24 Hours.

4.9 - more phone calls

"Luke, hey, calm down." Calum said quietly on the other end of the phone, obviously a little worried about his best friend who was currently having a breakdown with no one there to comfort him.

Luke had meant for this call to be a distraction, but it really only made a lot of things worse.

"I can't calm down!" Luke wailed. "I'm so sorry, Cal, I really am. Please forgive me, I'm sorry that I'm such a bad friend and I promise that I'm going to change, I really do."

"Luke - "

"Give it to me." Luke heard someone whisper on the other side of the phone, and then he could hear it being passed from one person to the other.

"Luke?" Ashton's voice appeared in his ear, and Luke started to cry harder. He was always so mean to Ashton and used him for everything, whether it was to get into clubs or to buy some beer for Luke to keep with him on the road. Ashton should hate him, why was he trying to help Luke?

"A-Ashton, I'm s-so sorry." Luke stammered, "I'm an awful friend, I didn't mean to turn into such an asshole. I'm so mean to you, I-I really am so sorry."

"Hey, it's okay. Just calm down." Ashton said softly. "Take a deep breath, Luke. Breathe."

"I can't." Luke cried, shaking his head. Even if he did calm down enough to breathe regularly again it wouldn't matter, there would still be voices in his head telling him what a horrible person he was. First he fucked up his relationship with his friends and then he broke the heart of the girl he loved.

"You're not a bad friend or a bad person, Luke. You've made some bad decisions, that's all. Don't blame yourself for all of this." Ashton continued slowly, trying to help Luke breathe again.

"I'm so sorry." Luke repeated. "I promise that I'm going to change, okay? I'm not going to act this way anymore."

"It's okay. We forgive you, right boys?" Ashton asked, and Luke heard a chorus of "yeahs" from Calum and Michael.

Luke felt so relieved that the boys had said that, like a weight was being lifted off of his shoulders. He couldn't believe that he had let this go on for so long, he was always so mean and none of the boys ever really got upset at him for it until recently when they decided to send him away for a while. But even then Luke knew that they were still just looking out for him, and he wasn't even upset for that. The boys loved him and he loved the boys, that was that.

"I really am sorry. I will change, you can hold me to it." Luke said once last time, and he meant it. He was going to change his asshole ways and stop being such a dick to everyone, because he knew as well as anyone else that no one wanted to be treated the way Luke treated people.

"It's alright, Luke. We believe you." Michael spoke up, and Luke realized that Ashton must have put the phone on speaker.

"I'm sorry," Luke said again, this time laughing at himself for how many times he'd said it. Like Skylar. "I don't know why I've been crying so much tonight, I feel so hormonal."

"I think you had a breakthrough." Calum chuckled.

"Yeah, I guess." Luke sniffled. "This day has been...absolutely insane."

"Yeah, we've seen pictures." Michael laughed again, which made everyone else laugh too.

"I'm such a mess." Luke observed to himself once they'd stopped laughing, wiping his eyes again. "I'm also a massive asshole. I did something really bad, guys."

"What?" Ashton asked.

"Well, I, uh, I turned down having sex with a girl." Luke said, feeling embarrassed. That was probably the first time those words had ever come out of his mouth.

"What? Really?" Michael asked, stifling a laugh.

"She wanted me to fuck her and I said no." Luke explained very, very vaguely.

"Wait," Michael said again, and everyone stopped talking. "Was it Skylar?"

"Yes." Luke nodded to himself, feeling like he was going to cry again.

"Shit, man."

"I know."

"So..." Calum trailed off, like he was deciding if he actually wanted to say what he was thinking. "What happened?"

So Luke took a deep breath and told his friends the entire story, from start to finish, not leaving out any details. (Actually, he didn't tell them that he cried while getting his tattoo). He felt that they deserved to know what happened over the past 24 hours, because no one else ever would.

Luke figured that he would feel better if he let it all out, if he finally told someone what was going on in his head for once. For a second Luke thought that everything was going to be okay. But when Skylar came out of the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes red and puffy and her nose still running, Luke realized that it wasn't okay.

It was never going to be okay.

-

basically Luke called the boys to distract himself from Skylar and then he was like "fuck I'm so mean to them why do they even care about me I'm an awful friend" so he cried and apologized and now they're all best buds like they used to be

hope you liked this sorry for the wait