Author: Rhine
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He twiddles the ring around in his fingers, head stooped low. The diamond catches the light of the ceiling and it seems to sparkle despite the dim lighting of the dressing room.
It still wasn’t as bright as your smile.
Luke takes heavy breaths, trying to control himself at the thought of you. Of your light laughter, of the feeling of you in his arms, of the taste of your lips pressed to his own -
- of your sweet voice, and the crushing feeling that followed after you said those words in that angelic voice of yours.
I think we should split up, Luke.
It might’ve been selfish, but the only thing he wanted to hear your voice saying was I love you and his name and sweet nothings mumbled in a sleep-riddled tone at three in the morning with you in his arms.
Anything but those words, those words that ripped his heart out and left him numb, dazed, broken.
And the obvious question that followed that static-ridden phone conversation was why, and Luke thinks he remembers hearing your voice hitch on the other end of the phone, though it might’ve just been nothing more than his hopeful imagination.
This just isn’t working.
We could make it work, he had thought.
The distance is keeping us apart.
But you’re always in my heart, he had thought.
I can’t keep going on like this anymore.
Just hold on for a little longer, he had thought.
I’m tired of being alone.
I’ll make you mine and you won’t ever have to be alone again, he had thought.
Luke listened as your voice wobbled on the phone - that’s not the angel that I know - listened as you took apart his heart, one shard at a time.
His mind had raced with excuses and pleads, but his mouth merely gapes open, trying to breathe in air as you tore him apart from the inside out.
He stood there long after the line went dead, the monotone line of the phone sounding like a final signal for the death of what you two had, of his broken heart.
He was so stupid, for not chasing after you, for not saying a word, for letting you go.
For not telling you he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you then and there, romantic proposal be damned.
He should’ve blurted out his feelings for you - the butterflies and the sparks of euphoria and the warmth - and it would’ve come out in bits and pieces and in the wrong order with words tumbling like a waterfall then stopping in all the wrong places - but at least you would’ve known.
At least you would’ve known, or at least somewhat understood how Luke felt for you.
Like how being next to you felt like flying and falling at the same time; like how being apart felt like being severed into bits.
Like how you were his everything. Like how he would’ve given you anything.
But instead, Luke was left with a dead line and a diamond ring that would never go on your finger; with a ghost of a smile and photographs of a girl that he loved but let slip through his fingers.
Luke clenches the ring in his fist, the sharp rock pressing in his skin hard enough to leave a mark.
He chokes back a sob, a strangled sound leaving his throat.
You would’ve loved the ring.
He would’ve loved you for a lifetime.
But it was too late for the two of you now.