A Month In Sin

It started out like any other morning, but it wasn’t any other morning. It was the morning of my big sister’s bridal shower, with the bachelorette party to follow later on in the evening.

The sun was far too bright, and I was exhausted. Being an undiagnosed insomniac will do that to you. My mother insists there’s nothing wrong with me. “Just take some melatonin before you sleep, or drink a cup of hot tea.”

Well, melatonin doesn’t do shit, and I hate tea; so there went her theories.

It wasn’t that I actually wanted to be this way, but I was. Sometimes, it was my own mind that kept me awake. Thoughts of complete and utter emptiness for the rest of my life, the same emptiness I felt day to day . . . I was eighteen. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Twenty, about to be twenty-one—well, technically, about to be five and a fourth, since my actual birthday fell on February 29—and I was already afraid I would end up alone.

I didn’t worry that I wouldn’t get married and start a family of my own, but sleeping next to someone who doesn’t love you is the same as being alone.

Everyone says I’m too young to care about such things, but the world was getting darker, day by day. More and more people were spending their lives alone.

Over seven billion people in the world, and some never found one for them. How is that even possible?

It wasn’t like I needed someone to have a full, decent life. I was capable of getting by just fine on my own, but I may not smile at the end of the day. I may not close my eyes and regret that I was about to leave the beautiful reality.

My life would never be better than it was in my dreams.

It was hard to say it was a bad life, however. I lived in Las Vegas, and money was never going to be an object for the rest of my days. That didn’t make it a happy life, but I never had to wonder if there would be food on the table. At least I didn’t have that struggle.

It was easy to forget that others did sometimes. I got so wrapped up in my own stupid problems that I forgot people out there had it far worse than me.

The sun was still far too bright for my liking as I walked down the busy streets of Sin City, but it didn’t help the temperature. Christmas was in the air, and that was bittersweet. While it smelled like cookies and pine, it felt like the arctic.

Slight exaggeration, and my cold nature probably made it seem far worse than it actually was.

Still, I liked walking down the streets with my penguin toboggan on my head, my grey boots lined with the softest fur, and my penguin hand warmers. I was a walking penguin, almost, as I had on my Pittsburg Penguins hoodie as well. Some liked to say I was out of place. I was a massive hockey fan, but in Vegas, no one cared all that much about sports.

I didn’t like sports, except hockey. It was just so fascinating to watch large men smash each other into walls. The best times were when the gloves came off and the fists went flying.

Then there was actually scoring that was pretty exciting.

I heard my phone go off in my pocket, and the sweet sound of Steal My Girl began playing from my back pocket.

I pulled my old and very annoying iPhone 4 out of my back pocket and slid my thumb across the cracked screen to answer the call from the prime example of my fear of growing up old and alone—my boyfriend.

It was odd that he was calling me. After our plans to go together to get my hair cut fell through, I thought he’d be too busy helping his dad clean out the garage to text, much less call.

“Hello?”

The loud background noise was surprising. Usually, when he and his dad worked, they talked to one another, and his little brother helped out as well, but it wasn’t a lot of people.

This was.

My eyebrows furrowed. “Chance?”

He wasn’t responding . . . which meant he probably butt dialed me.

It was probably wrong to listen, but I was far too curious to hang up. Why wasn’t he with his dad, like he told me? If he didn’t want to go with me, he knew all he had to do was tell me.

The odds of ending up in the same area as he was in—in Las Vegas, remember—were almost slim to none. The city was larger than I could handle sometimes.

But there he was, and sitting right across from him with her lips locked in his was someone I thought was my friend.

Yet there they were.

I hung up my phone and turned away from what I saw immediately. The cold air burned my eyes enough that it made them water, and that pissed me off. Why should this asshole think he made me cry? It would imply that I had invested enough in him to be upset that he was about to be out of my life.

It was fortunate I didn’t put makeup on. I could wipe the tears from my eyes without smearing anything, so the jackass wouldn’t get the pleasure of hurting me.

Out of instinct, I pulled the bottle of Dr. Pepper out of my bag as I turned back to face what was going on behind me. The two were completely oblivious that I was there, too wrapped up in each other to notice anything else, but how stupid could he actually be? He knew I was getting my haircut just a couple of blocks away.

Or did he really not even care enough to listen to anything I ever said? Remember anything we had ever done?

It didn’t matter. I was pissed, and I was done with him.

As I unscrewed the lid with my teeth and approached their table, both looked mortified to see me there. It wasn’t the arrogance I expected. It wasn’t the surprise.

Both looked genuinely remorseful . . . and she looked upset.

Did they care for one another? The ends didn’t justify the means, but if they cared, all either had to do was tell me. It wasn’t like I cared that much.

As Chance stood up to try and calm me down, I scoffed and shook my head. “You know, I came over here to pour my drink on your head, but . . . that’d be a waste of a perfectly good Dr. Pepper.”

“Eris, wait!”

I didn’t listen to anything he said and instead held my middle finger up in his direction. “Instead, I’ll give you this. Have fun, you two. Be safe.”

Just as quickly as I turned the corner, I ran back around. Right now, I didn’t wanna hear their excuses, hear their logic behind it all. It didn’t matter. She was my friend. He was my boyfriend.
They both stabbed me in the back.

When I was certain neither was following me, it was okay to feel. Alone in the crowd, with no one I knew around me, I let the tears fall down my face.

She was my friend.

I let my anger and pain get the better of me as I threw my phone on the ground. It was a rather stupid thing to do anywhere, but especially in the middle of a crowd. Almost the moment it left my hand, I tried to grab it again, but I had thrown it too hard.

As it bounced off the concrete and hit someone in the leg, every other emotion drained out of me as nothing but fear took its place.

What had my anger gotten me into this time?

