Burn it Down

~Luke's POV~

Tyler and I did go back for those dumb shits. We beat them so bad they needed to be put in the hospital, and like Megan said, I'd gone to jail. So did Tyler, but we managed to get into a "diversion program" and even though we were 18, the judge showed leniency since I explained why it was done. I got away with beating them, with nothing more than pussy probation. The 3 sets of parents were pissed, but so were Megan's for a different reason. While this case had gone to court, Megan's assault case was never tried.

I was pissed off about that myself, and I do mean pissed off. I boiled about the justice system inside, about how it wasn't fair that the law could protect these fucking losers who beat on a girl, but not me, when I punished them myself.

For a month now, Megan refused to look at me. Her and Tyler had become buddy buddy and that pissed me off because even Tiffany was nicer to Megan. I hated to say it, but they were so close I was beginning to think they'd had some sort of threesome and even though I left her for her own good, I took it into my head to be jealous of her. In my heart she was still mine and I loved her even more now that she would barely say 'hey' to me when she came up to talk to Tyler.

A week after I broke up with her, she stopped coming around Tyler if I was around. 2 weeks after I broke up with her, she got a job, and by the end of that month, she had new shit.

Tyler had since seemed to lose interest in me and I was alone except for when I saw him at work. He never talked about Megan even when I purposely asked about her. I knew she did this to show me how it felt. She took my friends from me to show me how alone she felt. Since I was so alone, I headed to the mall one day, looking for a particular pair of shoes. I had gone to 3 stores in this mall already and I headed to the last one before I decided I'd go somewhere else.

On my way into the store I stopped when I heard Megan's distinctive cackle. I'd recognize it anywhere because I always wanted to laugh at it. I looked around for a bit, trying to find where I heard it from. Finally, turning down a small hall, I found them, sitting on a bench, licking ice cream cones.

"Hey guys." I said as I walked up. Tiffany and Tyler got really silent as if they were waiting for Megan to transform into a bomb and explode at my presence.

"Hey man." Tyler said, looking at me like I was a stranger. "What's up?"

I turned to Megan, whose face had healed considerably. "How are you?"

She looked at Tiffany and Tyler then back at me, licking her ice cream gone and tilting her head to the side. "Do you care?"

My face dropped suddenly, as if she shot me through the chest with an arrow.

"Do I care?" I recoiled. "Of course I fucking care! You're the one who went away! I only did what I did so that people would leave you alone and not hurt you! They hurt you to hurt me and that's not fair to you! But you got mad at me and you took my only other friend. I know you felt hurt but I didn't mean to hurt you. I just wanted to help."

Megan's eyes darkened and glossed over and she brought her ice cream cone closer to her body. Tiffany looked up at me then back at Megan, bracing for the inevitable, but I didn't care that Megan was going to cry right now.

"I didn't leave because I didn't love you, I left because I do love you. I left so that people wouldn't kick the shit out of you." I took a breath and Tyler interceded.

"Luke, I think that's enough."

I held my finger out to him for him to shut the fuck up. "No. You were right, Megan. I know you heard we went to jail for it. I know you heard that, and I'd do it again because you are so worth that. But if me caring about what people do to you makes you hate me, then so be it. Because I won't stop caring about what happens to you and how people treat you."

By this point I was way too loud and attracting a small crowd, which made Megan blush. She was silently crying and I could tell she wanted to leave because she was eyeing the end of the hallway towards the door.

I dropped to one knee in front of her. "Megan. Look at me." I begged her. She didn't. "Megan, please." Again, I pleaded with her, but she didn't look at me. "Okay, fine." I began. "Do you remember the first day I met you, how much you cared what happened to me? When those meatheads shoved us into the locker and they cracked my head open. Which gave me the scar you always touch when I'd lay in bed with you. Do you remember how much you cared then? I care a hundred times more than that for you now."

Everyone stared for a long time and Megan's ice cream had started to drip down her fingers.

"This was for your good." I told her quietly.

That seemed to piss her off because she crushed her ice cream, stood up and threw it on the ground.

"I'll tell myself that, Luke. I'll tell myself that every night when I'm crying myself to sleep over you. I'll tell myself that when I can't even pass the pictures of us hanging in my house without wanting your whole existence wiped from my memory because it hurts so much. I'll tell myself that. That it was for my good." And as she finished she stormed out.

I went to follow her, my longer legs keeping even pace with her. I went to grab her shoulder to stop her, but she swiveled away from me.

