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It’s only human to wish you looked different or could fix something about yourself. Michael would change a lot about himself if he was given the chance too. He watches Luke change and he doesn’t know what to do.
Michael knew Luke had an issue about his weight. That he was chubby growing up and was teased because of that. He didn’t know it would get this bad though. Luke was thin, he was healthy, and Michael knew this. Luke didn’t need to lose any weight, he really didn’t.
The first time Michael suspected something was when Luke decided to cut out fast food from his diet. It was a good idea, they should all cut fast food out of all their diets but it was hard maintaining a good diet whilst touring. He didn’t really think much of it because it was fast food.
He was concerned when he walked in on Luke reading the backs of food packages, looking at how many calories would be in his meals. He carried this little notebook with him, he’d always write in it before sitting down for dinner. He never missed a day.
Luke lied a lot as well.
“My stomach hurts”
“I had a big lunch”
“Bit bus sick”
“I’m not hungry”
Michael thinks the time where everything was clicking into place was when he caught Luke weighing himself. Luke was the only person on the bus and Michael was walking back from going to a video game shop and Luke was there in the bathroom weighing himself.
And fuck how did he get so skinny in such a short amount of time? He could see slight bumps from his spine sticking through his skin and it wasn’t that noticeable yet but it was still slightly visible.
Luke started cooking for them as well. Mainly breakfasts and even Ashton and Calum were weirded out that he was doing this. Michael knew he didn’t eat any of the food he cooked. He didn’t say anything and looking back at it now, he really should have. Ashton and Calum were oblivious to what Luke was doing but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He wishes he did.
Luke did not eat in public. This wasn’t new, he rarely ate in public. He’s been like that for ages. He thought it was a weird Luke quirk. Even when the band was YouTube based and they’d leave band practice early and go to McDonald’s, Luke would eat a few chips but never actually order anything for himself. It was just Luke being Luke and it was normal for them.
He remembers when a fan directly praised Luke for something about his body. His thigh gap. And Luke looked so confused because he did not have a thigh gap. But he smiled anyway and said “My thigh gap?” and following it up when a marriage proposal happened with “you only want me for my thigh gap”
But Luke did have a thigh gap, he didn’t have one just a few months ago. And that terrified Michael because he’s losing so much weight, so rapidly that he couldn’t keep up.
Luke always wore skinny jeans, always. They were baggier now. Around his thighs especially. And he would wear baggier shirts and Michael knew, he knew that Luke was hiding his body. The stylists were concerned, how he dropped two sizes in a matter of a week and a half. And Luke looked happy when they told him that. And Michael saw him write in that stupid journal of his and he needed to see that journal.
Luke was cold nearly all the time now. And they were in fucking America where it was summer and he was wearing long sleeves and hoodies nearly all the time. Ashton and Calum were questioning Luke but he would either shrug or ignore the question all together.
And Michael accidentally walked in on him weighing himself, he really didn’t mean too, the door was unlocked. And he saw Luke and he was only in his boxers and he could see all the bumps of his spine sticking out of his skin, all the bones in his arms and the backs of his legs. His thigh gap being bigger than the last time he saw it. And it was so scary. And he didn’t say anything but he was so scared.
He searched for things on Twitter. The fans are really observant, they had to know something was up. And he typed in things like ‘Luke eating disorder’ ‘Luke Hemmings anorexia’ ‘Luke skinny’ and all these tweets came up and the fans saw he wasn’t okay.
And he really fucking wasn’t. He really wasn’t.
Luke left his journal on his bed while he went out with Ashton. Michael read it. He read every page. It was sickening, he didn’t know. The worst part was that each entry was titled, some entries were only a sentence long, but they dated as far back as 2011, when he was 15.
Entries had lists that showed all the food he ate that day, the days that didn’t have food lists showed those were the days he didn’t eat at all. And as Michael flipped through it, the days that had no food lists got closer and closer together until he saw the most recent one. Luke hadn’t eaten for 6 days.
They had weekly weigh ins too. And Luke was 6’4. He weighed under 50 kilos and the healthy weight for someone of his height and age is 95 kilos.
Luke really, really wasn’t okay. And Luke thinks he’s okay, he thinks he’s fat but he isn’t. And Michael finally confronted him when he got back and Luke was so angry, so fucking angry that Michael read his journal.
And Michael was crying and yelling because Luke was killing himself and that this wasn’t normal and he wasn’t healthy and he was too skinny and Luke was yelling back and his face was red and he shoved Michael so hard that he hit the bunks opposite them which caused Calum and Ashton to come see what the fuss was about.
And they were shouting all at once, Michael about how Luke needs help and he’s fucking killing himself and Luke saying he was just on a little diet and it was so bad because Luke couldn’t see what was happening to him.
Luke refused to talk to Michael. Didn’t talk to him at all. Not in interviews, not on stage, not on the bus.
Luke didn’t even look at him if he could help it.
And Michael was so fucking sad because he’s liked Luke for such a long time and his love for Luke didn’t help Luke get better and he fucking should have said something at the very start but he didn’t and Luke fucking died.
Luke Hemmings died of anorexia at the age of 19.
He had a heart attack in his sleep. They were too heavy in sleep to hear his gasps.
And Michael woke up and walked to the kitchen and he didn’t check if anyone else was awake first and he expected to see Luke making breakfast like he did before but he wasn’t. And he felt off so he went to look for Luke. And he wasn’t in the bathroom, the scales were out though, he must have weighed himself in the middle of the night. And he wasn’t in the back so that only left his bunk and he was there and it honestly looked like he was sleeping.
But Michael looked at Luke’s sunken in face, how peaceful it looked and he looked at how the covers weren’t moving up and down. So he shakily put his hand up to Luke’s nose to see if he could feel the warm air but he couldn’t. And he just stared because his best friend, his crush is dead.
And then he screamed.
And it immediately woke Calum and Ashton up and they told him to shut up and he couldn’t form any words and he was crying and shaking and he saw Ashton creep out of the bunk above Luke and ask what was wrong.
But no words came out and he shakily pointed towards Luke and Ashton was confused because Luke was sleeping. And then Ashton’s breath caught and the tears started falling and soon he was standing there looking at Luke’s lifeless body as he held Michael. Calum joined them too and was too shocked to say anything.
Eventually they knew they had to tell people, they needed to get rid of Luke’s body. It hurt but they had to. And they called an ambulance and they took him away in a large, black body bag and none of them had stopped crying because Ashton and Calum didn’t know it was this bad and Michael cried harder when he realised he knew all along and could have stopped him earlier.
None of them touched Luke’s bunk. They couldn’t look at it. Ashton didn’t even sleep above it anymore. He couldn’t.
He remembers when they told the fans that Luke died. He explained everything on their Facebook page. Everyone cried. He cried. He never really stopped.
Kept having flashbacks of finding his body, he didn’t sleep much anymore, he still ate though. It traumatised him. Finding Luke’s body. It’s always replaying in his mind.
He found Luke’s journal though. It was at the very bottom of Michael’s suitcase. Luke must have put it there for Michael to find eventually.
Luke must have known he was dying. Why else would he have put the journal in Michael’s bag?
And he really didn’t want to open it but maybe Luke left something for Michael at the end of the journal.
He did.
In Luke’s writing, all shaky and uneven, going off the lines was three words that made him cry all over again.
You were right.