I let out a gasp and ran up to the guy, who had actually bent over a little to grab ahold of his leg. “Holy shit! I am so sorry! Are you alright?”

A very large smile pulled across his lips, and my heart took flight. One of the rare people who made a lip ring look good, with a smile brighter than the sun itself . . . I could scarcely breathe.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and the rich Australian accent struck me. It was a very familiar Australian accent. “I’ll have my lawyers call your lawyers. We’ll work it all out.”

When he looked up at me, even with the dark Raybans on, I knew why the voice was familiar. Here, in Las Vegas, I stood face to face with Luke Hemmings of 5 Seconds of Summer.

He wasn’t alone—no surprise. Surrounded by the rest of his band mates, with the addition of Niall Horan, my entire body suddenly set fire. I couldn’t breathe, but the most horrifying thought came to mind.

I just hurt Luke Hemmings!

Luke’s smile softened, but it didn’t disappear entirely, only changed into a different kind of smile. I couldn’t peel my eyes away.

“Wow,” he whispered. “You . . . you’re far too beautiful to let that asshole hurt you. You deserve better than that. Please don’t let him hurt you.”

My lips parted as I sucked in a breath. “I-I don’t know about that.”

“I do.”

I had to swallow so I didn’t literally die. Something was forming in the back of my throat, and I couldn’t breathe or speak around it.

“Um, well, thank you,” I said. “Is your leg okay? I’m really sorry. I just . . . react sometimes without thinking much about it.”

Luke looked down to his feet and then back up to me. “What? Oh. It’s fine, really. Don’t worry about it. I think your phone took the most damage.”

I sighed and looked down to the utterly destroyed screen. “I was due for an upgrade anyways. I guess I have a reason to actually go to the store and do it.”

Luke laughed. “You’re welcome for the incentive.”

“I was the one that threw the phone,” I reminded him, and I felt a playful smirk forming on my lips as my nature kicked in. I wasn’t one of those girls who got flustered by boys with pretty smiles; Luke Hemmings was no different, even if he was Luke Fucking Hemmings. “You were just an unfortunate bystander.”

“I wouldn’t say unfortunate.”

When Michael laughed from behind him, I was reminded that we weren’t alone, not by a long shot. Not only were we blocking the traffic on a busy Vegas sidewalk, but also, his bandmates were behind him, plus Niall.

My cheeks flushed. “You don’t know me. I’m not good fortune, I assure you.”

“I find that very hard to believe,” he said. “Anyone who loves penguins as much as I do has to be awesome.”

I knew there was no sense in arguing with him, and I had to get home. Fitting “new phone” into my schedule today was going to be hard, and the more time I spent standing here, the harder getting back to reality would be.

But it was Luke Fucking Hemmings.

Just as I started to kneel down to pick up my phone, he did the same, and we grabbed ahold of it together. It wasn’t the cliché moment where our hands accidentally touched, or our heads smacked together in that cute and painful way.

Luke noticeably ran his finger across the back of my hand, and my body set fire again. This time, it wasn’t embarrassment that flooded my veins . . . . an unexplainable electric current blocked all thoughts and normal functions that human beings were supposed to be able to do.

I wasn’t breathing. If my heart wasn’t racing so fast in my chest, I might worry it had stopped functioning as well.

I could feel my blood underneath my skin. I could feel his breath leave him when our eyes connected, feel as my heart tried to bust out of my chest and onto the ground in front of him. It was a weird feeling that I couldn’t explain, but the most thrilling part? I wasn’t the only one.

It was also frightening because why did it matter? He was Luke Hemmings, and I was about to stand up and go home. He was about to go back to wherever he was headed, and I was going to be alone again.

But every part of me would long to be next to him again, and I never would be.

With that in mind, I abruptly stood up and focused on the cracked screen. “Well . . . I broke it good, I guess.”

“Seems you did.”

His voice sounded different than before. It was softer, a bit breathless even. It surprised me enough that I looked back to him again, but I wished I hadn’t.

The smile that lingered on his lips was brighter than the sun again, and it was nearly impossible to look away from, much less walk away from.

“It was nice meeting you,” I said, and I took the first step away from him. “I’m sorry about hitting you. I’ll try to be a little bit smarter next time I decided to destroy my things.”

His eyebrows rose. “I never caught your name.”

I bit down on my bottom lip and shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“It does to me.”

I couldn’t understand why it would ever matter. I was just some girl who hit him in the leg with the phone. Surely I wasn’t the only girl to ever throw something at him, probably not even the only girl to throw a phone at him.

But he wanted to know my name.

“Eris.”

He nodded, and his smile widened again. “Eris.”

My name rolled off his tongue so smoothly, came out in the gentlest of whispers, but it sent shivers of delight down my spine.

Why did my name sound so good when Luke said it?

“By the way,” he said, and that smile quickly changed into an almost devious grin out of what seemed like nowhere to me. “Nice phone case.”

My eyes squeezed shut as I nodded, and with that being said, I spun on my heels and melted back into the crowd as quickly as I could. I didn’t dare look back in fear of what I might see.

This would be the day I had my Luke Hemmings case on my phone, wouldn’t it?

Notes

The lyrics in the description are from the song Scream My Name by Tove Lo. I don't really like it as much as I love Habits. Kinda addicted to that song, actually.

Anyways, hey guys! Captain Hawkeye here. :) So, my little sister and I have decided to write a story together! :D I'm super excited about it, actually. I think it's gonna be lots of fun. :)

I have a few 5 Seconds of Summer fanfictions, but this is the first I've ever actually done anything with. So I hope you guys like it. :)

Of course, I can't take all the credit.

I wanna see where the interest for this story is. I'm only gonna post the first chapter, and you guys let me know what you think? :)

We hope you enjoy. :D

Oh. Check out Eris' outfit here if you want. :)