"It ain't funny, it ain't pretty, it ain't sweet

Oh, and I'm afraid that's just the way the world works

But I think that it could work for you and me

Just wait and see"

✰

Luke had gone too far.

Arlo hadn't spoken to him in days and he was almost positive he knew why. He hoped he was wrong- he would give anything in the fucking world to be wrong because accepting what he'd done would eat him alive with guilt.

After their moment in the bookstore, the rest of the night was fine, perfect even. She took a shower and fell asleep in his arms as he whispered things he couldn't even bring himself to repeat in her ear. She was happy and giggling and their connection seemed to be a million times stronger.

Luke had been replaying that moment over in his head for days now, every word he said, every gasp and whine that fell from her lips, the way she felt as she trembled on top of him- it was perfection to him.

But as time went on without a response from his girl, Luke began replaying that moment for an entirely different reason. He was cursing himself because he had to have gone too far. It was her first time doing anything of the sort and he hadn't been careful enough. Hell, he didn't even ease her into it.

Of course, Luke thought he'd been gentle. He was always gentle with his girl, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her or push her too far.

As Luke sits at the wooden table in the front of the bookstore, a mug of coffee in his hands, he realizes that maybe his definition of gentle and hers were entirely different. The thought was eating him alive from the inside out, making him sick to his stomach as his coffee runs cold.

It was well past midnight but the boy couldn't sleep. His thoughts were haunting him, the possibility that he'd ruined the one good thing in his life too daunting to push aside.

He wasn't trying to make excuses, not in the slightest, but in Luke's defense Molly wasn't exactly gentle with him and he learned everything he knew from her. Molly liked it rough so Luke learned to bruise her hips with the force of his thrusts. Molly liked when he whispered brazen words in her ear, so he did.

Everything Luke had done with Molly was because he felt obligated to. He knew he was young, but he figured if a pretty girl who was older than him wanted anything to do with him, he wasn't supposed to say no.

Luke had carried the weight of that for years- hell, it had taken him years just to come to terms with the realization.

He never wanted Arlo to feel that way- like she should do something with him just because they were together. Luke would never touch her again if it meant that she could avoid ever feeling sick to her stomach the way he had when he was younger.

Luke had tried his damndest to be the best he could for Arlo, but just as his parents had told him several times before- his best just wasn't good enough.

As terrified as Luke was that he had hurt her in some way, he was equally as terrified on where to go from now on. Luke used his touch and his affection to express himself. It wasn't conventional, especially because Arlo was the type to use her words, but it was all he knew.

After nearly the third sleepless night, Luke mutters a "fuck it" under his breath and throws on an old hoodie, the same one that she'd slept in the last time she was in the bookstore. It still smelled like her perfume and the shampoo she used and Luke couldn't tell if it comforted him or taunted him.

He walks to her house in the middle of the night, not at all caring about the way his muscles protest or how his eyes burn from lack of sleep. Luke stands in her yard just as he had weeks before and picks up a handful of pebbles from her garden.

Unlike the last time, practically seconds after the first rock hits her windowpane, the girl's window flies open. Arlo's face is frantic and Luke watches as she hastily looks over her shoulder. "Luke? What are you doing?"

"Can I come up?" He asks, vulnerability dripping from his tone. He was prepared for her to say no, to tell him to go home and never come back.

He can barely make out the expression on her face as she braces her arms against the window. "My parents are home, I really don't think-"

"I'll be quiet." Luke's voice is pleading as he quickly scans over the rest of his house with his eyes, ensuring that none of the lights had flicked on since he'd arrived. "Please. I need to talk to you, Lo."

The girl debates for a moment, tossing her options around in her mind before she nods. "Only for a little bit." Arlo says. "How are you going to get up? You can't come through the front."

Luke looks around, finding absolutely nothing to help him out. He was expecting to just walk through the front door as he did last time considering the girl hadn't said anything about her parents coming back from their business trip. Then again, she hadn't said much of anything to him lately.

If Luke had any idea what his poor girl had gone through in the last few days, he would have been at her house much, much sooner.

The day after Arlo spent the night at the bookstore, Luke walked her home and kissed her goodbye. Her parents usually parked in the garage so she had no idea that they were home as she bounded up the stairs of her porch, a lovesick smile on her face.

Arlo was greeted by her father with a giant hug, his familiar cologne nearly causing the girl to tear up. Arlo had always been close with her father, but due to his job, he was always gone. Her father asked her about the boy who kissed her goodbye and Arlo's cheeks flushed as she told him all about Luke.

Her father was in the middle of telling her how happy he was that she'd found someone who treated her as good as Luke seemed to when Arlo noticed a fading bruise on his cheekbone. It was obvious that he'd tried to cover it up by wearing a ball cap, but it was no use. The mark was too big.

She worriedly asked her father where the bruise had come from to which he told her that he fell off of a jet ski while on vacation. "I just hit the water a little too hard." He'd waved her off before redirecting the conversation back to Luke.

"I always thought you'd end up with that neighbor boy." Her father had smiled as he sat at the kitchen table with her, sharing a box of expensive foreign chocolate that he'd brought her home from their last trip. "What's his name? Caleb?"

