First//Luke Hemmings

Chapter 43

warning this is going to have a v long authors note at the end, also listen to the song on the side, it fits well with this chapter!

Luke’s P.O.V

I’m not fine at all. I remember the day that she told me she wasn’t coming with me like it was yesterday. It was six months ago. Six months I haven’t seen her in person, heard her voice, touched her. For six months I have woken wishing that I had amnesia, and forgot all of the little things we did together. I wish that I didn’t remember how comforting it was to feel her sleep next to me, or hold her. But everything I did with her is a memory that I cannot escape. I’ve accepted the fact that I’m never going to be all right, and I’ve learned how to deal with the pain. Mainly, I’ve invested so much time in my studies that I rarely have free time to drift off into Zoey-land. However, I somehow always drift back to her.

“Dude you awake?” my room mate Calum asked, snapping his fingers in front of my face.

“Y-yeah just spaced out for a bit…” I said, closing the unread textbook lying on my desk.

“Thinking about the girl that you refuse to tell your loving roommate about?” he asked raising his eyebrows.

“Maybe,” I sighed, leaning my head on my hands.

“Well I’m going to go get some food with Mikey. You should really try getting out of the room, just go for a walk or something,” he said, patting me on my shoulder awkwardly then exiting the room.

After the incident happened, I decided having a single room would probably drive me to suicide. Calum was a nice enough roommate, and once I tell him to leave me alone he usually does. Lately however he had been pressing me for information about Zoey, which I still wasn’t ready to talk about. Even my own father didn’t know the full story of what happened. 

I looked over at the battered book she had given to me months ago, resting in the corner of my desk. “1001 Movies to See Before You Die,” was sprawled across the cover. I flipped through it, noting all the dog-eared corners where we had actually managed to watch the movies. Since she left me, I hadn’t watched a single movie from that list. She said we would watch them all together and I couldn’t bring my self to go against that. If a movie was going to be on TV that Calum wanted to watch or if I wanted to watch something on Netflix, I had to search through the book to make sure it wasn’t on the list. 

I sighed as I closed the book, standing from my chair and stretching. I saw the number of some random girl scrawled across a piece of paper lying on my pillow, which I promptly threw away. Calum kept trying to set me up with girls, but I just wasn’t interested. None of them were funny like Zoey or crazy like her. None of them distracted me from the fact that she wasn’t here. After a few horrible dates I realized that it wasn’t even worth it for me to waste my time.

I checked my phone quickly, hoping to see something from Zoey. Nothing, like always. I shoved my phone back in my pocket, grabbing my room keys and heading out the door. The crisp December air hit me as I stepped out of the dorm and locked the door. I often went on little walks around campus, mainly to try and get my mind off of her.

After a few minutes of walking, I felt my phone buzz in my back pocket. I ripped it out, my heart racing with the fact that it could be Zoey, finally trying making contact. It was just Holden, sending me an email.

Holden had been really good at keeping in touch with me; mainly because he thought what Zoey did was shitty beyond belief. Every month or so he sends me an email with an update on where Zoey is and how his life is going. I clicked the email, hoping to see that Zoey had returned to America. I scanned it, seeing that Zoey was in Paris now and was attempting to see every art museum. He did however say that he hasn’t heard from her in a few days, which is very unlike her. Towards the end of the email, he let me know that he got in to Penn State for early admission.