“I promise, we’ll just be here for a minute and then we’ll leave.” Michael walks with his hands in his pockets and looks at me for reassurance - whether it’s reassurance for him or me, I can’t tell.
I nod silently and we turn a corner that I don’t know. It’s Friday night and Luke normally throws parties tonight, but we’re still in Williamsburg and Luke’s in Manhattan so I feel a little more at ease than I would otherwise.
“We can stay longer if you want, I don’t mind.” I don’t want him to feel like I’m a chore.
“No, it’s fine. I really don’t need to stay long, anyway. Just need to show my face then go.”
Michael’s holding a six-pack of beer in his hand and rings the doorbell with the other, leaning against the doorframe indifferently. I glance at the six-pack of beer and it suddenly hits me that Michael didn’t even have to use a fake ID to buy it, that these are Michael’s friends and like always, all be the youngest one here.
The door creaks momentarily and opens to a face I’ve seen before.
Michael smirks. “So, I heard that there’s a party tonight and there’s gonna be good shit and I thought I’d drop by. I brought drinks,” Michael lifts up the beer bottles in his hand, “because I’m a nice guy, but I also heard that the guy who’s throwing the party is a dickhead with a father who’s this famous director and way too much money on his hands. Any way I could avoid him the whole night or - ”
He smiles. “Michael Clifford, you pretentious fuck.”
“Ashton Irwin, you piece of shit.” Michael smiles and they shake hands before wrapping their left arm around the back of the other with their hands still clasped, slapping each other’s backs a few times in a hug.
“Been way too fucking long, mate.”
“Shit, I know.”
“This is Mia.” I smile and introduce myself even though we’ve already met, silently pleading Ashton to not say anything about the last time we saw each other at Luke’s place with my eyes. He smiles wryly, like he knows something I don’t, and wordlessly keeps the secret that could ruin me.
“Nice to meet you, Mia.”
Ashton ushers us inside and towards the kitchen and the air is practically thick with smoke, a song by Talking Heads that I love playing loudly.
It’s a few of the same people and familiar faces that I see at Luke’s parties but with a lot of different people as well, a different atmosphere and a lot more laughing. Less white powder on the coffee tables too.
Michael lights a cigarette and fills up a red cup talking with Ashton endlessly about junior year and that one time that they got high off their asses and sang karaoke with a bunch of people I don’t know.
Michael laugh is hearty and full, taking up the whole room and he wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me close, his hands almost as drunk as he’s getting. He’s warm and his sweater is the color of earl grey tea and I’m so happy that I could stay here forever with his fingers resting against the rungs of my ribcage. But the position of his fingers is awkward and uncomfortable and doesn’t feel right, unlike the way Luke’s would slot perfectly and I don’t know what he and Ashton are laughing about and I feel so lonely I could cry, standing in a kitchen with an empty red Solo cup.
“You’re a freshman, right?”
I blink twice and it feels like I’m coming up from underwater, but I smile anyway. It’s the first time I’m actually saying something since I got to this party. “I am.”
“How’d you end up dating Michael?” A boy with Kurt Cobain hair and an NYU sweatshirt asks, filling up his cup with more beer.
I can barely breathe, so I pretend to take a sip from my empty cup before answering. “Mutual friends.” Smile. Push hair behind ear. Lean against Michael more. Do what you should. Say what you should.
This is only our first date and I’m already filling the role of “the girl who sits on Michael’s lap while he’s telling a joke, talking animatedly with his friends.” Filling the role of “Michael’s girlfriend.”
I need some air.
“Mia, you alright? You’ve barely said a thing.” Michael looks worried, and it’s not the first time he’s asked me this question.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I’m just gonna get some air.” I let my hand linger on his shoulder as I start to walk away, trying to calculate how fast I can make it to the nearest place with fresh air without tripping over my own feet.
“Don’t get lost.” Michael laughs, joking like he has to watch out for me and I can't take care of myself.
I smile, trying not to resent it and laugh it off like I'm not bothered. “I’ll try.”
I have to push through the groups of people talking and smoking and drinking until I find a balcony that leads outside, stumbling into the fresh air.
But the second the night air hits my face, I feel like I’m being shocked into cold water, seeing the face of the person who I most and least want to see.
His back is facing me and black sweatshirt makes him look more relaxed than I usually see him. But the silhouette of his clenched jaw is ever-present against the dark, turned to the side, looking but not looking.
Luke.
Luke, Luke, Luke. A thousand times over.
I almost backtrack and leave just as quickly as I appeared, but he doesn’t do anything to show that he’s fazed in the least so I silently lean against the railing.
The last time I went to get some air at a party it was on the balcony of a sky-rise penthouse, but this time it’s lower to the ground and the row of brownstones is comforting almost. Feels more real.
