5SOS Imagines

Luke - The Boys Break You Up

Author: Rhine

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You don't know why.

Maybe it was the shirt you chose to wore on the very meeting, the way you said your name, how you held on to Luke's arm, the laugh that was just a pitch too loud, the eyes that darted too often to be comfortable.

You don't know what you did – or what you didn't; what you did wrong, if you ever did anything right – but the other boys just didn't like you.

And you didn't expect them to love you – no, you only cared if Luke did – but you'd settle for friendship, casual acquaintances, tolerable acceptance at the very least – but they gave none of that to you.

Not a single one of them.

You didn't know what you expected, what you wanted – to be best friends with Michael, to look to Ashton like an older brother, to always out-sass Calum – it was all in your dreams, to be a part of Luke's life, to be a part of theirs by proxy, to at least have a place.

You always felt so alone even with Luke's arms around you.

It was the way they couldn't even spare a glance in your direction but exchanged these raised eyebrows and downward flutter of their lips to each other; how they would say what they wanted to say to you while pretending you weren't there, how they left you out enough to feel isolated but still close enough to feel the acid underlying their words.

At first, you thought you were just reading into it – don't be stupid, they wouldn't do that to you – but it grows evident with the way their laughter drowns you out in a manner that's a little too mocking to be humorous, the way they throw out side comments like knives, carefully watching your reaction but paying no attention to you.

They'll come around, babe.

And maybe it was because you weren't what they wanted for Luke, maybe you weren't good enough for them, for him; you were too much of this and not enough of that.

He could do better, you knew. He should do better.

You weren't the model or the icon, you weren't the actress or the star; you weren't the bombshell or the girl-next-door, not the adorable shyness and not the bold spitfire.

You were you; the you that wasn't enough for their star names, for Luke's love, evidently.

And it becomes all too much, how you're so clearly not enough.

How you're not even worth Luke's voice when it feels like their words are shredded through you and their silence biting at the skin you tried to grow so thick, how they hold him back even when he's already late for a date, how they manage to foil every surprise, every gift, every private moment – until there's nothing left.

Until when you think of Luke, you think of how much it hurts to be around him.

Because it feels like nothing is ever yours except for the snide comments and the distaste, how nothing but the tears you choke back remain; how Luke's private comforts don't mean a thing when he's a bystander in the fray.

It's too much and you're not getting enough.

And it's what they wanted, it's why they were doing this to you in the first place – for that one last moment underneath the streetlamps where you finally parted ways.

It felt like waving a white flag, saying goodbye to him, leaving battered and beat.

They won.

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