I didn't believe it either until I met you in the kitchen. You just looked so much like me that everything just made sense to me again."

"You've been dead for 25 years, and you're a ghost. But you came to see me now and you're also apart of my unofficial cousin's band."

"I only found out about you a few hours ago." He says sincerely. "I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you, I would've been if it wasn't for him." Luke says giving Trevor a dirty look.

"You took away my dad." I whisper while looking at him. He suddenly snaps out of his trance.

"If I would've known what Caleb's plan was, I wouldn't have agreed to it. By the time I agreed, he had changed the original bargain. If I had dropped out of it, he would own my soul." He explains.

"You should've let him take it." Carrie says as she enters the door.

"Carrie, it's not like that."

"Dad, I've looked up to you my whole life, you were someone that I aspired to be one day. You were my hero in times that seemed too hopeless, especially when mom left. You were so strong during that time, but now? I can't believe you did that just so you could be famous."

"And he stole our songs." Luke adds with a glare.

"Everything you have, you owe to those guys, all you did was ruin everyone else's lives, to get to the top. I used to call you my hero, but al you are is a lair."  Carrie says, and suddenly I have a new found respect for her. "I'm going to stay with grandma and grandpa. Don't come get me, I'll be back when I'm ready." She finishes and storms out the room.

"Get out of my house." Trevor says in a low tone.

"Gladly, I wouldn't want to be near someone like you ever again." I reply.

Luke and I walk out of the house and into my car, I ask if we could make a pit stop, which he gladly agrees to.