"We haven't spoke since you went away
Comfortable silence is so overrated
Why won't you ever be the first one to break?
Even my phone misses your call, by the way"
Song- "From the Dining Table" by Harry Styles
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It was way too early for Luke to be up.
Well, at least it would be if he ever went to bed.
He's not been sleeping much these past few days. Most college students use spring break as their time to sleep as much as they can, taking back the hours they lost while doing busy schoolwork. But for Luke, his sleep schedule has never been worse.
Five days.
It has been five days without any type of communication with Rose. Five days since he's heard her voice, five days since he was so close to her that he could feel her warmth, five days since he can say he felt anything at all.
It had been five miserable days where Luke had been kept up for hours on end as he thought over everything that happened with Rose.
That was the longest they had gone without seeing each other in years, since before Rose's father died. It didn't feel right, it wasn't right.
It felt like something was missing as they sulked in their separate apartments and it was, seeing as Rose held Luke's heart in her chest and Rose's heart was buried deep inside of Luke.
Luke was getting tired of hearing his own voice, he craved company other than his sweet Petunia, and he was beginning to feel like he was going crazy in his small apartment. All of his friends were away at the beach, minus the one that held the most importance, so Luke was left without much to do.
He could've sucked it up by now and gone to see Rose, but he hadn't. Every time he thought he gathered enough courage to go knock on her door, he would chicken out and go right back to his spot on the couch.
He felt pathetic.
He wanted nothing more than to run and hug her, tell her that he's sorry and that he loves her, but his unkind mind stopped him every time. He was filled with so much doubt that he was beginning to question absolutely everything.
He didn't know where Rose's feelings stood with him. He didn't know if she was in her room surrounded by torn up paintings she had done of him, screaming that she hates him for doing what he did to her. Or maybe she was heartbroken, lying on her floor like she does when she's sad, listening to her dad's old vinyls with Luke's rejection fresh on her mind.
Or just maybe, she was perfectly fine. She wasn't mad or heartbroken, she was just Rose— content with what happened because she's the most pure human on the planet and could never have anything sway her feelings for Luke.
Maybe she's even moved on.
It's killing Luke playing a guessing game on trying to figure out which path her heart took after that night, but he's too chicken to actually go and find out due to the possibility of learning that she either hates him or is heartbroken cause she loved him too much.
It's a tragic love affair between Luke and Rose, both unable to win in either situations.
Luke selfishly wanted Rose to love him, but he also wanted her to hate him a little to make it easier on himself. And Rose loved Luke in a self-sacrificing way, destroying her self respect so she can hold onto the love she will never get back from Luke.
Their kind of love was an eclipsed sun, despite the sun still beaming up amongst the clouds, the darkness around it prevailed and dimmed the sky.
A pointless, winless fight.
Luke had been worrying about only this for days now, until just a few hours ago when he was brought a new thing to fret over.
The reason for him being up at two in the morning was not because he couldn't get his mind to settle, but because Petunia had been sick a countless amount of times in the last few hours.
Luke had noticed some strange behavior from his sweet dog earlier yesterday, like how she didn't seem to want to eat much or how she slept for hours upon hours, but he just thought she was becoming a replica of him. But a little time after he fed her dinner last night, Petunia showed Luke a repeat of what she ate all over the living room floor.
Luke figured that she may have ate too fast or something to cause her to throw up, but then it happened a second and a third time in the span of a few hours, and Luke was at odds with what to do.
He looked up what could be the cause of this, but that didn't do much as there was several reasons that came up for a dog's sudden illness, all being things that freaked Luke out as he's in the dark with each situation.
He tried getting her to sleep in hopes that rest will do the trick of easing her, but for once in her little life, the stubborn dog can't seem to stay still for more than five minutes. Petunia's illness is even freaking her out as she's become quite anxious in the last few hours, which is leading to Luke being a nervous wreck.
This was something out of the ordinary for Luke. He just recently became a dog owner, so he's not got a sense for what to do in these types of situations yet, something like this happening never even crossed his mind until now.
And he can't seem to settle on any type of solution to fix this.
The only thing he can think to do is get the one person who's the best in situations like this, someone who he perceives as a lot smarter than himself. Rose always seems to have her head on her shoulders even when her eyes are in the clouds, so Luke feels like she's his only hope for figuring out what to do.
But there's the one problem that is stopping Luke's fist midair as he's about to knock on her door at this ungodly hour, he doesn't even know if they're in an okay enough place to do this.
