"Didn't I do it for you?

Why don't I do it for you?

Why won't you do it for me?

When all I do is for you?

They want to see us, want to see us alone

They want to see us, want to see us apart"

✰

Luke feels like he's living in a nightmare.

He can't possibly be looking at his girl, Arlo, pinned against the wall kissing another man. There's no fucking way that his hand is on her thigh like that- the way he loved to do just to hear a pretty gasp fall from her lips.

What Luke hates the most is that he's only mad for a second. He feels one flash of red hot anger and before he knows it his hands are fisting the collar of the guy's shirt. Luke hears Arlo gasp, he hears her calling his name but none of it registers to his spinning mind as Luke pins the guy against the wall, seconds away from sending his knuckles straight into his jaw.

But then Arlo does this horribly awful thing. Her delicate hand tugs at the back of his white dress shirt as she turns him to face her. "It's not his fault. I wanted it."

And just like that, all of the anger seeps from his system like chalk on the sidewalk in a rainstorm. Luke physically feels himself deflate as pure heartbreak floods through his veins, knocking the breath out of his chest.

"What?" His voice is barely a whisper as he looks at Arlo in disbelief. This couldn't be happening, It wasn't her. Arlo would never, ever do something like this to him.

The girl who walked shyly into his bookstore, too nervous to even meet his eyes was not capable of cheating on him. The same girl who told him that what they had was forever, who slept on his chest every night and gently washed his hair for him after he'd had a long day in the studio.

Luke had not written an entire album of love songs for the same girl that had just broken his heart.

His head is spinning, his knees threatening to give out as the weight of the situation hits him. Hell, Luke can't even look at the club bathroom any longer, he can't be in the tight space with a bewildered man in the corner looking like the victim when Luke had just had his heart torn out of his chest.

"No." Luke shakes his head. "You're not doing this to me." He refuses lowly, his hand finding Arlo's wrist as he begins to tug her towards the door.

"Hey, man..." The guy who had just been all over Arlo begins, extending out a hand for her as he skeptically looks between the two of them. As far as Beckham knew, this guy was her ex and all she wanted was to get away from him.

"Don't fuckin' touch her." Luke spits lowly, not at all in the mood to have to deal with him. He was already resisting the urge to throw him against the wall and if he touched Arlo, Luke didn't think he could hold himself back. "I'll knock your goddamn teeth out."

Arlo's stomach is turning, the tone of his voice sending a chill down her spine. She doesn't know what to do. She didn't plan for Luke to want an explanation, she thought he'd storm out and be done with her.

As Luke turns on his heel and drags her through the club, Arlo can't even feel her legs moving. She can't feel anything but her heartbeat pounding in her ears as Luke walks right past the rest of the boys calling their names and leads them out a backdoor.

It's pouring outside.

In a matter of seconds, Arlo finds herself in a back alley behind the club, her skin drenched with rain immediately as Luke begins pacing, his hands tugging frustratingly at his hair. "Please, tell me that was a joke, Arlo."

Arlo bites down harshly on her bottom lip as tears leave her eyes, mixing with the rain. She'd broken her own heart too, and she feels like it must be her own sort of karma to be forced to watch Luke fall apart in front of her.

"Arlo, tell me you didn't fucking mean it." Luke pleads, tears running down his cheeks, his blue eyes wild. He strides towards her until her back hits the brick wall of the club, his hands on either side of her head. "Please, baby, tell me it was a mistake- tell me I saw wrong. Tell me I'm jumping to conclusions."

A near whimper leaves Arlo's lips as she pinches her eyes shut. "I don't want to be with you anymore, Luke."

Bile rises in her throat as the words leave her lips and she wishes more than anything that Luke would yell at her, scream at her, anything so she doesn't have to see him looking so devastated.

Luke wasn't mad, he was heartbroken. He loves her too much to hate her.

"What did I do wrong?" His voice is pleading. "I know the band takes up all of my time and I get home late but- What can I do? Arlo, you're not leaving me like this." Luke rambles frantically, his eyes searching her face desperately for answers.

