day thirty-three - luke
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I woke up because the phone ringing from upstairs.
I didn't have enough energy to open my eyes to check the time. Not enough energy to realize it was 7 a.m.
No one calls on a Saturday at 7 a.m.
Someone walked down the stairs. I still didn't open my eyes. There was whispering. Calum had gotten out of bed. I heard him walk up the stairs.
I felt the need to go check on him, and right when I was about to, I felt the bed dip again, and he was back.
I fell asleep again, and wasn't awake for when Calum got back out of bed at 7:51 and didn't come back this time.
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When I woke up again, it was three minutes past nine. Calum wasn't in bed, but that didn't phase me. He wasn't there the day before either. But I didn't notice the backpack that wasn't in the corner of the room.
Calum wasn't in the kitchen. He wasn't in the family room, either. And neither was the rest of my family. I tried to convince myself that they were still sleeping. They were still asleep and Calum was in the bathroom. That's what I told myself.
I stared at my coffee for five minutes and then Calum rushed into the room. Literally, rushed. His backpack was on his shoulders.
"Vicky," He said, as I stood up quickly. He hugged me, holding me tight and close. "Vicky." He said my name again; his voice seemed uneasy.
"I have to leave. I have to go," Calum said, and I could tell he was freaking out.
"Calum-"
"The hospital called this morning. They found me. It took them long enough," He said, calming down a little bit. "And from what they said, my mom's really pissed at me, I guess, and yeah, I'm going back. But I don't wanna go back, I really don't want to."
Calum sounded panicky again, and I pulled away and looked him in the eye. "I know, Calum. I know."
"I really hate that fucking place." He was crying, but he was smiling at the same time. "It was fine until you leave and then you realize how much you hate it."
"Oh my God," I said, hugging him again. "I'm sorry, Calum. I wish you didn't have to go back. I don't want you to go back. But you're gonna be okay, yeah? You're gonna be fine, I promise."
"Yeah, I'll be fine," He tried to convince himself. "Except it'll be shitty without you there. You made the hospital bearable. You made it more like...home."
"You're my home, Calum."
"And you're my home, Vicky."
We were still hugging two minutes later when my mum came into the kitchen, and I could hear her keys jingling. We broke apart, knowing what this meant. "You ready?"
"Not really." Calum smiled without showing his teeth, readjusting the strap of his backpack.
"Can I come with?" I asked my mum, and she considered it for a minute and then nodded.
The drive was mostly silent. Mum hadn't turned the radio on and none of knew what to say. Calum fiddled with his hands for awhile before I took one if his hands in mine and squeezed it.
It felt weird, going back after I had just left two days ago. We pulled into the parking lot and it almost felt like it was time to get out of the car because I was back home. But I really wasn't. The only thing that was ever home about the damn place was the boy sitting next to me.
We said our goodbyes in the parking lot. Mum said it was best if I didn't go inside the hospital; I didn't question.
"I'll be out in a week, I promise, and if I'm not I'll just break out again." Calum smiled, hugging me for what felt the millionth time today.
"A week?"
"Yeah...they told me awhile ago I would be out like end-ish of April. And it's almost end-ish of April, so?" He grinned at me again.
"Calum, that's good!" I said. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"When they told me we were kinda mad at each other, so," He gave me a sheepish look. "And it never came up. But I'm telling you now."
We just ended up hugging for a really long time and then he kissed me quickly (because my mom was right there) and he told me he loved me and I told him I loved him back, and then he was gone. My home.
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I knocked on the door to Cierra's house; normally, I would just let myself in, but honestly I had no idea if she was home. A couple seconds later she had swung the door open.
"Vicky! Oh my God, hi. There's so many people in my house."
"More people than there usually are?" I laughed. (Cierra's family was huge.)
"Somehow, yeah. Mum and all her friends are here but they're about to leave, Johnny has been in and out all day, and honestly I'm not even sure if he's here or not now...and all the kids are here, and Wayne, but I think they might be going to see or movie or something, and - where's Calum?" Cierra stopped mid-sentence.
"He's not here. He's back at the hospital." I shrugged.
"I'm sorry, Vicky, that sucks," Cierra said, hugging me from the side.
"It's okay, C. I'll be fine," I smiled.
"After everyone leaves we'll watch movies or something, 'kay? Actually, no, we have to talk. You have a lot to tell me." She bumped her hip with mine.