Obviously, Luke knows that Rose won't shoo him off and she'll quickly try to help him with the best of her abilities. Because Rose is Rose, she'll always be the bigger and better person when it comes to Luke because that means he's still around.
Luke is asking himself wether or not he wants to allow that to happen. He doesn't want the first time he's seeing her after Friday being because he was forced to see her as a last resort, she doesn't deserve that.
She deserves to be treated with respect, and asking for her help after what he did would be a shallow move.
But this is also Petunia, who Rose loves just like she's her own dog, and Luke knows that Rose would want to help her during this time, regardless of what's happening between them.
And Luke is out of options with what to do, so knocking on Rose's door does seem like the best bet, and so he does just that.
As Luke holds his head as high as he can, his ears on full alert to pick up any sounds that come from inside Rose's place, he waits for the anticipated jiggle of the doorknob and for the moment he finally comes face to face with Rose again. Meanwhile, just past these thin walls, Rose is spread out across her couch as sleep threatens to overtake her.
The only light in the room is coming from the glow of the television as an episode of Friends plays in the background, reflecting onto Rose's body and giving her a dim blue hue. Around her exhausted body are wadded up balls of paper, things that she doodled on or poems that she wrote but didn't like, her dinner plate from hours ago still sits on the coffee table along with an empty water glass.
She's practically been living on her velvety green couch for days now, not daring to be anyway else as this is her most comfortable space. This is the place where her and Luke had spent hours in each other's company, this is the place where Luke would fall asleep as Rose read, this is the place where Luke would sit right up close to Rose despite there being plenty of room for the two of them.
Rose swears that she can even smell his scent in the cushions, so if she was home, this is where she'll be.
One knock on the door wasn't able to breakthrough the fog in Rose's mind and get to her, two knocks on the door was able to seep in and make her question if she was beginning to dream it, and three knocks on her door got Rose up and off her couch as she came to the realization that it in fact wasn't in her head.
She wasn't sure who it was on the other side of the door, but she was confused as to why anyone would be knocking at two in the morning. Perhaps her television was too loud and was disturbing the neighbors? Or maybe it was some crazed person like she would see on the news? Maybe, it was Jennifer Aniston herself coming to watch Friends with Rose?
She imagined it could be anyone except the one person it actually is, because why would he be at her door at this time after avoiding her for days?
But low and behold, it was her best friend after all, and she was unsure how she felt about seeing his lean figure through the small peep hole in her door. Her stomach twisted with angst over seeing him again, but her mind questioned everything before she even placed her hand on the doorknob.
This was the moment she had been thinking about ever since she walked away from him Friday night, the moment they would finally see each other again.
Rose takes a minute to collect her thoughts and hold her breath, then she opens the door and it feels like the world stops.
Luke's blue eyes lock onto Rose the minute the door is opened, relief washing over him like the sun bathing the earth in the morning. Rose is quick to pick up on his unusual anxious behavior that she rarely sees, she takes notice of how his fingers are nervously rubbing together and how his foot is rapidly tapping on the floor.
His dirty blond curls have been invaded by his unsteady hands a few times seeing as they look almost perfectly messy. The purplish circles under his eyes match the ones that lie under Rose's brown eyes, showing both of them their lack of sleep in the last few nights. And the normal pink swirls that flush Luke's skin are missing, his face being a dull pale tint that can easily be mistaken for a sickly color.
But even with all of the differences in his appearance, he was still a sight for sore eyes for Rose.
He was still the prettiest thing she's laid her eyes on his days.
They both stare at each other for longer than intended, the words getting caught in Rose's throat as all thoughts are lost at the sight of him. She can't even remember what she was going to say to him, she feels like she's been starstruck in this moment.
Like Luke was someone she had fallen in love with through a screen, and now that she's face to face with him, she can't think of anything to say as this moment doesn't even feel real to her.
"Hey, Rose," Luke is the first one to break the silence and speak, even through his own thick cloud of being in awe of her presence.
Even saying her name after five days restores Luke's aching heart in the slightest bit.
"Luke," Rose mutters, her voice being so quiet he almost missed it. "It's two in the morning, what are you-"
"Petunia's sick," Luke blurts out before Rose can even finish her question.
"What?" Luke watches as confusion takes over Rose's features, concern being laced in her tone as she cares so much for Luke's dog.
