Another Life (Sequel to Toxic) - Luke Hemmings

Chapter 5

"All of you shut the fuck up! Do you not see what you're doing to her?!" When I heard Luke's voice I put my hands to my forehead and pushed my hair back. "This has nothing to do with her! I fucked us all up, you should be screaming at me!" Once Luke got his words out everyone went silent again, but I still didn't turn to them.

"We shouldn't be screaming at all." Calum broke the silence.

"Agreed." Ashton said.

"There's no sense in fighting when she doesn't want either of you." Sophie said quietly. That's exactly what needed to be said, though. It's not like one of them would win in the end.

"I'm sorry for causing all of this." Luke sighed, and it hit me that that was the first time I'd ever heard him apologize after all this.

"Real rich, Luke." Mike scoffed. I didn't understand why he had to keep pushing it, or why he was this bitter all of a sudden. This wasn't the Mike we knew, and I was beginning to think he was gone for good.

"Do you even hear yourself?!" Luke raised his voice again, which definitely wasn't helping the situation.

"Yeah, and before you came back around we were fine! You're the fucking problem!" Mike shouted back. I couldn't keep sitting here and listening to them going in circles, and the more they went at each other the more emotional I got.

"You're the only one causing a problem!"

"Because... you...." I started zoning out all the bickering and stood up.

Luke and Mike were still preoccupied by screaming at each other to realize I started walking over to where they were sitting across from one another. Everyone else was watching me, and by the time I was only a foot away from Luke he finally shut up and turned to me. I didn't really know what I was planning on doing, but when he looked up at me as I stood in front of him I quickly wound my arm back and brought my hand to his cheek with a crack.

"Izz!" Sophie tried to reel me back, but Luke just sat there with his hand on his cheek while I watched him get his shit back together.

"That helped." I whispered, avoiding eye contact again as I made my way back over to my seat. It did help. Getting to slap him like that let me get some of my anger out, which was mostly still directed at him. Mike pissed me off too, but that was like therapy to me. "You can carry on." I told them quietly once I sat back down.

"When are we going to talk about it?" I turned to Luke when I knew he was clearly directing that question at me. I saw Mike shake his head and fall back in the couch out of the corner of my eye, but he wasn't the only one that didn't like the sound of that.

"We're not." I told him, turning back to resume staring out the window.

"You should." I whipped back around when I heard Ashton, Sophie, and Calum all say it at the same time. I looked to Sophie and saw her sending me a death glare, as if to threaten me to get it over with. "Let's give them the room, guys." She said, motioning for everyone to leave. I watched in terror as Mike was the first one to storm out, followed by the others.

"I wish I could take it back." Luke said. I didn't even wait for him to finish before jumping up and heading for the door. I saw Sophie fucking with the handle on the outside as I made my way over, and when she pulled away and saw me coming she gave me a guilty look. I tugged on the handle just for it to be locked, and then I saw her put the keys in Ashton's hand.

"Do you not remember what happened last time?!" I shouted, panic now setting in.

I wasn't ready for this. I wasn't ready to go back to that night and relive every painful detail, and I definitely wasn't ready to cry again. Instead of unlocking it like I thought they would, they turned around and went up the stairs. I assumed they were ditching to go up to Sophie's room, leaving me in here with Luke for god knows how long.