Arlo wracks her mind for excuses, her bottom lip trembling as the smell of his cologne fills her senses, their lips only inches apart. "I can't be the girl that follows her boyfriend around." She lies through her teeth. "You're going to be touring for the rest of your life, Luke. You can't give me what I want and I can't follow you around and hold your suitcase forever. It was fun while it lasted-"

"Bullshit." Luke seethes, anger coursing through his veins. "I've never made you feel that way. I'd choose you over the band every fucking time. I wanted you before the goddamn band even existed so don't give me that bullshit excuse."

Luke shakes his head in disbelief, not even caring that tears spill rapidly down his cheeks. The rain disguised them anyway. "We were fine a couple of hours ago. What fucking happened-"

"I realized I'll never be able to love you."

Luke's entire body stills and he feels as though he can physically feel his heart split in two. His chest aches and he recoils away from her like she'd just slapped him in the face. It sure as hell felt like she had. "What?"

Arlo bites back a sob, digging her nails into her thighs just as she'd done back in the meeting. It reopened the old wound but she didn't care. "What I feel for you is purely physical, Luke." Arlo's voice wavers. "I'm sorry I didn't realize it sooner."

"You're lying." Luke wishes she would have punched him in the face instead. Nothing could have hurt him more than hearing that fall from her lips. Especially considering all of his relationships were purely physical before her.

Arlo taught him how to love.

She feels the very last of her restraint break and Arlo can't hold back her emotion any longer. She pushes past Luke, letting the rain soak her as she tries to disappear back into the club. But, she barely gets a step away before Luke grabs her wrist, turning her back to face him.

His blue eyes have a lethal look in them, a beautifully devastated look on his face as the rain soaks his hair, plastering his white shirt to his chest. "No. You're not leaving until you hear what I have to say. You fucking owe me that after I gave you my everything-"

"Nothing you can say will change my mind." Arlo shakes her head, her brain spilling anything she can think of to get away from him.

All she wants to do is collapse against his chest, to tell him she didn't want to do it. Arlo wants to cry in his arms and tell him how scared she was in the meeting room, how she hates that she can't say no. She wants to tell him that she loves him and she can't imagine a life without him, but she won't take his career away from him.

Arlo's knees threaten to collapse as Luke suddenly grabs both of her hands, pulling them away from where she had them firmly glued to her thighs. "Stop that. Scream at me, tell me you hate me, shove me, but don't fuckin' do that." He holds her hands to his chest, taking the moment to feel her skin on his own.

He still cared so fucking much. Even after she'd made him think she cheated on him, he cared enough to notice the way she was digging her nails into her thighs. It makes her cry harder and the action makes Luke feel like punching something.

The rain falls harder, thunder echoing through the night air as the party rages on inside. "Luke just let me leave." Arlo begs. "Please, just let me leave you. I can't-"

"I love you."

Luke's words cut through her like a knife. She pulls her hands from his grip, her back making contact with the brick wall once more as her legs threaten to give out. "Luke, no. I can't-"

"No, you're going to listen to me." Luke says lowly, refusing to let her look away from him. "You may be okay with walking away and leaving things unfinished, but I'm not." His hands brace on the brick wall, the rough stone skinning his palms, but he can't even register the stinging sensation. "You're not walking away from me until you know how much I fucking love you."

A near sob leaves Arlo's lips and she shakes her head, her hands bracing against his chest. Luke's hand finds her face as she hangs her head in denial, cupping her jaw gently as he forces her to look into his blue eyes.

"You wanna break my heart? Fine. You wanna fuck somebody else? Fine." Luke seethes. "But you are not going to stand here and tell me that you can't when I've been walking on eggshells, loving you in silence for months."

Arlo nearly chokes on her breath, his words steadily breaking down every wall she built up, destroying her from the inside out. I'm loving you in silence too, she wants to scream. This hurts far, far worse than Arlo could ever imagine. She's not sure how she's still standing.

"You don't." Arlo chokes out, denial lacing her tone. "I cheated on you, you don't love me. You can't love me." She's frantic now. "Please take it back, Luke. Take it back."