"She's been acting strange all day and for the past few hours she's not been able to keep anything down, a-and I'm sorry for coming here so late, but I didn't know what else to do."
Luke rambles out faster than Rose's sleep deprived mind can keep up with, but eventually she just nods her head to show that she hears him.
"Give me a second to get ready and we'll go the vet clinic down the street, I think it's open all night," Rose doesn't even think twice before turning around and grabbing the first pair of shoes on the floor.
"The vet? You think she needs to see a vet?" Luke timidly asks as he watches Rose slide her rainbow printed socks into a pair of converse.
Rose looks up at him as she ties her laces together, "Well, I'm no animal expert, Luke. I don't see another option, plus it's better to be safe than sorry."
Luke agrees with this, mentally slapping himself for not thinking of this on his own. Now he just feels guilty for disturbing Rose when this was something he could've easily done without her, but deep down he knows he really just wanted an excuse to see Rose again.
"You don't have to come with me, Rose— I mean, if you don't want to, it's late and you should sleep," Luke is quick to say as Rose gets back on her feet. He watches from her doorway as she runs over to her living area and turns off the television, grabbing her purse and phone from the table and walking back over to him.
"It's fine, I wasn't sleeping before. And besides, I don't want you to go by yourself," Rose tells him, avoiding his eyes as she grabs her keys and slides past him to lock up her door.
Luke's heart warms at her words, her thoughtfulness still being there after he's been so cold to her. He doesn't deserve Rose and all her sweet qualities, not after how he's treated her in the last month.
This only proves to himself more that despite his feelings towards the girl, he made the right call in letting her down.
He can't be what she wants him to be, so there's no point in getting her hopes up.
"Let me go get her, I'll be right back," Luke dismisses himself for a minute to go get his sickly dog, while Rose stays out in the hallway trying to steady her rapid pulse.
She's trying her best to keep her calm around Luke, not wanting to show him how much she's missed him, and she thinks she's doing an alright job at it. But she's no actress of course, so the minute she saw the opportunity to stay with him longer, she took it.
Luke is coming back out through his doorway only a minute or two later, Petunia is slowly trudging next to him with her baby pink leash attached to her collar. While Luke turns to lock up his apartment, Rose bends down to be eye level with the dog and pet her after missing her for days.
"Hey, P, heard you aren't feeling too good. Spending too much time with Luke will do that to you, huh?" Rose kids around as she talks to Petunia, giddily looking up at Luke to see him rolling his eyes playfully at her.
"Don't worry, the vet will make you all better," Rose kisses the top of Petunia's head and straightens back up to see Luke with a small grin, smiling at how cute his two girls are together.
"Gonna make fun of me some more or are you ready to go?" Luke questions and Rose shrugs as she turns and begins her trek down the hall.
"Sorry, just couldn't help myself," Rose says, her pink lips getting bit down on as she controls the urge to grin at her witty comment.
Luke follows behind her as she goes down the hall in her oversized Eagles t-shirt with her plaid pajama pants on, finding her relaxed outfit so cute on her. He likes that she didn't even think to change what she was wearing before coming with him.
"I'm sure you couldn't."
***
"You're doing it again," Rose says as she glances over at Luke with raised brows.
Luke looks down at his hand tapping at the armrest of the chair, just now registering the annoying sound it was making and stopping immediately.
"Sorry," Luke's fingers stretch out as he tries to control the anxiety running through him. He doesn't understand why he feels like he's the one who's the patient here, but his protectiveness over Petunia is seeping out more than he wants.
"Here," Rose says and before she can stop herself, she's reaching over and taking Luke's hand into her lap.
They both feel the electric feeling shoot up their arms like rockets soaring into the sky and exploding into sparks, but they stay as quiet as they can at the feeling.
It's just a feeling it can only be a feeling.
A feeling that's going to burn them the longer they hold on.
But it's funny how that feeling is just the thing that helps settle Luke's nerves.
"I just hate not being in there with her, I mean what's taking them so long?" Luke blows out a breath of frustration and tilts his head back along the wall, not meeting Rose's stare that she keeps on him.
"It's only been ten minutes, Luke. I'm sure everything is fine, you just need to relax before you worry yourself to death."
"I know, I just hate any type of doctors office. They freak me out," Luke says just as Rose squeezes his hand, making his heart skip a beat from under his ribs.
"I know you do, but we'll be out of here in no time."