"No, Luke." She said, closing her eyes, digging her car keys out of her pocket. I tried to reach for her hand. "NO!" She stopped, shoving me back. "Leave me alone. You've done enough."

We were in the parking lot now, and she started to shiver in the cold air. I had really fucked up.

I followed her to her car and I sat there as she got in and pulled away as fast as she could.

I didn't even go back for the shoes, I just went home. I went home and stomped up the stairs to my bed.

"Luke!" I heard my mom call after me. "Did you talk to Megan? What's wrong?"

"Fuck off!" I yelled at her.

"Don't talk to me like that!" My mom huffed behind me.

"I'll do whatever the fuck I want, bitch." I whipped around the banister and ended up in my room, slamming and locking the door behind me.

I sat on my bed in my small room and pulled out Megan's drawer and went through her things. Just touching them.

I missed her. I saw her every day and I missed her. There had been no massacre talk since I'd left her, but when she wasn't there, it was all I wanted to do. She kept me together as much as I guessed I could be kept together. I loved her so much.

I did something lame and rubbed her favorite white pajama shirt on my face and laid down and for the first time in a long time, I cried. I tried not to soak the shirt, but I could barely focus on anything other than not choking on my own snot. I didn't cry often and when I did it was bad.

The next thing I remembered was waking up to my bed vibrating with a call. I picked my phone up. It was Tyler's number.

"Hello?" I asked carefully and groggily.

"Luke, will you come get me?" To my surprise, it wasn't Tyler. It was Megan.

"Where are you?" I shot up immediately, putting my shoes on and looking around for my keys.

"You know the one abandoned house in Littleton? The one..." she was slurring words together, and kind of moaning, then laughing at herself.

"Yeah, I know the one." That was our spot. It was some abandoned house. It was in the back of some older neighborhood, off like a trail. It was clean, and had an old couch, but it smelled of pot and beer vomit. All the kids snuck into it on the weekends to smoke pot and drink.

"Luke...please hurry. Run down to my house. The spare key to my car is..." She trailed off then started laughing again, but then she started crying.

"Megan, sweetie, where is the key and I'll come get you." I didn't know what kind of drugs she was on, but I knew she was on some.

"There's a rock...under my stairs. My front steps...it's not a rock." She laughed.

"Stay on the phone with me, please. Will you do that for me?"

"Yes." She said. She grew quiet. "I'm scared." She whispered.

"Why are you scared, love?" I asked her to keep her talking while I about flew down my stairs and out my front door, bolting into a sprint down the street to get to her house.

"There's a man here. He's very tall. He goes to the ceiling and his face is messed up. His hands are on fire. He wants to hurt me."

"Nobody is going to hurt you, Megan." I said, jogging up her driveway and up by her stairs. I looked for a rock that wasn't a rock. I found it and flipped it upside down, opening the hidden compartment and ripping the key out before unlocking Megan's mustang and starting the ignition before I even sat down. I tried to not peel out of there in case Megan's parents heard me and woke up to find their daughter's car gone.

"I miss you. Please come. Please come get me. The man on fire is gone. But he might come back."

"I'm coming sweetheart, I'm in your car now, I'm about to get on the freeway and I'm going to go like a hundred and twenty until I get to you. Where is Tyler?"

"He and Tiffany started getting naked and wanted me to join them but when I said no and that I needed their help to find my hands they left. I don't know. I can't find them anywhere. Help me. Will you help me look for them?"

"I'll help you look for them, sweetheart. Did they just leave you there?" It was clear to me they had all decided to take an acid trip and had left her alone. I couldn't even believe it right now.

"Yeah. The car is gone." she got quiet again. "Luke?"

"Yeah?" I responded, flooring it as fast as I could on the freeway. I was already nearly there.

"Do you remember the first time we had sex and you asked me to be your girlfriend?"

I sighed at the memory. I cherished that one more than most people would ever know. "I do."

"I feel like I'm there again, except you're not here. Where are you? Where are my hands? I still haven't found them."

"Honey, they're still there. How could you dial a phone without them."

"Oh yeah." She giggled. "There they a--no, you go away!" She started one sentence and finished another.

"Baby, what is it? Talk to me."

"The weird guy is back."

"Is he?"

"Yeah, hold on he's trying to talk to me."

I sighed and listened to what I expected to be her talking to herself, but when I heard a voice respond I shifted gears and flew even faster down that freeway until I hit the exit I wanted. I was sure someone would think I was drunk, but I didn't know who was with Megan right now.