Storm 》Clifford A.U

003;

     LUKE AND I MET AT Warped tour. Rather, we started talking at Warped tour. We went to school together, and were friendly in that "Hey, I need a pen, can I borrow one?" sort of way. Our conversations never crossed the line of school utensils until that extremely hot day at the Xfinity Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut. (Also known as the Warped venue closest to us).

Cute Is What We Aim For had the crowd particularly riled up and in my excitement and borderline desperation to take pictures of everything, my phone had been knocked out of my hand. I knew if it stayed on the ground for too long, it would be gone for good. In a panic, I set out to start searching the ground and Luke came up behind me, resting a hand on my shoulder.

"I got it!" He yelled, ducking down and navigating through the crowd in his gangly matter. Luke came back up after a minute or two, grinning and out of breath as he held my phone out to me. I was beyond grateful, and proceeded to tell him so as we were poked and prodded and pushed every which way during the duration of the band's set list. They weren't even my favorite band to play that day, but Darya wanted documentation of absolutely everything, since discovering new music was one of her favorite things. And because of that, I had almost lost my phone.

I was only fourteen at the time (so was Luke) so when at the end of the day I returned to my mother with a boy, she was horrified. I had begged her to take me to Warped, and after months of persuasion she finally agreed, only to want to change her mind as soon as we arrived.

Then I had to beg her to let me stay and to have her wait by the fence, because she absolutely did not want to be pulled into a mosh. (There were signs that prohibited that action and those similar to them, but it's not like anyone actually listened to them). And after all of that begging, I came back with someone else, with a boy, and that did nothing to lessen her worry. But then she saw that Luke tripped over his own feet more than once on the way over and that he was furiously readjusting his glasses since crowd surfers knocked them off of his head, and an uneasy smile spread along her lips.

After he retrieved my phone for no reason other than the pure goodness of his heart, we had stayed near each other in the pit. Luke said that since he was taller than me, he could protect my head from the various flying limbs and stray shoes, and I agreed. That was the one and only time that I was grateful for almost losing my phone, because I had gained Luke out of it. Up until that point, I firmly believed that everyone in the Montpelier school district was an asshole, and not worth being friends with. But Luke was, and we had been ever since.

Even after all these years, his protectiveness from that day had yet to wear off. And so when he caught sight of me sitting at Michael's booth looking panic stricken, he rushed over. Even if I didn't necessarily need Luke's help, he always offered it, and I loved that about him. He no longer wore glasses because those had been swapped for contacts, but he was certainly still as gangly, tall, and unintimidating as ever.

"Are you planning on eating that sandwich and leaving, or are you going to harass Alina all day?" Luke scowls, staring at Michael.

"I'm not harassing anyone, giraffe boy. We're just talking. Isn't that right, Al?" Michael smirks, emerald eyes staring back at me.

"Yeah, we're just talking." I mutter quietly, sliding the picture of my sister back over to Michael. Luke sees it and freezes, forehead crinkling as he looks back at me, confusion ever present in his features.

'I'll explain later' I mouth to him and he presses his tongue into his cheek before nodding in compliance. Luke leaves as quickly as he came, bringing Michael's attention back to me.

"Is it the same girl, then?" He inquires, arching a brow. That was a relative question. The girl in the picture was my sister, yes, but, she looked different somehow.