Her mum and her friends all left a couple minutes later (after her mum talked to me for a really long time, and hugged me, and asked me if I was doing okay a million times.)
"Okay, finally, it's a little quieter in here-" Cierra started to say when her 13 year old step sister Amelia screamed "Cierra!" from upstairs.
"What?" Cierra yelled back, looking to the top of the stairs.
"Come here!"
"Oh my God," Cierra rolled her eyes. "Hold on, I'll be right down." She said to me.
"Do you want me to get us food?" I asked, backing up into the hallway that lead to the kitchen.
"I don't know if we have anything, but help yourself."
I walked into the kitchen to find I was not alone.
There was a boy.
He was too tall. Way too tall. His whole body was unproportionate, actually. His arms were too long. His legs were too long. Too lanky.
His hair stuck up in odd angles; it was a mess. He kept running his hands through it, like a bad habit. There would be this one piece that would keep falling down onto his (long, just the the rest of his body) forehead, and he would brush it back up to his quiff just for it to fall back down again.
He wore all black and he made it look good. He didn't seem like a person to wear black. But for some reason it worked.
His cheeks were bright red. It was probably because he had been smiling at me from the minute I walked into the room. A real smile, showing all his teeth and everything.
"Hi," He said cheerfully, like I was an old friend of his.
"Hey," I replied back, feeling somewhat awkward. I had no idea who he was or why he was standing in the kitchen. Leaning against the island like he was meant to be there.
"How are you?" He asked, making everything even more awkward, because I still didn't know his name or anything about him or what he was doing here or why he was being so friendly. But I liked his friendliness. He was still smiling at me.
"I'm good, thanks. You?"
"I'm great."
And then it was silent, and I felt it would be weird to start going through the cabinets looking for food. (I don't know why, but it just felt strange to me.) So I got myself a glass of water instead.
"Do you want anything?" I asked, trying to be polite as him.
"No, I'm fine, thanks," He grinned. I didn't know how he could smile for so long. I could barely smile for, like, half a minute without my cheeks hurting.
"Oh, by the way, I'm Luke," He said, and it felt like the right time for him to smile at me, but he already was. Smiling wide. He was a beautiful human being, I'll tell you that.
"I'm-"
"Luke, I told you to go home." Cierra walked into the kitchen, nudging Luke as she did.
"Both you and I know that's not gonna happen, C."
"You're always here," Cierra whined.
"Because you like my company and I like yours." Luke smiled at her. But it was a different smile than the one he gave me. Still wide as ever and the crinkles by his eyes were still there, but somehow...it was different.
"Luke. You always say how your mum complains that she misses you. Because you're always here. Go home."
"I'm not going home, Cierra, because I told Mason that he would pick me up from my house today so we could go hang out or play poker or something dumb like that."
"...You hate Mason."
"Exactly. That's why I'm staying here."
"Okay, fine, stay. But I wanna talk to Vicky so you're gonna have to leave at some point-"
"Vicky?" Luke's eyes seemed to light up, and he looked at me again. "Calum's Vicky?"
This. This was Luke.
"And you're Calum's Luke." I smiled.
"Come here, give me a hug!" Luke stopped leaning on the island to walk over to me and hug me. He was so much taller than me it was insane, and it wasn't like I was the shortest person. in the world. He smelled like really strong cologne.
Brandon, the 10 year old step brother, ran through the kitchen, yelling something to his dad. "When are you guys leaving?" Cierra asked, obviously cringing at the fact there were still a lot of people in her house.
"In like five minutes," Brandon replied.
Luke's eyes widened. "Does that mean Eva's leaving?"
"That means Eva's leaving." Cierra confirmed.
"I have to say bye to her," Luke said, "I'll be back, don't miss me too much." He kissed Cierra's forehead and walked out, yelling "Eva Grace!" as he did.
As soon as he left, I said, "Cierra, you have a boyfriend?"
"God, no," Cierra laughed, as she began to look through the cabinets to find the food I never managed to get. "He's just my friend."
"He kissed your forehead."
"Yeah. He's very clingy. And cuddly."
"He's cute."
"He is. But I've only known him for, like, a month."
"I've only known Calum for a month."
"Hm," Cierra studied my face for a minute. "Touché."
