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The world was suddenly bleaker, like a washed out photograph from years before. The colors had drained, not worn from time, but forcibly faded by the erasive trudge of time.
The moments had spun by Alex in a fiery burst, too bright and jarring for him to keep up. It was like camera flashes and sun rays, blinding his eyes and leaving him blinking to clear them. But he couldn’t. For as blurry as the memories were, as frantic and scattered as they sat in his mind, there was one clear fact standing out from the rest. Luke had been stabbed...and he hadn’t made it.
The screams of the viewers in the stands echoes in his ears, blending into a sea of sound he couldn’t escape from. But above all else, he could still hear it. Alex could still hear Luke’s choppy breathing, his whimpers of pain as Alex had pressed harder down on the bleeding, trying to contain it. They stood out starkly against the background noise of chaos, but the words played on a loop, growing louder with each passing moment.
As Luke lay there, bleeding and shivering in his best friend’s arms, his eyes not nearly as bright as normal, he’d grated the words out, voice like gravel, “‘Lex… m’sorry...should listened to ya…”
Tears had dropped onto his too pale face and Alex had tried to shush him, asking him to save his energy. But it wasn’t just that. He didn’t want Luke to pass out and have those as his last words, his last thoughts. Alex wasn’t an optimist, never had been, but he’d still hoped enough that they wouldn’t be his last words.
Technically, they hadn’t. As Luke had drifted further from the land of consciousness, hand laid weakly over top of Alex’s bloodstained one, he’d whispered one more sentence, one last testament to who he was—who he had been. “Keep Reg safe, make sure Bobby doesn’t drink so much….an’ take care of you, ‘Lex...please.”
And then Luke had been whisked away by paramedics with strong hands and calm voices. Then he’d been dragged up by Flynn whose eyes were determined and calculated. She’d always done best thinking with her head when she needed to and though Alex could feel the emotions seeping from her skin, she kept a cool head and had all but carried Alex out of the building.
Alex didn’t remember the phone calls he’d made on the way, words robotic and empty leaving his mouth like a rehearsed speech. Maybe it’s because he’d made plenty of similar calls over the years. Luke had always been a hothead and when he’d gotten bad, fighting at least twice a week and often losing just to feel the pain bubble under his skin, Alex had been the one to call Reggie and Bobby and inform them of the damage, of what Luke had done to himself. Still, he’d never made a call like this. Never had to tell his other best friends that there was a chance Luke wouldn’t make. Then again, he hadn’t let himself believe there was a chance Luke wouldn’t make it.
He remembered Flynn’s hands, cold in his own, as she promised him it would be okay. He didn’t hold on to them, not like he would have if they were anyone else’s words. Deep down, he’d known, from the second he’d seen the glint of silver sneak out of Dante’s shorts. He’d known that Luke wouldn’t be able to dodge and he’d known that the chance of him making it out of this situation was slim to none.
Alex remembered Reggie holding on to Flynn’s words and Bobby’s soft assurances like a kid, trusting implicitly that Luke would be okay. He had to be okay. Simply because Flynn and Bobby, two people he trusted with his entire being, promised him so. But Alex didn’t have that comfort. Not when he could feel it inside of him.
Alex knew Luke better than anyone, just as Luke knew Alex better than anyone. Two halves of a whole star, Luke had joked once. “I got all the heat and fire and you got all the shattering, splintering, crashing down to earth.” It was a weak joke, made after another bad fight and another speech on Alex’s end, exhausted and fraught with worry over all that he had to try and hold together. But truer words had never been spoken about the pair.
And Alex may not be able to fully understand the fire in Luke’s belly and how it grew and sparked and swallowed him whole. He’d never felt the heat burn inside of him, but he had seen it. He’d seen the aftermath, the char and the scars that replaced Luke’s outbursts time after time. He’d seen it and he’d grown to understand what to do, what things were kindling, and how to cool Luke down before the fire ripped through like he was made of paper.
And sitting in a hard plastic chair at 7:33 on a Friday night, Alex felt the fire burn out. He felt the warmth leak from his skin, leaving him chilled to the very bone. Sinking into himself, he grasped on to the last shred of warmth he had for as long as he could, but it was only minutes later that he felt it extinguish itself in his heart, leaving on the smell of smoke and the sound of Luke’s words behind.
Alex didn’t hear Reggie’s sobs or Bobby’s fist hit the wall. He didn’t hear Flynn’s quiet cries or the door open. His eyes met Julie’s, a girl he’d known only in passing, and the message relayed between the two instantly. Her knuckles were bruised and her lip was busted, but whatever gratification she’d felt from the deed she’d just done was snuffed out with the flames of Luke. As tears cascaded down her cheeks, the truth drowned Alex. Luke Patterson was dead and he’d left behind everyone, including the two people he’d branded with his love.