Acidic Love (l.h fanfic)

Chapter 24

Dear Anna,

Hi. I have nothing left to say to you, which probably means that I'm doing a good job of moving on. Not that I will ever be able to FULLY move on. You get my point. I just wish I could have asked you a couple questions about what dad did to you. Did he do to you what he did to me? Not just hitting but...

you know what, nevermind. Just the thought of him makes me so mad. He drove you to fucking kill yourself. And you were amazing. I'm gonna take Luke to your grave one day. We were gonna do it a couple of days ago but I guess we forgot. I'm sorry, I know I haven't seen you in forever. So expect company soon.

Well you're dead so you can't really expect company.

See? I can say stupid stuff and it doesn't affect me too much. Progress, right? Yeah. I'm trying. It's hard, but I'm trying. Love you more than anyone else.

-Paige.

I shut my journal and sighed.

"Hey Paige, I'm having the boys over!" Luke called from the bathroom. A smile spread across my face as I made my way down to the family room.

"Okay, sounds good!" I called back to him. A moment later, Michael, Calum, and Ashton barged into the room.

"PAIGE! I MISSED YOU!" Michael yelled, giving me a huge hug.

"I MISSED YOU TOO MIKEY!" I yelled excitedly, pulling away from the hug to embrace Calum.

"Hey cal, how are you?" I asked. He seemed a bit off. He didn't answer, just hugged me a bit tighter.

"Calum? What's wrong? What happened?" Ashton sighed and sat down, Michael followed short after.

"Calum's had a rough time these past couple of days" Michael answered. I pulled away from Calum and looked down nervously.

"What happened?" I asked quietly. Luke emerged next to me and sat down. It seemed like he already knew what was going on.

"My parents fucking hate each other." He answered bluntly, walking to the couch and sitting down.

"You wanna talk about it?" I asked, sitting down next to Luke.

"My dad cheated on my mom with my fucking math teacher." I widened my eyes as my mouth fell slightly ajar.

"It gets worse" He said, laughing nervously

"I walked in on them the other night, and I thought they were, ya know, getting it on." He had a faint smile on and it made me a little bit happier.

"They weren't though. He was on top of her, no doubt about that. But there was so much screaming and pain in my moms voice, and anger in my dad's and- and"

"You don't need to continue. I understand." I whispered, looking away from everyone in the room.

"That's the problem, Paige. You shouldn't understand. But you've been through it, so you do understand. The two most important girls in my life have been abused and I can't deal with it anymore. It scares me everyday, having your dad just on the loose. He could break into your fucking house Paige. So I have no dad now, and I have a mom that won't speak, and a best friend that lives every day scared to death. And I don't know how you do it. No one can tell you're scared, but I see right through the acting. You're scared. And that makes ME scared. I just want you to be safe.." A tear dripped off of his cheek and I had to shut my eyes to keep from crying. I stood up and landed in Calum's lap, hugging him for what seemed like an eternity. But no image was in my mind, so I enjoyed it.

"I love you Calum, don't think about it like that. Don't be scared. I'm safe. The windows are locked and Luke is here right beside me. If he broke in, we'd hear him. Trust me. I need you to be there for your mom. Maybe it's a good thing that I understand. Because I can help you. She's gonna want to be left alone, but what she NEEDS is people. She needs love. And you need to give it to her. No mater how pissy she may be to you, she's gonna be grateful to have you. Because you can save her. Your mom is gonna be okay, I turned out okay didn't I?" He smiled as I pulled away and sat back down next to Luke. He nodded his head in agreement.

"W-what..." I heard a high pitched voice say. I looked over to see Ashton in total shock.

Shit.

Ashton doesn't know anything.

I grabbed Luke's hand, as he squeezed it, reassuring me.

"Let's just say, my dad hasn't been the best father to me, ash. That's pretty much it. But don't worry, I don't see him anymore." I said, grinning to show him that it was okay. He nodded slightly, still in a state of shock.

"So should we play truth or dare?" I asked, attempting to change the subject. I looked up at Luke who was smiling, and Michael... Not so much. But after playing truth or dare for a while, everyone forgot about our earlier conversation and it was just like old times.

"Okay, Paige. I dare you to kiss Michael." Calum said excitedly.

"HA!" I let out a sarcastic laugh and shook my head.

"Hell no. I kissed him in seventh grade, and he is the worst kisser I swear!" I said, laughing. Michael was actually a good kisser, and he knew that. I just don't want to take the dare.

"Okay, so it's my turn." I said, sitting back.

"Truth or dare, Luke!" I said, pointing to him.

"Uh, truth." He answered.

"When is your birthday?" I asked, realizing that I still didn't know the answer to that question.

"You're my girlfriend and you don't even know my birthday?" I smiled and shrugged.

"Do you know my birthday?" I asked. He didn't answer.

"Exactly" I said, smirking. "So answer the question."

"July 16th. How about you?" He asked.

"Uh... Well, it's sometime in November. Anna and I used to just celebrate it on the first. My dad wasn't really stable during my birth, he started interacting with us when we were like three I guess. So he never really knew my birthday either," I said, trying to hold back my laughs. I didn't know why I was laughing, but thinking back to it, it was pretty funny.

"So November first. But the last time I celebrated it was when I was six, so you don't need to worry about it, Kay?" I asked. Luke smirked.

"Well that's in like two weeks! So we can celebrate it together." I scrunched my nose at the thought of a whole day with me in the spotlight. I didn't like it at all.

We played the game for a while as I rested my head on Luke's legs. I didn't even realize falling asleep until the next morning.