"—and with time the mind will forget what the heart too shall one day not remember." 

-m.razon

**

Luke has drifted off into silence, his chest rises and falls steadily while his head rests on the back of the couch and I don't dare move or say anything in case he wakes.

I watch his face, tired with the memories and angular with the weight he has lost over the last couple of months. I want to kiss every single plane of his face, take away the pain in every single cell of his body.

He finally trusted me with his secrets and even though it was far from what I expected, I am glad he finally opened up to someone.

A child, a child that he built a crib for. I couldn't fathom the way he felt.

I sigh to myself, stirring a little in his arms to examine the hundreds of purple roses in my living room. It was undoubtedly the most amazing thing I have ever seen but my heart wasn't quite able to feel the beauty of it, not when the love of my life just spilt his heart to me.

The love of my life. I feel dizzy with the events of the day...or days. My bearings are so off I don't even know what day it is anymore. I can see that the sun is up again, though, another day.

I look back at his face and wonder if I should wake him up and get him to bed or if I should leave him be, falling asleep again with the memories fresh in your mind is hard, I would know. I start to slowly detach myself from him, limb by limb when a shriek jolts us both.

"Fucking wanker." I cuss, closing my eyes with dread as Luke sleepily fumbles, reaching for his phone in his pocket. The corner of his lips rises a little. "That mouth on you." He mumbles and taps the phone, putting it on speaker

"Are you two alive?" Ashton asks and Luke mumbles something along the lines of "we're fucked" so I answer instead. "We're okay."

"Then you should get back to the hospital, there um—going to unplug Ana." He says quietly, hesitation clear in his voice.

Luke's closed eyes fly open at this and he sits up from his slumped position on the ground. "What?!" He says loud enough for me to cringe at the sound bouncing off the walls of the quiet house.

"Just get here man." Ashton sighs into the phone and the line goes dead.

Luke stares down at his phone and then looks up at my face. "This day is too much." I mourn, rubbing a hand over my tear stained face.

"You can stay here if you're tired, baby. I'll just go." He rubs his eyes, pushing himself up from the ground.

Luke looks around for a lost second and then makes his way into the kitchen to get a glass of water. "Oh please, I'm coming with you," I say, wrapping my arms around his back as he leans on the counter.

He nods his head as I kiss his shoulder. "Okay, I don't think I'll be able to get through this without you anyway."

---

We drive to the hospital in silence, Luke looking at my wrists from time to time. "Why won't you tell me what happened?" He asks me softly after he pulls into a parking space.

"We can talk about it later." I give him an assuring smile and unbuckle myself. Lying to him made me anxious but knowing how he will feel if I do tell him has me shoving the thoughts deep down.

I freeze halfway out the car when he asks, "You didn't hurt yourself did you?"

"What? No, no of course not." I turn back to him, blinking with confusion.

Why would he think that?

"Alright then. Let's go." He huffs and as soon as we walk up to the entrance, camera's start to go off. 

"Luke Hemmings! Is it true that your ex-girlfriend is in a critical state?" Paparazzi scream questions at us as Luke hurries us in and the security quickly blocks the doors behind us so that the paparazzi can't follow us in.

The sudden shouts leave me feeling nauseous and the sterilised smell of the hospital hits my nostrils like a splash of cold water in the face and I scrunch my nose, worry daunting me.

We make our way to the room Ana was in and see that everyone is gathered around outside, there are more people than before, faces I don't recognise.

"There they are." Someone says as Montana and Addy come to my side, checking me up and down. "Are you alright?" Montana whispers and I nod my head in reply.

The forced silence is suddenly broken when I hear raised voices coming from inside the room, I speed walk in when I realise Luke isn't at my side.

"Why are you taking her off life support? She needs more time! She will come back to us." Luke waves his hands around wildly, jabbing at Jamie's chest with his finger.

"You think I don't want to wait? I'll wait forever for her to come back to me but she...Ana would never want to be plugged up to these machines, not even for a day." Jamie looks pained beyond I can even express as the words pour out of his mouth. "She is my fiancée. We were going to be married in a week, believe me, I wish I could fix this but I just...cannot." He gestures at her hand and Luke falters a step back.

I move closer to Luke when the doctor walks into the room. "Gentlemen, if you cannot keep it down I suggest you please take it outside." She warns.

"No," Luke tells her and silence falls over the room again. There are a couple of people pressed against the wall of the room, crying into each other's shoulders.

An old woman is stood on the other side of the bed from us, stroking Ana's hair. She looks up at each of us and then back down, kissing Ana on the cheek. "You go, my baby, you go and I'll be right behind you, my beautiful baby girl." Tears spill down her cheeks with every word and the sound of a mother's heart breaking leaves me clutching onto Luke for dear life.

"Do it." She finally orders the doctor after a few minutes as she clutches onto Ana's hand with her shaky ones.

"I can give you a little while longer Mrs. Sacoma, if you need it." The doctor says.

"No. She wouldn't want to be hooked on to these things for a second longer. I know my daughter."

Luke leaves my side and walks closer to the bed, leaning over Ana. He whispers to her ever so lightly as Ana's mother watches him, something along the lines of sympathy and disappointment mixed in her expression. "I forgive you, I did a long time ago, now go be with her." Luke kisses Ana's bandaged forehead and steps back quickly like if he stood by her any longer, he would mould into her along with his pain.

Luke puts his arms around my shoulders and pulls me closer to his side. Jamie takes the spot on Ana's other side and takes her hand, his head bent with sorrow.

"We will turn off the ventilator and it will stop breathing for her, her heart rate will slow to a stop and it'll take awhile.." Luke's grip tightens on me and I look down at our intertwined hands because there is nowhere else to look, wherever I look there is just too much for me to bear.

