«DAY 8 cont.»
Lissa
The entire night goes by in uncomfortable silence. I'd dragged myself upstairs after the episode with Michael, knowing I'll see him again in less than 24 hours. I still have so many questions for him, but tell myself at least to wait until Luke gets home.
What did Michael know about Jane and how did he know she was in love with someone else?
I touch the folded piece of paper the nurse gave me in the bottom of my pocket. Wondering. Wondering how all of this comes together. And how Luke's doing behind the door of our hotel room.
Then, just as if my pleas were heard, I suddenly hear a small click in the door. Getting to my feet in a hurry, I hesitantly turn the knob to see if it's open. It is.
But by the time I walked in, Luke had already receded back into his bed.
Across from the door, he is an unmoving figure under the sheets. I figure now it's best to go to sleep...until he feels decent enough to speak to me.
Quickly throwing on a sweater and brushing my teeth, I pass out almost as soon as my head hits the pillow.
+
I wake up in the middle of the night to Luke slamming open and closing the fridge door. My eyes open to see him walking back to the bed, holding onto random objects to keep his balance. He yelps as he spills some of the vodka in his hand on the pristine carpet beneath our feet, and I slip off the bed in surprise.
He's already downed about two bottles, and before I can stop him, and after checking that there's nothing left at the bottom of the bottle he just spilled, he rushes to the fridge for more. I don't know who thought alcohol would be a good idea to give as a hotel 'welcome package'.
"Luke," I call after him, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. What time was it? Two o clock? Five? "Luke, come back to sleep."
"No!" Luke replies childishly from the fridge, and then I hear the clanking of more bottles.
"Oh god," I hear him moan suddenly, and then he slams the bottles down on the counter and runs to the bathroom, I after him. I find him crouched over the toilet, retching, sounding so pained that I cringe. But I help him to his knees and pat his back as he empties the rest of his stomach into the bowl.
When Luke is done, he tries to drunkenly wipe his mouth with his sleeve. I catch him just in time, dabbing around his mouth with toilet paper and flushing it down with the rest of the contents in the bowl.
I help Luke up again carefully, afraid he might vomit again. It disgusts me how weak the alcohol makes him. And it disgusts me how much he and the band drinks on a daily basis. Sometimes I get a whiff of it on their clothes or on their breath when they're near. But now Luke smells sour, like last night's dinner and vodka.
Stumbling to his feet and resting one side of his body against mine, he looks in the mirror.
I see a pale-faced boy with hollow eyes, sunken cheeks and messy hair. His mouth is ajar as he speaks.
"I need to shave!" Luke blurts, pointing at his reflection. As he pointed out, the stubble on his chin looks especially dark tonight.
"No, you don't. You can do that tomorrow," I tell him anyway, trying to haul him out of the bathroom. It was no time to shave, it was time to get him to bed where he won't make any more of a mess. But halfway to the door, Luke grabs onto the sink and doesn't budge. Even drunk, he's much stronger than me. Screaming like a banshee, he tries to rip his arm out of my grasp as if in a battle of tug of war. I slip onto my bottom in defeat as he finally wrenches his arm out of my hands and violently throws opens the drawer of the sink. He takes out a small razor and a convenient bottle of shaving cream and immediately starts smearing the foam all over his face. This is a bad idea. I can already tell by the lack of focus in his eyes, and those shaky hands that possibly can't get anywhere near his face without drawing blood.
"Luke-" I begin.
"I need to shave!" He yelps at me, turning back to the mirror with the razor poised over his chin.
"Give it to me, then," I say finally, gently pulling the thing out of his hands. To my relief, he doesn't protest any further. Pulling him towards the tub, I keep Luke sitting on the edge and me right across from him. He starts fidgeting immediately, his eyes shifting and flitting. He doesn't reek so much anymore. The smell of the minty shaving cream on his chin fills my nose instead.
I've never used one of these before, but it's the same thing as a woman's razor, I tell myself. I can't help but think about how nervous I am that my hand might slip and I'll hurt him. I hate blood and I hate hurting people even more. With a shaky hand not better than Luke's, I take the razor to his chin, blowing out a breath.
"Be careful," Luke mumbles grumpily, his eyes closed, his face just inches away.
I push myself forward. Gliding the razor across the side of his chin, I take some of the shaving cream with it, revealing a smooth line of his skin. Not bad, a little uneven but overall, not bad. Leaning in, I wipe some of the cream away on my finger and start on the next strip. Hours seem to pass. I work from the underside of his chin to the top, repeating it in almost a calming sense. Slowly, Luke seems to settle down as well, and he's no longer yelling or squirming. His shoulders move up and down as he breathes deeply, and doesn't say anything.