The room falls quiet again, much like it had been doing ever since they left their apartment complex. They would go a few minutes with making small talk, then it would fall silent between them until one of them breaks it.
They both had the events of last Friday on their mind, not knowing how to address what happened in hopes of the other person doing it first. So, they remain in this weird place where they no longer act like two best friends who've known each other for years, and instead act like two acquaintances that have just met.
Luke's hand stays in Rose's lap, being clutched by both of her hands because one wasn't enough for Rose. The simple gesture doing so much healing along with the slight hurt it's causing them both.
They've both missed how this felt, touching one another wasn't thought of as vital as it really is for them. Their touch was much needed after this drought they've had to endure, even if it was a small as hand holding.
But it was also killing them the longer it went on. Luke's self-control was cracking more and more by the minute, soon becoming a mess that will be hard to glue back together. He wasn't sure how much longer he could go with doing things like this and not telling her that he loves her more than she'll ever know.
It was so hard for him to look at her knowing that she loved him and pretend to not feel the same, it was draining him from the inside out.
And for poor Rose, she had to act like she was just fine sitting here holding the hand of the man who doesn't love her back. But she loved him so much, that this ruin it was causing her to crumble to was worth it if she got to hold his hand for merely five minutes.
The silence in the room was becoming too loud, so Luke speaks before he goes mad.
"Thank you for coming with me, Rose."
Rose tries her best to offer him a smile, but all she can hear is Rose.
Not Rose petal, just Rose.
Rose doesn't like her name so much without petal following behind it.
"You don't have to thank me for this, Luke. It's not a big deal," Rose shakes her head at him, but Luke is quick to shut her down.
He hates it when she does this, acts like he's deserving of her kindness when he's not.
"It is a big deal," he sternly says, his eyebrows crinkling together as he frowns. "The way I reacted to what you said the other night was uncalled for and I should've had more respect for you."
Rose would've assumed that hearing this would make her feel the slightest bit better after all the misery she's been through, but all she feels is uncomfortable.
She feels like she was the one in the wrong Friday night because she misread their relationship. She feels like she was in the wrong because she ran off the minute he rejected her.
"Maybe, but I shouldn't have ran off upset like how I did. You're my best friend and it's okay that you didn't feel the same, I didn't have to run like I did. It was childish of me."
Hearing this only makes Luke hate himself more, because this is what he's caused her to do. Rose always puts the blame on herself when she's done nothing wrong, just to avoid painting Luke in a bad light.
He's made her feel guilty for something she shouldn't feel the slightest of doubt towards.
"Rose, please don't apologize when—"
"Luke, it's fine. Can we just drop it?" Rose interrupts him before he can finish, being too uncomfortable to talk about this any further.
She only wants them to be okay again, she wants to act like Friday never even happened.
But they just can't do that.
Suddenly, Luke's hand feels like too much of a hot iron in Rose's grip, so she's quickly retracting her hands from his before he's ready. Rose pulls her hands up like she's been burned and Luke accidentally knocks his hand into her bag and causes it to fall onto the floor, all the things contained inside spill out across the beige tile.
Rose and Luke both bend down and begin picking up the loose items, Luke mumbling out an apology for his awkward action. Luke goes to grab the bright pink sticky note that was flipped over, curiously scanning over the scribbled handwriting that didn't belong to Rose on it.
"What's this?" Luke asks as he reads over what the note says.
Poetry contest— 348 E Main St. 3/25
Rose's cheeks heat up as she quickly takes the note from Luke and shoves it back into her bag, not looking up at Luke as she pretends to reorganize the inside of her purse.
"It's nothing, just something I'm going to on Friday," Rose says, giving him the bare minimum as this wasn't something she wanted to talk about with him tonight.
"A poetry contest? Are you going by yourself?" Luke poked further.
This was his first real glimpse of what's going on in her life since Friday, so of course he wants to know as much as he can. This sounds like just the thing that Rose would like to do, and that's enough to get Luke's interest.
"No, Taylor is the one that invited me," Rose doesn't think anything of it as she so casually speaks of the guy, but Luke feels as if he was dancing and the music abruptly stopped.
"Taylor as in that artsy guy from the party?" Luke asks to be sure, his fists clenching onto the armrests harder than before.
"Yeah, we both like poetry so we're going together," Rose tells him. But what Rose doesn't say is that ever since she texted him a few days ago, they've been chatting a lot more.
