2:10 AM
Luke decided to leave Skylar alone for a while, because he knew that anything he said to her would just come out wrong. He walked back over to the bed, picked his shirt up off the floor and pulled it over his head again. Luke was so confused, he didn't know what to do with himself.
He loved Skylar. He knew that and he didn't understand why he thought that treating her that way would somehow change things. Of course Skylar wasn't just any other girl, she was so different and they both knew that. Luke couldn't just push her to the side and pretend that Skylar wasn't even going to matter to him in the end. She would always matter.
He couldn't believe that he had just done that. It would be one thing for Luke to turn down Skylar nicely, an explain why he had a sudden change of heart, but of course Luke wasn't that nice. Luke was a douche bag and always would be, so he decided to act like a douche and flat out refuse to have sex with Skylar, and he knew that it made her feel bad. Luke panicked, though, and he couldn't do anything about it now.
Luke let out a big sigh as he heard the shower turn on in the bathroom and rubbed his eyes with his hands, because now he was too tired to even stand up properly. He sat down and picked up the phone on the nightstand next to the bed, pressing random buttons for a few minutes to try and distract himself. That's what Luke needed, a distraction.
Finally, Luke gave in and dialed the one phone number that he knew by heart, and would probably never forget.
"Hello?" The call was answered on the third ring, and Calum's groggy voice was heard on the other end of the phone.
"Cal?" Luke choked out. He hadn't noticed how close he was to crying until he actually started talking, and now he could feel the tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.
"Luke? Is that you?" Calum questioned, sounding more awake now.
"Yeah, it is. My phone's dead, I'm at a hotel." Luke explained softly. He didn't know what he should say, or really why he was calling. He just needed to talk to someone else or once and get Skylar out of his head.
"Are you okay? You sound upset, what's wrong?" Calum asked, and that alone almost made Luke burst into tears.
How could Calum be so nice and care so much when Luke was such a jerk to him? Ashton and Michael too, why did they even bother being Luke's friend anymore? If it was anyone else they probably would have left Luke already and let him die from all of the alcohol and drug abuse and excessive partying. Why did the boys keep coming back? Why did they still care for Luke?
"I'm not okay, Cal." Luke said, wiping under his nose with the back of his hand.
"Why? What's wrong?" Calum asked, speaking a little too loudly. Luke heard someone else, probably Michael, sleepily mutter a "what is it?" next to Calum, also wondering what was going on.
"I'm such a bad a friend, I'm so sorry." Luke cried.
"No you're not, Luke." Calum sighed. Luke just shook his head and started to cry even harder, because that wasn't true.
He was the worst friend possible and everyone knew it. It didn't matter that Luke and the rest of the boys had that little heart to heart in the bathroom earlier that day, the fact that Luke was a shitty person and an awful best friend was still there. Even though the boys had apologized for calling each other mean names and being rude to one another they still had other issues that needed to be resolved, and Luke was just trying to fix somehow them all now.
"I'm so mean to everyone, and I'm so sorry. I take it for granted how much you all care about me, I don't deserve to have friends like you. I don't thank you for everything you do enough and I feel so, so bad about it." Luke continued to sob, trying to cover his mouth with his hands. He knew that Skylar had the shower on and was probably crying on her own right now, but he still didn't want her to hear him like this. It was even worse than before, Luke was a complete mess.
"Luke, hey, calm down." Calum said quietly on the other end of the phone, obviously a little worried about his best friend who was currently having a breakdown with no one there to comfort him.
Luke had meant for this call to be a distraction, but it really only made a lot of things worse.
"I can't calm down!" Luke wailed. "I'm so sorry, Cal, I really am. Please forgive me, I'm sorry that I'm such a bad friend and I promise that I'm going to change, I really do."
"Luke - "
"Give it to me." Luke heard someone whisper on the other side of the phone, and then he could hear it being passed from one person to the other.
"Luke?" Ashton's voice appeared in his ear, and Luke started to cry harder. He was always so mean to Ashton and used him for everything, whether it was to get into clubs or to buy some beer for Luke to keep with him on the road. Ashton should hate him, why was he trying to help Luke?
"A-Ashton, I'm s-so sorry." Luke stammered, "I'm an awful friend, I didn't mean to turn into such an asshole. I'm so mean to you, I-I really am so sorry."
"Hey, it's okay. Just calm down." Ashton said softly. "Take a deep breath, Luke. Breathe."
"I can't." Luke cried, shaking his head. Even if he did calm down enough to breathe regularly again it wouldn't matter, there would still be voices in his head telling him what a horrible person he was. First he fucked up his relationship with his friends and then he broke the heart of the girl he loved.
"You're not a bad friend or a bad person, Luke. You've made some bad decisions, that's all. Don't blame yourself for all of this." Ashton continued slowly, trying to help Luke breathe again.
"I'm so sorry." Luke repeated. "I promise that I'm going to change, okay? I'm not going to act this way anymore."
"It's okay. We forgive you, right boys?" Ashton asked, and Luke heard a chorus of "yeahs" from Calum and Michael.
Luke felt so relieved that the boys had said that, like a weight was being lifted off of his shoulders. He couldn't believe that he had let this go on for so long, he was always so mean and none of the boys ever really got upset at him for it until recently when they decided to send him away for a while. But even then Luke knew that they were still just looking out for him, and he wasn't even upset for that. The boys loved him and he loved the boys, that was that.
"I really am sorry. I will change, you can hold me to it." Luke said once last time, and he meant it. He was going to change his asshole ways and stop being such a dick to everyone, because he knew as well as anyone else that no one wanted to be treated the way Luke treated people.
"It's alright, Luke. We believe you." Michael spoke up, and Luke realized that Ashton must have put the phone on speaker.
"I'm sorry," Luke said again, this time laughing at himself for how many times he'd said it. Like Skylar. "I don't know why I've been crying so much tonight, I feel so hormonal."
"I think you had a breakthrough." Calum chuckled.
"Yeah, I guess." Luke sniffled. "This day has been...absolutely insane."
"Yeah, we've seen pictures." Michael laughed again, which made everyone else laugh too.
"I'm such a mess." Luke observed to himself once they'd stopped laughing, wiping his eyes again. "I'm also a massive asshole. I did something really bad, guys."
"What?" Ashton asked.
"Well, I, uh, I turned down having sex with a girl." Luke said, feeling embarrassed. That was probably the first time those words had ever come out of his mouth.
"What? Really?" Michael asked, stifling a laugh.
"She wanted me to fuck her and I said no." Luke explained very, very vaguely.
"Wait," Michael said again, and everyone stopped talking. "Was it Skylar?"
"Yes." Luke nodded to himself, feeling like he was going to cry again.
"Shit, man."
"I know."
"So..." Calum trailed off, like he was deciding if he actually wanted to say what he was thinking. "What happened?"
So Luke took a deep breath and told his friends the entire story, from start to finish, not leaving out any details. (Actually, he didn't tell them that he cried while getting his tattoo). He felt that they deserved to know what happened over the past 24 hours, because no one else ever would.
Luke figured that he would feel better if he let it all out, if he finally told someone what was going on in his head for once. For a second Luke thought that everything was going to be okay. But when Skylar came out of the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes red and puffy and her nose still running, Luke realized that it wasn't okay.
It was never going to be okay.
-
basically Luke called the boys to distract himself from Skylar and then he was like "fuck I'm so mean to them why do they even care about me I'm an awful friend" so he cried and apologized and now they're all best buds like they used to be
hope you liked this sorry for the wait