Shining Through the Shadow of a Star

Kevin's hand in mine, we were roaming the streets of Los Angeles one by one. I knew where this was leading us but I wasn’t exactly ready to face anyone, even though I had no reason as to why not.

I had just seen my boyfriend –might as well call him ex-boyfriend now- Luke lip locking with Melina, a girl that I introduced him to her. But I did see it coming, or something like that. I could feel the end to our relationship being close ever since I agreed to be his girlfriend. And Claire and Jordan kept telling me this but I'm not one to blame. I remember the scene like it was a few minutes ago.

"Lauren, sweetheart, you don't want to go there. Trust me." Claire had said. It was obvious that she knew something and I didn’t, both of them did. But it wasn’t of them to keep things from me like this.

"But why? Ok, just give me a reason and I will end it, I promise." I told her. Jordan was sitting on my bed, saying nothing. The only words I got out of her, other than the usual 'hey' when they came, were 'no' and 'way' put together.

"It's just…" Claire sighed. "I.. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy that you should be with. You can see it just by looking at him."

"Bullshit, you are hiding something!" this was the first time that I had raised my voice whilst talking with Claire. Neither Jordan nor I ever did. I was crying by now. "I just can't believe you would lie to me this way! You out of all people shouldn’t use this as a reliable reason; you are the one who taught me not to judge people and always give them second chances."

"Look Lauren, don't cry sweetie." She came over to hug me but I shook my shoulders making her arms fall easily. "You know that I know those people better than you do."

"And, you'd want to keep them for you isn’t that it." I spat. "Out, both of you go out." I opened the door of my room and pointed towards the hallway. "And I better never hear that you're contacting Luke in any way."

They did end up leaving, but they were so mad at me that they didn’t try to talk to me for a week and three days; instead, I was the one who called them and talked to them everywhere I could. They were so humiliated that I actually said what I did and that I could be this childish, Claire the most. And I did know why she was acting really against me dating Luke.

A few days after I had agreed to be his girlfriend and told Claire (which caused the argument), I got an anonymous call from someone telling me that I should come pick my boyfriend, who had passed out because of 'drinking too much' from a sidewalk near a bar in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t know quite what to do with that but I was surely not going on my own there. I had called Claire in hope to get her help but she wasn’t picking up. Bracing myself, I gathered all the courage in me and went knocking on Kieran's, my older brother, room.

"Kieran, can I please talk to you?"

"Sure, come on in sis." He said. I entered the room and he was sitting on his computer chair.

After explaining everything to him, I can't exactly say that he was going to help me nor that he was happy that I was dating an older guy who's also an alcoholic. I told him that I did not know he drank that much before that night and also promised him that I would break off things with him right after we bring him home safely. I also threw in how Claire and Jordan don't like him either and how they didn’t want me with him, thinking that it might help my case but it didn’t; I ended up being yelled at for not listening to my best friends, especially Claire seeing as my brother treats her like his sister too. But Kieran did take me to help Luke, who wasn’t thrown that far away from our house.

When we arrived there, we saw him laying in small puddle of blood with a busted lip and a bloody eye. It seemed to be more than passing out after drinking more than he was supposed to. He was beaten until what I thought was death back then.

We rushed him to the hospital and he was immediately taken into surgery, not being able to wait until we contacted his parents. His head was severely banged and beaten.

The blood tests that were done on him showed that not only was he drinking, but he also had been taking Heroin and Cocaine for a little over a year. I also learnt later from Claire, when we were back on speaking terms that that was why she didn’t want me with him.

He promised me to stop, and I really thought that he deserved a second chance. Love is really blind as they all say but I can't stop it, can I?

I was brought back from my thoughts by Kevin shaking me. "Lauren, Lauren, can you hear me?"

"Oh yeah sorry, I zoned out." I replied, chuckling a bit.

"Do you want to talk about what's on your mind maybe?" he asked with sympathy.

"Look, I don’t really know how to say it. Whenever I think back at it, it makes me feel like a huge idiot." I told him.

"Alright, whenever you want."

I looked around us to see that we were getting closer to Claire's home and also the house where all of Avenged Sevenfold live. They lived pretty close to each other in the orange county.

Tugging on Kevin's hand, I took him in a different than this one, leading us to the closest secluded beach. I was not going home just yet…