Nothing too serious, just a casual conversation here and there that has some flirty comments slipped into them. He even came to Rose's work again the other night just to keep her busy during a slow night, but Rose fails to mention that to Luke, too.
It's not like she owes him this, he was the one who turned her down, it shouldn't matter who she spends her time with. And besides, she doesn't even have much to tell on the situation anyways.
The only thing she can admit is that talking with Taylor makes Rose temporarily feel the slightest bit better, like she's not as much as a lost cause as she thought.
And if she brought Luke into the know, then he would suddenly be apart of what she's trying to keep him out of. This is something she's trying to do for herself so she can move on, Luke can't be apart of that in any way if she wants it to be successful.
"Like together as in..." Luke trails off, hoping that Rose will catch onto what he's hinting at.
And even though it confuses Rose as to why he's bugging her on this, she answers him anyways, "As in friends, Luke. We're friends, he's the one who even convinced me to join the contest."
Luke bubbles over with a hot feeling of jealousy, despite Rose saying their just friends. Luke knows better than that, he saw the way that Taylor guy was looking at her, he doesn't want to be just friends.
Luke knows that he doesn't have any right to be jealous, but he can't help himself. Rose was his angelic flower, not Taylor's or anybody else's.
He should be the one that's there with her, he should be the one that gets to cheer her on as she recites what her beautiful mind painted up.
"Well, you'll win you know. I've never heard anyone write like you do," Luke says to her as he chokes down his red hot feelings of envy.
Rose feels the blush run up to her cheeks at Luke's compliment, this being something that eases her as she's been nervous about talking in front of a crowd on Friday night.
Nervous about showing people what's been going on in her head.
"I don't know, I'm sure there's a lot of other talented people entering, rockstar."
Rockstar.
She didn't even realize she had said it, but Luke definitely did.
"Yeah, but none of them are you, Rose Foster. No one can ever amount to you, so I'm glad you're doing this. Your words deserve to be heard as pretty as they are."
And Luke means that with everything in him.
He's never heard or seen someone think like his Rose does, someone have a mind as talented as hers.
She's truly one of a kind, like a rare gem that only the luckiest of men find after years of digging down deep in the earth's core.
Rose and Luke both stay silent as they look deeply at each other and let his words soak in. He's looking at her with so much longing that it's paining him to do so, he can't believe that the rare gem he found has to be shared with the world.
And Rose is looking at him with watery eyes as she tries hard not to show what his words mean to her. As much as they do her good, she can't help but question how he can say things like that and not love her back.
It's like pouring salt in an open wound, it stings more than he'll ever know.
"Mr. Hemmings?" The veterinarian nurse suddenly calls out as she enters the room with Petunia right beside her.
Luke and Rose break out of their trance and quickly stand to hear what she has to say, ignoring the shattering feeling happening within them by putting on a fake smile.
"How is she?" Luke asks as he takes the pink leash from the nurse's hands.
Petunia is quick to step over to her favorite people, feeling much better now that she's not alone with two strangers. She slots herself right in between the two best friends, rubbing up along both of their legs to help comfort herself.
"We ran some tests on her and didn't find anything that concerned us, but you were right to bring her in. We gave her a pill to help settle her stomach for now, but it's possible she might've eaten something foreign that her stomach rejected. With some rest and water, she should be all better in the morning."
Luke and Rose both breathe out a relieving breath, feeling much better now that they know there wasn't anything seriously wrong with Petunia. Luke felt a little guilty because she did get into the trash earlier and perhaps eaten something bad in that, but he'll be more careful with that from now on.
"Thank you so much," Luke says and offers her a kind smile that she reciprocates.
"Of course, if you have anymore problems you can always call or come back," the nurse tells them before wishing them both a good night and walking out of the lobby.
And so Luke and Rose leave with Petunia right beside them, staying quiet the whole ride to their apartment as there was so much to say on their minds that it was best to not say anything at all.
They would save it for another time, a better moment.
A moment that's getting edged on the longer the cracks in Luke's self-control sits without being sealed back up, ready for one small rock to hit it just right and shatter it completely.
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i can not WAIT for the next chapter, i'll be screaming while writing it.
any predictions on what's gonna go down?
sorry for the wait, school has been kicking me around recently, but thankfully it's ending soon. hopefully, you're all doing well and taking care of yourselves<3
thank you for all the love as always! see ya soon, friends:)
-Em