There is the sound of switches and needles with tubes being gently removed from her body and the loud machines humming to a stop.

"When her heart stops the monitor will start beeping if you want I can turn it off." The doctor offers gently but before anyone can respond, the heart monitor starts to beep loudly just like she said it would.

Her heart didn't even give her time to say goodbyes.

Luke lets go of me and runs out of the room as the doctor shuts off the beeping monitor and a sorrowful wail fill the room. I watch the empty screen of the heart monitor.

I am helpless.

I stare at Ana for a long while before stepping out on shaky feet. I send a silent prayer for her the only way I know how. She left so many people and memories behind so suddenly and it wasn't even her choice.

---

Everyone who came to see Ana is filling the waiting room, but there is no more waiting to do. She is gone.

They are all sitting around like they don't know what's next, wallowing in their own sorrow, silent tears spilling down their red cheeks. Luke is staring straight ahead at the wall in front of him and there is no expression on his face.

Two police officers make their way into the room and towards Jamie who is sitting a couple of chairs away, his head in his hands while his body shakes.

"Sir, I'm Officer Mellet and this is Officer Donovan. We have some information on your fiancée." The officer says in a rough voice and Jamie wipes at his face with his t-shirt.

"What is it?" Jamie asks them as one of them scans the room. His eyes stop on me and recognition flares in his eyes. "Miss McKinnon?" The officer asks with a frown and I stand up automatically.

"Yes?" I vaguely remember him from the hospital, he is the one who questioned me.

"You might want to hear this too ma'am." He gestures to me and Luke pops out of his daze, furrowing his eyebrows.

"What's this about?" Luke asks the policemen.

"It's about Miss Ana Sacoma's accident." The man clears his throat and turns back to Jamie.

"Your fiancée, as you know, was driving over the limit while texting and her car slid on black ice, ramming into a light pole which caused a massive fire on impact."

"Yes." Jamie sighs painfully.

"It is protocol to check her phone records during a case like this." The man looks at his fellow officer and he continues.

"Miss Sierra here was admitted to the emergency ward after an attempted kidnapping—"

"A what?!" Luke looks back and forth between the officers and me wildly. "You were kidnapped?!" He shrieks, rubbing a hand over his mouth, his eyes wide.

"Sir we need you to stay calm." The officer puts a hand up.

"Calm?! You want me to stay calm? Are you telling me my girlfriend was kidnapped and I had no idea? Sierra, what the fuck." He turns to me and his hands take a hold of one of my wrists, tugging at the bandage around it.

I find my voice as pain flares in my arm with the tugging. "Luke stop." I try to pull my hand away but he gets the bandage off, the burns from the ropes visible to him now.

His mouth gapes open and closes a couple of times. "Tell me everything that happened." He looks at the police officers, avoiding eye contact with me.

"While they were checking records we found that Miss McKinnon got an unknown call from the same number Miss Sacoma was texting while she was driving. We tried to track down the person on the other end but that number has been destroyed already."

"So what are you saying?" Jamie interrupts.

The officers give each other a look and turn back to us "We found text messages on Miss Sacoma's phone regarding Miss McKinnon's kidnapping, it seemed that she was on the way to the place she was being held in when her car slid on the black ice."

"No..." My wrists start to throb painfully at their words as blood rushes through my body. She did this to me?

"Are you sure?" I manage a rasp at the officers.

"We are working very hard towards finding the men who kidnapped you and everyone else involved in this ma'am but yes, we are sure. Ana Sacoma was in charge of your kidnapping—"

The officer doesn't get to complete his sentence before there is a blur and Luke is on Jamie, pulling him up from his seat and pushing him up against the wall. "You kidnapped my girlfriend, you bastard!" Luke shoves Jamie against the wall and arms go around my body the second I start moving towards them.

"Luke stop right now!" I yell at him as Montana and Addy hold me back.

"I didn't know any of this man I swear!" A shocked Jamie shoves Luke back but he is back on him in a flash. "You fucking liar, of course, you fucking knew!" Luke punches Jamie in the face, leaving a bloody nose before the officers and a couple of male nurses pull them apart.

My body shakes with the tears as Luke fights against the officers who threaten to arrest him if he doesn't calm down. "Luke stop please!" I shout but I don't think he hears me.

The officer pushes him against a wall and before he can restrain both of Luke's arms he starts to punch the wall in front of him. I tug away from Addy's grip and run up to him.

"Luke, Luke stop!" I yell over his shouts.

"It's all fucked up!" He shouts angrily, denting the wall and spraying it with his blood. A nurse pulls me back again as another one steps forward and takes a hold of Luke's arm and they wrestle him to the ground, injecting something into his arm.

"No. No! What are you doing?" I scream at the top of my lungs as the fight drains out of Luke's face and his body slackens in the matter of a few seconds.

I push the nurse away and drop to my knees next to Luke, shaking him. "What did you do?" I scream at the nurse in my panic and he tries to calm me down. "We just gave him a sedative. He will wake up in a couple of hours."

"How fucking dare you inject him with whatever the hell you want without my permission!"

"Ma'am it was only a sedative, it is protocol. We need you to let go of him and calm down. He's asleep now. There is no harm done." He tries to coax me off of him.

Luke's eyes are closed and the front of his shirt is stained with blood as more blood pulses out of the cuts on his hands and his jaw already starting to bruise where Jamie punched him.

They say love can't always save the people you want to save, no matter how bad you want it to and I was always too stubborn to believe it, even after Heath. But I do now as I lay next to Luke, helpless yet again.

People save themselves.

The thoughts and the sorrow finally become too much for me and I collapse on top of Luke.

I'll hold you anyway until you no longer want me to.