And maybe it’s not just the brownstones that make me feel like that.
“I’m sorry.” I say quietly, almost like I’m hoping he won’t hear. I’m not even sure what I’m apologizing for – not kissing him, letting myself be so stupid, ever meeting him.
There’s a long pause before he answers. “Me too.” He sharply stubs out his cigarette and lets it fall to the ground.
“About what?” Just being near Luke makes my words more reckless, my everything more reckless.
“I’m sorry that you came tonight.”
I feel my cheeks heat up, my face stinging like I’ve just been slapped.
I take a deep breath and bite my lip until it hurts. “Are you ever really sorry about anything?”
Luke ignores me. “Why are you even here?”
I swallow back how hurt and confused I feel. “I came with someone. Ashton’s friend.” I leave out the fact that it’s Michael. I don’t really know what happened, and I shouldn’t know anything, but I leave out his name. Pause. “Luke, why are you like this?”
“Like what?” he scoffs.
“You’ve been horrible to me and you’ve never even tried to say sorry. Luke, it’s like it’s impossible for you to ever be sorry about anything. And then when you show up at my doorstep in the middle of the night, you expect me to bandage you up and kiss you?” I’m so angry and I hate that I’m starting to cry out of how angry I am. I wish I could be strong like Emily or my mother but I’m falling apart.
“Well, you’re the one making yourself available.” Luke hasn’t even turned around to face me. “And what makes you think I even care about you?”
“You’re disgusting.” I want to tell myself that I know what he’s saying isn’t true, but I can’t.
Luke towers over me, even when slouched down and even without the height difference, I feel smaller than I’ve ever felt before. He peers back to look down at me and the circles around his eyes are dark, the whites looking red and rimmed and the blue irises, cold and cruel.
“I hate that you do this to me,” I whisper.
“Me too,” he says, looking straight ahead.
“Mia, go home.”
“Oh right, because ‘I don’t belong at these parties?’”
Luke turns around, his eyes piercing with anger like he's fed up. “You don’t. Fucking hell, Mia. You don’t. You’re better than parties like the ones I throw. You don’t belong at parties with empty people and drugs and people who don’t really give a fuck about you. You’re better than all of that.”
Each word hits me straight into the chest and I can feel the wind being knocked out of me.
“And I wish I could show up at your doorstep and that whatever the fuck this is could work out, but that’s not going to happen and it never will.”
I need something to hold onto. “So if you want this to stop then stop toying with me! Don’t show up at my doorstep and expect things to be fine and then treat me like I’m nothing later. Luke, you can’t have both, and I...I can’t take it.”
My voice breaks and my hands are shaking and I’m bubbling up into tears, spilling over the sides and not able to contain what I’ve been holding back.
Luke’s face softens when I start to cry and he steps forward and holds me and I can tell that this is as much emotion from him that I’ll get. His arms are strong and I’m nearly breaking into my hands, but he doesn’t say anything. He just holds me until it doesn’t feel like I’m drowning so much anymore.
“We can’t do this anymore,” I say, and I’m not sure if I mean we can’t keep pretending to stop this or if I mean we can’t keep ending up like this, in each others arms. Maybe I mean both. I compose myself and wipe the tears under my eyes; erasing the evidence of the first cry I’ve let myself have in weeks.
But I hate being like this and feeling like this so I lift up my head and take a deep breath, before standing beside him, both of us looking out at the street below.
The calm after the storm.
“We can’t do this anymore. We need to both just forget anything happened. Forget about each other.”
He looks straight ahead. “I can’t do that.”
I take a deep breath, but it’s shaky and I can feel myself shivering in the cold night air.
His jaw tightens and he lights another cigarette, filling the silence with the snap of a lighter and the flame before speaking. “Will you forget me?”
“I can’t.”
I look over at him and he’s already looking at me, neither of us saying anything.
“Mia?”
It feels like I’m shocked back to reality as the door leading to the balcony opens and Michael’s standing in front of the door, the sound startling me and making me turn back quickly.
“Let’s….uh….Let’s go.” Luke turns around and they both - Michael and Luke - look angry.
I don’t say anything, just silently follow him, like I’m suddenly a different girl. The quiet type of girl who doesn’t say anything, just goes along with Michael and leaves the party because he’s leaving too. More of his shadow than an actual person.
Luke turns back around, his jaw clenched and takes another puff of his cigarette as Michael rests his hand behind my back and leads me out. We’re out the door before I know it and the image of Luke burns in my mind just like the butt of his cigarette burned in the night.
I didn’t even say goodbye.
***
hope this slightly longer chapter makes up for the wait. plenty of mia and luke drama this time around! let me know what you think!
calumtea.tumblr.com