Handle With Care

7. The Purple Sky and Prettiest Girl.

"I don't know..." he mumbled, biting on his bottom lip as he denied her offer.

His eyes flicked up to hers, seeing the slightly disappointed look on her face. This obviously would of been a step in the right direction for Luke, all she wanted was for him not to feel so sad all time.

"Actually," he dragged out, watching as her face started to lift and her smile started to straighten, "Y'know what? Yeah, ok."

-

Never, in Luke's life, had he remembered purchasing and using a welcome mat. He always thought it were stereotypical white mums that bought them, but apparently he had one too. It looked a little worse for wear, with all the drastic weather that's hit it since last year.

His keys were dangling from his fingers, he just wanted to drop them, for the ground to swallow them up and for him to never return.

Already he was having vivid and horrific memories of this place. Horrific in the sense that he wanted to go back, go back to the time where him and his best friend Calum were wasted to the point they spent the night on Luke's small porch, continuing to drink and sing and laugh.

That's how he spent his 20th birthday, illegal drinking on his expensive porch that he paid for with the money he earned for singing to the world for a living. Calum was drinking illegally too, he was turning 21 in a few days though so he said it was fine and they wouldn't get caught.

Of course they got caught, by Luke's lovely elderly neighbour Mrs Patricks, who kindly didn't call the police on his drunken ass. She actually let them crash on her couch, which at the time made Luke think it was appropriate to kiss the 84 year old married woman.

He breathed out a laugh at the memory, turning his head to Mrs Patricks house and seeing her blossomed flowers start to die in the winter weather. He hoped she was doing well, and maybe if he gets better, he'd like to visit her and thank her, for that one night two years ago.

Stepping towards the locked door, it was the first time in weeks he wasn't actually thinking of Annie. She was supposed to be meeting him here in an hour, but Luke decided to come here early, to see this place for himself.

His least favourite coat was still on the hanger on the back of the door, but that wasn't the first thing Luke noticed, he actually noticed how clean the place looked. Even when he lived here it wasn't this clean, he'd normally have clothes and bowls everywhere.

And he most definitely knew that things weren't in order or, in fact, in shape when he left. Because before he left, that night he got out of the hospital and went to stay the night at Jacks, he snuck out and came to this hell of his. He came here and he destroyed everything, the pictures on the wall, his coffee table, the kitchen stools, every instrument in his music room, including his piano.

He couldn't bare to go in there right now, even as he stood outside the closed door with his hand over the handle, waiting. He didn't want to see his guitars broken and smashed like he left them, like he left everything.

In the living room, the wall to the right of the television and couch was all glass, looking out to the city, the place he once called home. Stuffing his hands in his jumper pockets he looked at the skyline, the lights beginning to turn on and the sun started to sleep.

He remembered walking into his house and seeing Michael and his girlfriend sitting by the window, wine glasses next to them half empty and a blanket over them. Michaels girlfriend, Olivia at the time, had her head on his shoulder, and a hand under his shirt and over his heart.