"So-"
She noticed the plastic juice cup from
across the room, muttering, "I need to give Eva her juice, shit." (It was weird hearing Cierra curse; in texts she cursed like a truck driver but in real life she stuck to heck and frick. She rarely cursed.)
"I don't feel like walking upstairs. Amelia!" Cierra yelled. I was used to this, this was how it always was in Cierra's household. Too many people and lots of yelling and not enough space.
Amelia walked through the kitchen door. "What?"
"Can you bring Ev her juice, please?" Cierra handed her the plastic cup.
"Why can't you do it?" Amelia asked, scowling at her and not taking the cup.
"Because I have people over."
"People as in...more than one person?" Amelia's whole face seem to light up. "Is Luke here?"
Cierra smiled, seeing her oppurtunity. "Yeah, Luke is here. He's with Eva."
Amelia snatched the cup out of Cierra's hand, and basically bolted out of the kitchen.
"She has a crush on him. It's so funny," Cierra laughed.
"I can see that." I laughed along with her.
"Pretty sure she likes Luke more than I do."
"Hm, I doubt that."
She rolled her eyes at me. "Shut up."
"So how did you meet Luke?" I finally asked the question I've been wanting the answer to.
"Well. I went to this party, right? It was, like, maybe two or three days after you had left. Em invited me, and I really didn't wanna go, but I did. Anyway, I was really bored at this party and whatever and then this boy started to walk into the kitchen, and he was really pretty, and I was like, okay, this is nice. And then he literally fell for me-"
"Oh my God." Luke walked into the kitchen. He was holding Eva on his hip, and she had her juice cup in her hands. "You're telling the story again?"
"Oh, you're back," Cierra smiled at him, ignoring his question.
"Yeah. Your sister kinda scares me." Luke shuddered, grinning.
"Hey!" Eva shouted at Luke, glaring at him.
"Not you, Eva Grace," Luke kept smiling, booping her nose.
"So, anyway, back to the story. So Luke literally-"
"Please, stop," Luke begged. He looked at me."She tells this story to everyone."
"Of course I do. It's funny. So then Luke fell for me, and his beer bottle made him bleed, so I got him a Ninja Turtles bandaid. And then we fell madly in love. Fin."
"Yeah, that's definitley how it went, C," Luke laughed, still bouncing up and down with Eva on his hip.
"Well, most of it is true. He really did trip and fall and bleed and I really did give him a Ninja Turtles bandaid."
Luke looked up dreamily at the ceiling. "I still have that bandaid."
Cierra scowled at him. "That's digusting. You're digusting."
"And you're a pain in the ass," Luke joked, poking Cierra in the side.
"Luke!" Both Cierra and I yelled at the same time, because Eva was still in the room and we both knew she was in her 'repeat everything I hear 20 million times' phase.
"Shit, sorry."
After everyone else had left the house except for us (and Amelia, but she stayed hidden inside her room) we watched a lot of movies and cuddled under blankets and ate too much food. I got to know Luke better. He was too nice, too friendly. Always smiling. He told a lot of jokes. He always had a hand on Cierra, no matter what. She would get up to get more food and he would come with her, hand on her back. He played with her hands a lot and concentrated on them more than the movie. He studied her face. And she would catch him and smack his chest. He would lay his head on her shoulder, or she would sit on the couch and he would put his head between her legs and she would play with his hair. His messy, falling onto his face hair.
It was obvious they both liked each other but they were too scared to do anything about it.
When Luke left, he said, "Bye, Vicky, bye, Cierra, I'll see you tomorrow!" (This was normal, Cierra had said. He came to her house everyday. Her family treated Luke like one of their own children.)
We had turned off the movie and I was about to tell Cierra the story of everything, everything that had happened in those crazy 30 something days. I had gotten not too far into my story when her phone buzzed from the coffee table, and I reached over to get it for her.
The screen read:
LUKE:
the sky is really blue rn and i thought of ur eyes arent i cute
I handed the phone to Cierra and she read the message and rolled her eyes. "What a dork."
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since ive been updating u on my life quite a lot nowadays i thought i should just tell u like two days ago i held hands w the boy i like and it was gr8
literally no calum in this chap soz but lots of luke so this is for all the luke girls out there!! me included B)
also luke and cierra are older than calum and vicky in this story!! so if ur an ameri(tin)can like me vicky & calum would be juniors and cierra & luke would be seniors $$$$$