"Calum." Arlo corrected with a giggle, memories of her weekend in the city flashing in her mind. She missed Luke already but having her parents home filled that gap. "No, we're not together, but he is one of my best friends." She corrected.

Arlo tells her father everything he missed from the new books she read to how she was positive that her best friends were about to become the biggest rockstars in the world. Halfway through her story about helping the boys write a song, her mother comes downstairs.

If Arlo wasn't so excited to see her mom, she would have noticed how her dad scowled at the woman, leaving the room as soon as she arrived.

Arlo had just run upstairs to get her phone off of the charger when the yelling began. She'd heard it before, causing her to freeze halfway up the stairs. Her parents had always fought, but she assumed that was normal. They loved each other and if they didn't they'd get a divorce, she assumed.

What Arlo didn't know is that her father had tried his damndest to keep her away from the fighting he did with her mother. They fought constantly on their business trips out of the country, but when they came home for a week or so at a time, he made sure that they were picture perfect for her.

Her father didn't want to ruin the ideology of love for his little girl, for he knew she had so much of it to give.

Twenty minutes before Luke arrived in her yard, Arlo was on her way downstairs to ask her father if he wanted to listen to her vinyl records with her like they usually did. She wanted to show him the pictures of her, Luke, and the boys from the city too.

Due to the size of the house and the thick wood of her bedroom door, Arlo didn't realize they were fighting until she began walking down the stairs. She was halfway down the stairs when she saw her mother backhand her father, causing their yelling to intensify.

It took her five minutes to move, too stunned by what she saw to do anything but stare in horror. Arlo and her mother weren't as close as she and her father were, but the girl still loved her mother. It destroyed her to see the other side of herself her mother had been hiding from her, but it destroyed her more to watch her father be hurt like that.

After her mother raised her hand at him, her father barely even reacted. The man merely clenched his jaw before whispering harshly. "Don't wake Arlo up."

The girl was distraught, stumbling up to her room as her chest heaved. It stung harsher than she could describe, watching her whole life which was seemingly picture-perfect and full of colorful love, fade to grey. Her parents had done such a good job at hiding that she almost wished she knew all along, rather than living ignorantly in bliss.

"I'll come down to you." Arlo whispers down to Luke, not giving him a chance to respond before she closes her window again.

The girl does her best to wipe the tear stains from her cheeks, pressing her fingertips to her puffy under eyes and cursing as she realizes how swollen the tender skin feels from crying for so long. She throws on a hoodie and flips the hood over her head, pulling a beanie on as well in hopes to hide her disheveled state.

She's not worried about being silent as she walks out of the front door- she was eighteen and her parents weren't strict anyway. In fact, they were probably already asleep.

As Arlo approaches Luke, she takes the boy completely off guard by throwing her arms around him. Her boy freezes in shock as she practically sinks against his body, her head laying against his chest.

It takes a moment for Luke to hug her back, purely because he hadn't expected her to want his touch, let alone be the one to make the first move. He was prepared to plead for her forgiveness, apologizing until she knew how sorry he was.

"What's wrong, Lo?" Luke asks, his brows furrowed. It was too dark to see her expression, especially with her head tucked against his chest but he could feel something off about her.

"I don't wanna talk about it right now." She says, her voice muffled against his shirt. "I just wanna leave."

"Okay. Let's go, baby." Luke says instantly. He would push his own fears aside for her. She seemed to need his comfort more than his apologies at the moment.

Luke keeps her close as he leads them down the street towards the bookstore. For the entire walk, his head is spinning as he goes through a million different scenarios in his mind. Did she regret what they'd done? Did she not want her parents finding out about them? Was she done with the band?

It's not until Luke sees her face in the dim lighting of the bookstore that he really begins to panic. He'd just shut the door and locked it, before turning on the string lights he'd installed just for her.

Arlo's nose was red, her under eyes swollen and the skin of her cheeks raw and stained with tears. The slight makeup she'd been wearing was smudged under her eyes, the whites of her eyes bloodshot.

"Tell me what happened." Luke blurts out, his voice low.

It wasn't the best approach by any means, but Luke wasn't very good with words after all. All the boy knew was that his girl was hurt and he didn't know who'd done it. He didn't know the severity of the situation or have a clue as to what happened but that didn't matter.

What mattered was that Arlo, the girl who seemed to be the physical embodiment of sunshine, was crying and he didn't know why. Luke didn't think he'd ever seen her without a smile on her face and that alone filled his chest with anxiety.

Arlo's bottom lip trembles as Luke's hands cup her cheeks, his eyes holding so much concern that she nearly breaks all over again. "Nothing makes sense anymore."

Luke's heart breaks for her as her eyes brim with tears. He pulls the girl into his chest, holding her tight and squeezing his eyes shut because seeing her so hurt makes him feel sick. More than anything, he was cursing himself because he wanted to help her, but the only way he knew how wasn't what she needed.

"What do you need?" Luke asks desperately. "What can I do?"

Arlo sniffles, fisting the fabric of his hoodie in her hands in an effort to ground herself. "I just want to lay down." She says quietly.

