His apartment was just as shabby as it was this morning. His bowl still sat in the sink with pieces of corn flakes stuck to it seeing as he didn't have time to rinse it out since he overslept. And his bed was unmade as it always was.
At least this, his home, remained unchanged.
Lucas peeled off his shirt and kicked off his shoes before letting himself collapse onto the bed. Only once he hit the mattress did he hear a soft meow come from underneath it. His legs still hung over the foot of the bed and he pulled them up before peering his head around the mattress.
Nothing but his worn wooden floor greeted him. He decided to hop to the top of his mattress and—there was the noise again. He grabbed the end of his duvet and pulled it up as he looked under the bed.
And laying there was a grumpy looking white puff ball with a red ribbon around it's neck.
Meow.
Lucas jumped slightly at the sound but the cat looked unbothered. When the hell had a cat gotten into his apartment? A knock at his door stopped him from thinking up theories about how a cat could've taken refuge in his home. He gave the cat one squinted look of suspicion before going to answer the door.
Looking through the peephole, Lucas rolled his eyes before opening the door.
Standing there was his friend, Missy that happened to live next door to him. She was the person who showed him and Zay around the big city when they came to look for an apartment here. The memory of him and his friend, two southern boys who didn't know anything about living in a city so grand almost brought a smile to his face.
Seeing Missy standing there in an oversized NYU sweater and ripped jeans beaming up at him almost brought a smile to his face.
"Did you see your surprise? I thought I heard someone come into your apartment but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't some crazy psycho." She peered over his shoulder and side stepped into his apartment, in search for something. He closed the door and leaned against it.
"Are you looking for a cat? Small and ball like?"
Missy jumped up from her spot on the floor looking under the couch, "Why? Did you happen to see a cat small and ball like? Did you also think that it was absolutely adorable and had to keep it?"
"No, I thought it was stray so I put it back out on the curb." The look on her face made him burst out laughing before he could stop himself.
Her jaw snapped shut once she heard him laughing and she immediately strode over to him and started smacking his chest, "Don't joke around like that, you asshole." He grabbed her wrists before she could smack for the third time and held them away from him as she glared daggers at him.
"Why exactly did you get me a cat?"
Missy sighed, "Because I told you that I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you're not lonely now that Zay moved in with Vanessa and your apartment is a little more...spacious."
"Usually people would get dogs as companions seeing as dogs are actually useful." Dog or cat didn't really matter to him. He never spent enough time in the apartment to feel lonely. But in the moment and in order to annoy Missy, he cared a lot.
"Look, I don't have money coming out of my ass to just walk out and get a dog, y—" She stopped when her eyes focused on his hands, the dried blood and bruising on his knuckles were hard to miss now that she was so close to them.
"Oh my god." Missy breathed and pulled her hands out of his grip before grabbing his hands back and bringing them close to her, "What happened to you?"
Their moment of playfulness was over. Lucas could feel the light energy seeping out of the room as Missy slowly examined his wounds. The memories were back and it was nice to think for a second he didn't have them.
"Nothing, Missy. I'm fine." He jerked his hands back feeling suddenly under a microscope. He lost control. He knew it and he didn't really feel like explaining that to someone like Missy.
Lucas began to walk to his room hoping to clear his head but Missy followed him, "What do you mean it's 'nothing'? Clearly something happened. Did you get jumped? Did someone try to hurt you?"
He almost laughed at how naive she sounded, she thought his hands looked like that because of self defense. Missy thought that he was some mighty police officer who was only trying to protect himself. It was still a shock Chief had decided to give him another chance.
"You can tell me, you know? You don't have to keep everything to yourself." She said softly and his heart broke. There was nothing he wanted to do more than tell her, tell her everything in hopes that it'll bring them closer, it'll make everything much simpler. But that was just a fantasy, Lucas learned early on in life that people weren't always forgiving, they didn't always accept people who weren't perfect.
He wouldn't—couldn't take that chance with Missy. After all the happy memories he'd made with her, after all the stages of their friendship that brought her to become one of his best friends, he couldn't bare her looking at him like he was a monster too.
"I think you should go. I have stuff to do for work an—"
"I get it." She cut him off coldly, he was looking past her, at the door knowing full well that she was hurt, "I can tell when I'm not wanted."
"Missy—" Lucas called to her without even fully knowing what he was going to tell her as she made her way to the door. She stopped but didn't turn.
"You don't have to try and come with excuses for me, Lucas. I don't care what your big secret is, I just wanna know that you're okay." Without waiting for a reply Missy walked out of the dusty apartment and slammed the door.