I hadn't realized how hard I'd been concentrating when I look up to see that Luke had opened his eyes long ago, his eyes drifting towards mine.
I look away as soon as our eyes meet, but see him still staring. My eyes flinch towards him, then back, my cheeks burning.
"I'm going to tell you," Luke says seriously. He tries to shift his position on the edge to lean forward and almost falls into the tub. I quickly grab his shoulder and keep him balanced.
"What?" I reply, my voice getting quieter.
Luke leans in suddenly, making me draw in a breath. In my ear he whispers: "What happened in January. Two years ago."
I put down the razor. "What are you talking about?"
Luke looks me straight in the eyes. "I didn't meet Jane at the hospital," he says, his words running together. "I met her at the literal brink of death, at the weakest moment of my life."
I stiffen, but at the same time he grabs my attention. I'm not exactly surprised that he'd lied about meeting Jane at the hospital. It's obvious there was always a story behind their meeting, and there was an entire portion of it that I hadn't heard about. I know I should probably stop him now because if he'd kept it from me for this long, he probably doesn't want to tell me because of a drunken mistake. But I can't help my eagerness to hear something new-possibly the truth. Because the truth always comes out when you're drunk, right?
At this distance, I realize that in a few more glides of the razor it would've been easier if I was sitting closer to Luke or even holding the back of his neck to avoid those drunken movements he made, once in a while.
But I stay where I am, finishing up the job.
"Promise you won't tell?" Luke hiccups, his icy blue eyes gazing into mine.
I nod, feeling burning shame in my throat as I let him talk.
(A/N: I'm putting a flashback here because it'll be easier to understand haha)
[Two years ago]
Luke checks his phone again, his heart thumping loudly in his chest. Fifteen messages from Ben, all threats and blackmail listing consequences if he were not to come back.
He'd only run away from HQ an hour ago, sneaking past his bandmates and his publicist without being noticed, and hauled himself in the car with only the clothes on his back. He was tired of the diets Ben put him through, the fake gossip, the planned interview answers, the scandal-coverups, the lies, the fake smiles, and the videos and tweets he was forced to post regularly to keep up his image. This wasn't what he'd wanted when he first started out as a young boy with just a simple passion for singing. But then again, he never expected to make it this far. And now he hated it all. Believe it or not, Luke wasn't always an asshole nor a drinker. He was just a boy, who still collected Pokemon cards in his drawer, and fantasised about his future and sent flowers to his mom on her birthday. But on this particular night in January, everything changed.
+
Now that Ben had found out that Luke'd 'escaped', he was blowing up Luke's phone with curses and more.
Luke didn't know where he was going but he just wanted to leave. He took another turn on the road. It was an icy, bone-chilling night. He chose the wrong day, possibly, to run away. The roads were slippery. The snow blew into the windshields and he desperately swept the windows clean to see what was in front of him. He told himself the weather would fade out before he got on the highway.
He was wrong.
The further he drove, the worse the snow got. Luke found himself, as he drove further into a ravine, that he was stuck in a grave snow storm.
The tire almost slipped at one point. Luke's heart seemed to stop. He tightened his grasp on the wheel and turned it the other way, speeding out of the ice patch. It was already so dark, and he could barely see through the white mass in front of him. He heard the whistling of the wind outside, the deadly but silent sound of snow falling all around him, covering the world in a terrifying white colour. Luke's heart started to thud with fear.
He thought about his mom as the snow blew in his sight.
He thought about his bandmates.
He delved through the snow, pushing himself forward through the terror of all white. Told himself not to turn back, not to cry, not to regret running away.
But then it happened. Luke hit something.
Hard.
He went flying forward, but his seat belt held him back, and his head crashed back into the seat and his elbow jabbed into the door, so hard it broke his skin. He grabbed it in pain, the blood already soaking through his sleeve. The air cushion blew up in front of his face just a few seconds later and the car was idle, only the sound of hissing to be heard. He felt as if he'd lose consciousness. A gasp flew out of his mouth and he opened his eyes wide to see that some of the glass had broken in on the passenger's side, some piercing his pale skin. And his body hurt everywhere.
His head felt okay, but he was a little nauseous, like he'd just stepped off from a roller coaster. Taking a few minutes, or what seemed like hours with his eyes closed, he waited until his breathing slowed and the nauseousness faded. Then Luke opened the door and stumbled out of the car in pain.
He walked outside.
He saw that another car had been making a turn on the ravine, but Luke was almost right beside it, going in the wrong direction. His car had crashed into the side of the other car, making it resemble a crunched soda can. A wheel had fallen off, abandoned to the side. There was smoke. And it was dead silent inside. The windows were broken and Luke could see people inside, but they weren't moving.
Luke started to shake.
