What Now ⇔ Muke ✓

[7] I'd feel safer with you

Tears drip down my cheeks, not so much because of the pain, but because no one is here to kiss the hurt away anymore.

Once the room is clean once again, I sit alone on the couch, feeling suddenly, overbearingly, lonely. I want my mother by my side, cuddling with me and making my anxiety vanish. I want my old father with me, teasing me about my young desire to dye my hair and watching sports on television with me. I want a friend. Someone to confide in with my worries and fears. I want to tell someone how I'm terrified of spiders, and how I hate awkward social conversations. I want to tell someone that I love waking up so early that it's still dark out, and then watching the sky grow light with a cup of hot chocolate in my hands. I want someone to know that I hate the color red, and love playing the guitar and singing when no one's around. But I don't have anyone to tell that too, and I don't have anyone who cares.

However, I still want someone to talk to. Or at least be with the presence of someone, have someone else's beating heart beside mine. I want to hear the breath of someone who hasn't been drinking, just to remind me that I'm still alive- that I'm here, breathing, that perhaps my existence is true.

So I stand up, trusting my beat up converse I wear even in sleep to take me out of my house and into the woods, past the old tire swing I used to play on when I was younger, and through the trees to where that kid Luke might be.

I stand at the edge of the woods, peering out behind a thick oak tree. It doesn't take long to find Luke. He stands next to his cousin Ashton, and his friends- Calum, Ed, and Milla. They stand under the sunlight, talking in a small circle. Luke is the tallest of them all, wearing a sleeveless black tank top with Green Day scrawled across the chest. A beanie covers the back of his head while his blonde hair curls over the top in a quiff. He squints his pretty blue eyes from the sun, light dancing off his lip ring. I stand somewhat in the open. Nobody would really be able to see me at a glance, but perhaps if Luke looked...

I gaze down at a particularly beautiful leaf floating down from a tree a little while away. I don't know why I thought of Luke a few minutes ago back in my home when loneliness was weighing me down. Maybe it's because Luke Hemmings is the only person who has bothered to speak to me in years. I'm not quite sure, but I have nobody else to go to.

As the leaf found its way to the ground, nestling on top of a bunch of others identical to itself, I heard a familiar voice say, "Uh, hey guys, I'll be back later." A chorus of okay's follow as conversation sprouts once again afterwards, and I turn my head to see Luke turning away from the group, his sky blue eyes on me. I quickly retreat back into the safety of the trees, so that if his friends look to see who he is walking to, they will see nothing but shadows.

Luke emerges into the woods, his eyes fixing on mine immediately as we both walk deeper into the woods. I make sure we don't go into the direction of my house. We settle down into the dirt and grass of the ground, crunching leaves.

Luke gives a small wave, his lips pulling into a smile.

"Hey, Michael." Luke says, leaning back onto the trunk of a pine tree. I pick at a thread on my jeans.

"Hey, Luke." I answer. I don't quite know what to say, since the last time we spoke was me begging him not to follow me to where my house was, and him getting overwhelmingly frustrated to where I felt like I couldn't breathe.

"It's nice back here." Luke says, and I find the upmost satisfaction in just hearing a voice speaking directly to me. "Very quiet. You can really hear your thoughts, you know?"

I nod, fiddling with my bracelets and peering around my comfortable surroundings.

"Yeah. I spend a lot of time back here." I say. Luke eyes me and nods his head, his hair ruffling a bit at the action.