fools paradise // a.i. ☾l.h.

•Septemeber 19th, 2014• (l.h.)

Luke's POV

I count every good experience with a match.

Things like visiting an old friend, your favorite song coming on the radio again and again, the rush of a roller coaster.

These things are all fine and dandy when they're written down but when you think long and hard about each one, they're complete shit.

Visiting old friends, I know what you're thinking, "Luke, how could that be bad?". Well, it's simple-you have to leave eventually. So what was once a happy experience was ruined by the conclusion of a drunken pat on the back, a slurred fib from your friend, "we should...do this again, mate" and a door being slammed in your face. Like I said, shit.

We all have that one song, the one that makes us feel absolutely everything at once. Has our arm hair standing up and shivers running through our veins. Despite it being 'mainstream' or not, we still love it. So when it plays on the radio once and you're stoked. Maybe you listen to it while you have your windows rolled down, singing loud and proud with the open road. But, time five rolls around and it feels too generic, the lyrics that once made your whole body flutter with infectious oxygen, now making you cringe at how robotic it all sounds. Now every time that songs comes on, you're hand darts to skip it. I'll say it again, shit.

Your stomach drops, your heart hammering in your ear. That rush, that electricity all created by the altitude you have risen in the last few seconds. Patiently waiting for the drop and when it's happens everything feels light. You get to scream and laugh and shout profanity because up there, high in the clouds, it's acceptable. Too soon your back, your barbaric actions need to stay up there because who fucking knows what the people on the ground would think if you acted like that near them.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

So, because of how shitty things end, I think of every great thing as a match. It's blaze is wild at first, but we all know that dies out too quick.

Never in my life did I imagine I would think of anything as more than a match. Matches are just small periods of happiness. But the inferno she caused was worth a lifetime.

She's not a match, she's more long term. Like a fireplace.

My fucking fireplace.

All I need to do is keep tending to the fire, and it'll keep going.

But apparently, I'm highly fucking flammable and even though it wasn't her intention, she burnt me up. So remember, when your parents tell you not to play with fire, don't.

I remember the night I found out that she was my fire. I had her sat between my legs, facing me, on the floor of my apartment. I don't remember  how we got on the floor, all I remember is that my ass was numb after the three hours we spent there.

"Favorite color?" Was scribbled on the torn piece of paper.

"You know my favorite color." I object, pushing the paper back towards her. She opens her mouth to speak but I shush her.

"No, no, no. You aren't allowed to talk. Doctors orders." After a fever of 102 at 2am and my mini heart attack, we went to the doctors and clarified that she has strep.

"Stop being difficult." Is written on the flimsy paper.

"You stop being difficult," I nudge her shoulder with mine, making her nudge me back.

Her smile that night made up for not hearing her beautiful voice. It's spoke the words that I wanted to hear, told me the things that I wouldn't even admit to.

The only thing I had to listen to was the murmur of the movie that we weren't even paying attention to, my dumbass commentary and the metallic buzz of the heater. I constantly turned the heat up with her, her skin was always freezing cold.

But I lived without her voice for that night, actually I lived without everyone's voice for the night and just allowed myself to take in all of her. Sick or not.

"No Luke." she mumbled, turning her pale face away from my cold nose. I trail it down the side of her cheek, her jaw and her neck, placing a small kiss below her ear.

"C'mon princess, wake up."  I scoop her up into my chest to get her to face me. Her nose is red and her cheeks boiling with heat, her skin a sickly white.

"Sleep." She demands, resting her head on my chest lightly before closing her eyes again. Her pale skin is soft under my fingers as they trace her cheek.

"You have to take your medicine." I push her hair back from her face and crawl out from under her go get her medicine.

The thick maroon liquid makes me cringe as I pour it into the tiny plastic cup. It smells of artificial cherries and pours like syrup.

Her reaction is much different from mine, her face scrunching up as she downs the medicine. She quickly takes the glass of water from my hand, drinking it in full mouthfuls to get rid of the disgusting after taste of the cough syrup.

She groans after the cup leaves her lips. "It's gross."

"I know, it's disgusting, but it'll make you feel better." She cuts me off with a series of painful coughs, hiding them in the crease of her elbow. Her body shakes as she continues.

Looking back at it now, it's almost comical how worried I was about her. Not that I shouldn't have been but it wasn't like me to worry that much. I remember when she woke me up, coughing up a storm at 2am. Her voice was so shaky, cracking as she spoke.

"What's wrong?" I ask, pulling the thick blanket of me and kneeling on the mattress in front of her. She was wobbling as she sat there, looking like she was ready to pass out. I grab her by her shoulders, trying to offer some sort of stability to her.

"My throat hurts," she whines into my neck, her forehead is hot as it's pressed against my skin. Alarmingly hot. I move a hand from her shoulder and lift her head up by her chin. Pressing the back of hand to her forehead, I felt my blood run cold.

Her forehead was warmer than it should've been. Was she dying? No, she was nowhere close. But I have never been scared for her in my life. I rushed her to the emergency room, extremely unnecessary but I didn't know what to do, and I wasn't taking any chances.

When we drove home, after the doctor nearly laughing at my worry, I led her to bed. I held her so close, hoping that I could smother all of her sickness away.

She didn't fall asleep right away, tossing and turning, finally getting comfortable by curling herself into my chest. She gripped my shirt, not letting go the entire night.

Looking back at it now, it's almost too good to be true. Too perfect to be us. Too simple, too easy, too bearable. It feels like part of a script, something so staged but so natural.

Sitting there, watching her smile speak all the words I didn't bother saying. Mistake number one.

"What are you thinking right now?" She wrote in her bubbly handwriting on the ink stained napkin.

The first thing that came to my mind, blinded me completely. I was in a three car pile up with myself, my emotions, and my god damn pride. I was being crushed by my thoughts but all I could think was the one god damn thing. I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't prepared for it. It screamed at me, it told me to stop being a coward.

"How much I miss your voice." The words sputtered out and a pathetic, shameful grimace lined my face. Of course she didn't know how much of a loser I was, she just smiled.

My mind still screamed at me, it told me to stop being a coward. I wanted to, but everything held me back, the words were being smothered by my own imagination. My own anxious thoughts rewinding me to a time where it was expectable to not be in love with her. To be in love with her.