"Okay." Luke nods, hesitantly running his hands up and down her back. "Let's go to bed."

As Luke flips off the lights in the front of the store and leads her back to his room, he feels the selfish urge to get something of his own off of his chest. He needed to know if they were okay just as much as he needed to know what happened to make her so upset.

He figured that if he was the reason for her tears, she wouldn't have practically fled her house. But still, was he allowed to touch her like he usually did? Could he even kiss her? After the moment he shared he felt a million times closer to her, but further away all at once. He needed to know what was going through her mind.

It's silent between the two of them as Arlo kicks off her sweatpants, leaving her in nothing but an oversized t-shirt of his. Luke swallows thickly, trying to ignore how the smooth skin of her thighs feels against his skin.

Unsure of what boundaries she'd put up, Luke doesn't bother taking off his hoodie, no matter how hot he was getting. He wasn't going to lay next to her in his boxers and risk making her uncomfortable.

Arlo frowns as he keeps his hoodie on. One of her favorite things was feeling his skin against hers. It comforted her, reminding her that he was there. It made her feel connected to him, in a way. "Are you cold?" She asks.

"No." Luke turns on his side to face her, the action being difficult with how small the bed is.

"Why is your hoodie on then?" Arlo takes her bottom lip between her teeth, too nervous to say what she really wanted to.

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable." Luke says quietly, his blue eyes shining with vulnerability.

Arlo's brows furrow in confusion. "I'm never uncomfortable around you, Lu. I like it better when you're close to me."

At her words, Luke's chest sags in relief, insecurity rolling off of his shoulders in waves. He was terrified for days that the girl would never speak to him again, that he'd done irreversible damage. But things seemed normal, or as normal as they could be with her cheeks still stained with tears.

Luke sits up just enough to strip off his hoodie, though before he can lay back down, Arlo stops him with a gentle hand on his arm. The boy freezes, his eyes snapping over to her.

Arlo's cheeks are flushed as she fiddles with her fingers, an unsure look plastered on her face. "Can I hold you?" Her gentle words shock him to his very core, causing Luke's eyes to bulge out of his head.

As quickly as the bewildered look crosses his face, Luke wipes it away. He could tell that she was asking him out of a place of need, and he wouldn't make her feel hesitant to ask him. So, Luke merely nods and adjusts his body to hover over her.

Carefully, as if to not put too much of his weight on the small girl, Luke lays his head on her chest. She adjusts herself shyly, making room for him to lay in-between her parted legs. A sigh of contentment leaves both of them as Luke curls into her body, her hands in his hair and his holding her body tight to his.

"Thank you." Her voice is barely a whisper.

Arlo needed this. She needed to hold Luke with the care in which she wished her mother had for her father. She needed to remind herself that love did exist in the world, that just because her parents weren't who she thought they were, didn't mean her relationship with Luke was the same.

Arlo needed to take care of Luke and Luke needed to be shown genuine affection more than he could come to terms with.

It's silent for a while, both of them taking in the feel of one another. After half an hour or so, Luke speaks softly. "Did I hurt you? After what we did you... do you regret it?" His stomach flips as he waits for a response.

"What?" Arlo's shocked voice echoes through the small room. "Why would you say that? Of course not."

Luke swallows thickly, holding her tighter. "If I did, I want you to tell me, Arlo." His chest burns with anticipation. "You know I would never hurt you purposefully, but this whole thing- relationships and caring about someone- it's all new to me and I swear I fucking tried my best but-"

"Luke." Arlo takes his head in her hands, urging him to look up at her. He does, his blue eyes unsure and nervous. "I trust you, remember? Trusting you means that if you made me uncomfortable I know I could tell you."

"But-" He begins, only for her to swiftly cut him off.

"Everything was perfect, Lu. I wouldn't change a single thing." Arlo reassures him. "I swear I haven't stopped thinking about it."

Luke's eyes widen at this, his throat bobbing as he swallows thickly. The idea that she'd replayed their moment over and over in her head just as he had in his, made his stomach flip. "Okay." Luke spits out eventually, doing his best to calm his rapidly breathing heart.

Regardless of the fact that she had reassured him, Luke makes a promise to himself that if she gave him the privilege of sharing another moment like that with her again, he'll be as gentle as possible. He didn't quite know how, but he would figure it out. For her.

"Luke?"

"Arlo." He hums in response, his eyes fluttering shut as he borders on the verge of sleep.

He feels her exhale shakily beneath him. "Do you believe in love?" Her voice is hesitant, almost as if she's scared to hear his answer.

Luke stills, his grip tightening around her. "I do."

Arlo stares at the ceiling, her chest feeling tight. Flashes of her childhood play in her mind, all of those memories seemingly tainted now. "How? I want to believe in love too but I don't think there's an ounce of untainted love left in the world. Maybe it never even existed, to begin with? I don't know."

Luke's chest aches for the girl beneath him. Arlo was full of love, she was the type of girl who was made for loving people. It seemed like a crime for her to lose faith in such a thing. Especially, when Luke knew he had already fallen for her.

"It's out there, Lo." Luke says quietly. "You've just gotta look close enough."