He stepped forward in the snow, ignoring the cold as his converse-wearing feet immediately got soaked. He wanted to cry, and he wanted to scream all at once. This couldn't be happening. It was a dream. He would wake up in a few minutes, back at HQ, ready to live his miserable life as Luke Hemmings again. Luke was sure.
And then he wasn't.
As he got closer, he could see that there was a middle-aged man at the wheel. His glasses hung halfway across his face, broken. His face was contorted in pain, the muscles in his arms limp as they hung onto their position on the wheel. And his neck was bent at an impossible angle. Luke looked away quickly. Beside him, a middle-aged woman in a red dress. The colour matching the blood that spread across her chest as a giant piece of residue and metal pierced through her stomach. She was motionless. Luke stopped breathing. He didn't want to see the rest of the passengers, but he did anyway. And that's when he broke down. In the back: a little boy with milky skin, with his lips drawn down, his head resting on his older sister's shoulder. As if he was already asleep when the accident happened and he never woke up. There was a trickle of blood streaming down his forehead. His sister looked no better. She had fallen out of her seat belt, her head leaning against the broken window, her blond hair already a bloody mess, glass pieces shattered all over her face and body. She was motionless, too.
Luke cried, but the sound got lost in the wind. He stumbled back to his car and took out his phone with shaky hands, the tears already starting to freeze on his skin.
Ben picked up almost immediately. And he started yelling.
"B-Ben..." Luke interrupted. Ben didn't listen at first.
"Ben," Luke said again, a sob catching in his throat. That got Ben's attention.
"What the heck happened to you?" Ben spat on the other end.
"I just...I just hit someone. A family. They-they're dead."
A silence on the other end.
"Are you sure?" Ben asks.
"Yes. They look dead."
"Where are you?"
At this point Luke didn't care about the escape anymore. He told the truth. "The ravine near headquarters."
With that, Luke burst into tears again.
"I killed someone, Ben. I killed-"
"Listen, boy," Ben said firmly, making Luke shut his mouth. "You're not to call 911. You hear me?"
"W-what?" Luke hiccuped.
"You're not going to tell anyone what happened. Back your car out. If the engine still works, drive it. Or else I'll send someone to get you."
"We have to. We can't just leave them-"
"You said they were dead," Ben said.
"But-"
"If a single soul hears about this, your career is over. Your life will be ruined. You'll be pointed at, sneered at, spat at. For the rest of your life. Do you really want that?" Ben asked. "Do you want to? Do you want to be hated by the world?"
It was a little extreme, what Ben was saying, but Luke couldn't think. He was crying too hard to think.
"Come back to me and the accident never happened. I can hide you. I can protect you and take care of the mess. Don't, and you'll have to do it on your own," Ben said, his voice cold.
Luke glanced back at the other car, with the family, through tears.
"As a publicist, I'm asking you seriously, is that how you want the world to see you? An irresponsible driver who, driven by his own anger, went out in the storm and murdered an entire family?" Ben repeated, as if he was telling Luke a mantra.
But it wasn't Luke's fault. It was an accident. Right?
Luke made a strangled noise of pain. "I don't know what to do," he mumbled as he felt his will get weak. He hated himself for that. Through more tears, he glanced again at the abandoned car behind him. He was terrified and sad and upset like a lost five year old in a mall and Ben knew exactly what to do when he didn't. Luke's heart was being torn in two.
"They're dead. Get out of there. Be somewhere safe. Call me when you get on the highway," Ben snapped, ending the call.
"Wait!" Luke called, with final regrets, but Ben was already gone.
So Luke fell to his knees in the snow and there was nothing else he could do. And in the weakest moment of his life, the biggest mistake he'd ever made....
Luke drove away.
He was such a coward that he couldn't even look back. He kept his eyes forward, his roof halfway crushed in, his engine still hissing and clanking. He was surprised he even made it out of the ravine.
Never did he know that the guilt would soon eat him up inside, filling him with so, so much regret for leaving the family there, for running away, for driving down the ravine during a snowstorm that day. He would've taken it back a million times. He would've sacrificed a million things to prevent it. He didn't know the empty feeling in the pit of his stomach would last months. Years. He could never shake the face of the blond-haired girl; the same face that he sought out in the newspaper just two weeks after the accident. Behind Ben's back he found that she was still alive, and tracked her down to the hospital. It all begun there.
Everything he said to others was a lie. Even Jane didn't know the truth herself. She didn't know him, but he knew her.
Luke killed Jane's family. That was how they met. That was how he fell in love.
This is not your typical love story. It is Luke's, and it is a sugarcoated, dirty, secret horror story full of guilt and depression and everything in between.
Intenseeeeee
Thank you guys for waiting so long for this update!