"I won't." Luke says firmly, a salty taste in his mouth as his tears run down the tip of his nose, staining his lips. "I'll never regret anything when it comes to you." He pauses, his blue eyes filled with so much sorrow that Arlo can't breathe. "But, that bathroom door is the only door I wish I never opened."

With the reference of the door, something that had become an inside joke between them, Arlo feels like she's been kicked in the stomach. She wishes more than anything that she could go back to that night when they kissed for the first time. When their love was untainted by corporate managers who treat their life like a game.

"I fucking love you." Luke pleads desperately. "I love you, Arlo"

Arlo can taste blood in her mouth from how harshly she's biting onto the inside of her cheek as she shakes her head in denial, every word falling from his lips feeling like a stab to the heart. "You're supposed to hate me."

"I want to love you forever." The blond continues relentlessly, his voice shaking with emotion. "I love you so much it hurts. I don't know how I breathed before I knew what it felt like to love you." He wants to taste the rain on her lips, to kiss away the tears in her eyes but he can't and it's killing him. "I love you endlessly. I love you with an intensity I've never known."

"You don't." Arlo repeats, in a desperate attempt to convince herself otherwise.

"I love you the way the clouds love to spill rain, invasively, tragically, destructively but so goddamn inescapable and fated." Luke continues, ignoring her words as they cut through him. "You're my own rainstorm of the most beautiful severity. I love you. I'm obsessed with loving you. I don't want to love if I'm not loving you."

"Stop," Arlo pleads. "Please, Luke." Her bottom lip trembles. She didn't know pain like this even existed and with every word, he was destroying her. Even if she knew she deserved it, she just wanted it to stop.

"I'm tired of loving you in silence." Luke's hands tremble as they cup her jaw, the feeling of her skin nearly enough to send him over the edge. "How'd you make me fall in love the very moment we met, Lo? Do you know how rare that is?"

With every word that leaves his lips, Arlo is torn. It hurts so bad to hear him say these beautiful things when she knows she can't say them back. But, if he stops, that means that she won't have an excuse to stay any longer. So, she bites her tongue, pinching her eyes shut as she allows him to tear her apart.

"I almost hate how much I love you." He confesses, raindrops dripping from his soaked blonde hair and drenching her skin. "I think I'll spend my entire life chasing a feeling that compares to it. I've tried every fucking drug on the face of the planet, and none of them have given me anywhere close to the high you have."

When she doesn't answer, it finally sinks in. Luke was losing her, hell she was already gone. "I'd give up everything I have to hear you say that you love me too." Luke pleads desperately. "I wouldn't even care if you lied to me. I don't know if I can live in a world where you don't love me."

"Luke, please." Arlo begs one last time.

"Just lie to me, baby." Luke's voice cracks, utter heartbreak lacing his tone. "Please just tell me you love me one time. One time, that's all I'm asking."

Arlo swallows thickly, her hands shaking as she prepares to give the final blow. She had to get away before she broke and told him the truth, she needed something- anything to make him finally give up. "I don't love you. I never did and I don't think I ever will."

Luke knows he'll remember this moment for the rest of his life. Her words bring a pain settling deep in his chest that he couldn't describe even if he tried. "What am I supposed to do?" Luke's voice is so utterly broken that Arlo winces at the sound. "I'm never going to love anyone else again. What do you expect me to do?"

"Move on." Arlo grits her teeth, the words making her feel like spilling the alcohol in her stomach onto the sidewalk. "Somebody else will love you."

"I want you to love me! Fuck!" Luke tugs at his soaked hair desperately. "We were perfect hours ago-"

"Let me go, Luke." Arlo nearly chokes on a fresh set of tears. They were at their ends and they both knew it. Neither of them would ever be the same. "Please. Find someone else to love you, travel the world, make music- Do anything but ask me to love you."

Luke gives her one last teary-eyed look, the blue of his eyes still so intense even in the dim lighting, especially now that they're bloodshot. "It'd be an easier request for you to ask me to never breathe again."