when we collide ✰ l.h.

Chapter 1

          "Autumn, I didn't know you could be so scandalous," a voice called behind me. I was picking up my room and had somehow gotten my roommate of two months to help me. I swiveled around and stopped once I realized what was hanging loosely around his fingers.

          "Luke, I swear. If you don't give those back," I warned as I stood less than three feet away from him. My black laced thong was dangling in between his thumb and pointer finger. He wore a smug look on his face to match.

          He flinched forward at me and I instantly lunged at him. He escaped my grasp before I could stop him, to which he then sprinted out from my room and down our hallway. I chased after him as I shouted his name that were soon followed by more than a few profanities. I sped up to catch him and grabbed his shoulders from behind. I roughly pinned his chest to the nearest wall, not caring that it was nearly midnight and we had neighbors.

          "Primrose!" He called out through his lungs that I was definitely crushing. I wrestled with his hands that he wouldn't keep still and eventually snatched the garment from his hands. I stood still for a second and waited for him as he turned around to face me. My hands were balled in fists and every angle of my face was pulled downward. He looked me in the eyes and had his lip tugged beneath his teeth to keep him from laughing. We stood in tense silence for a few seconds before I lashed out and slapped him upside his shoulder.

          "You're such a little shit!" I shouted. He looked at his arm then at me, slowly rubbing it. I began to playfully hit him over and over for a moment, noting that he didn't even react. He kept quiet as he continued to hold back his laugh as I did too. I suddenly groaned as his lips curled into a half smile. I shoved him gently once more to make sure he received my message I across. "And don't call me Primrose!" I scolded through my attempted angry tone that was being ruined by an upcoming laugh. I tucked a piece of hair behind my hair as he stood up straight, pushing past me. I threw my hands in the air. "You are a nuisance, Luke Hemmings!"

          Luke Hemmings was the birdbrain, egotistical, barbarian excuse of my best friend. Miraculously, throughout the ten years of knowing each other, we haven't attempted to kill each other. Well, at least not yet. Despite my harsh description of him, I loved him to death. He wasn't really any of the things that my brain told me he was, he was actually quite the exact opposite. It was just difficult to see him as the gracious boy that I know he is when he has my underwear in his hand. It wasn't the most pleasant sight.

          Luke and I met when I had straight across bangs and he had the coolest light up shoes out of the whole second grade. I remember distinctly the first day he came into our class. He was just the shy new kid from across the globe. He sat at my table, directly to my right. I told him that my name was Autumn and the goofiest smile I had ever seen from a kid was plastered on his face. He was missing a bottom tooth and a top front tooth and I couldn't help but giggle at the spaces, but I never told him that. Later that day he was being taunted at lunch for his Australian accent that was different from all the other's. I stood up for him and then told him he could play with me at recess instead of the boys that I called "butt heads". I later got sent to the principles office for my language. Our friendship grew and grew through the year and we've been inseparable since.

          Once we reached high school, that's when we realized there was no way out of this, not that we wanted it to end anyways. When I was fifteen, he spilled soda all on my homecoming dress twenty minutes before my date, who I was practically in love with, showed up. I never once thought in that moment that I'd ever forgive him. But twenty minutes later, then thirty, then an hour, I learned that my date actually ditched me to hangout with another girl and actually never planned on going to the dance with me. That night I learned that I didn't really love the boy who was supposed to take me and that Luke's t-shirts fall right down to the middle of my thighs.