Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except the drama and tension I'm going to cause. Enjoy.

Chapter Sixteen

"May your loss be met with a hurricane of love."

-

As the warmth of the sun reached my body, I heard a crunching noise, and looked up to see Luke ambling slowly towards me.

"We meet here yet again." He said, as he sat down next to me.

"Weird, ay?" I replied, grinning, as Luke let out a short laugh.

"Well, it's summer, how could we expect anything other than the extraordinary to occur?" He asked, and I was slightly thrown by his comment.

Obviously, after seeing my look of confusion, he began to explain himself a little more.

"We, or I, can't seem to last a summer without the weird, crazy, and just plain strange happening, all while Mattie and I seem to be on this rollercoaster of emotions that I can never quite keep up with. And she, she always seem to be one step ahead of me… or one emotion ahead of me." He finished, sighing bitterly.

Apparently, the last three summers and their life altering events were playing heavy on his mind, and I couldn't help but understand the predicament he was in. I mean, for the last two summer's I'd lived through it with him. Maybe I'd just gotten lucky this summer. Maybe… maybe Luke and Mattie weren't meant to be, like Cassie and I? I didn't like to think it but…

"Maybe I shouldn't want to go there again." Luke said suddenly, and I had to wonder just how close our friendship was. "I mean," He continued, "we worked so well as friends. I mean, there was very little complication, and even less drama. And we could talk about anything and everything and not feel guilty. It felt all natural and stuff…" He trailed off, his mind ticking over, thinking of the short time they'd spend as friends, possibly comparing it to the years that they'd spent as more.

"You remember the last time we sat here?" I asked, and Luke nodded in reply. "That was after I told you Summer Bay warps everything in your head. And it does." He said angrily, as his hand beat down against the sand. "Sara and I were happy. And what she said to Mattie, how she left, that as just her reacting to everything that she'd been put through. Imagine how hard it was for her, to come back here and try to fit into the world that Mattie had been the centre of. And I, I didn't make it easier. Neither did Mattie." He said resentfully, "In her mind Sara was always the enemy. She didn't give her a chance, couldn't be bothered to get to know her. She was always the one who took me away from her."

His anger was more than apparent, but I couldn't interrupt his rant by telling him he was right on the money that would only fuel him more.

"But she wasn't. Sara was the sweet, innocent girl that I feel for, and then threw it away in the belief that Mattie actually had feelings for me. I jumped to the wrong, stupid conclusions, and now I'm left alone, angry, and hating the one woman who ever really knew me."

"Now come on, you don't hate her…" I began, but his intense gaze cut me off.

"What I feel goes pretty close." He said, falling back onto the sand and shutting his eyes tightly.

"Come on." I said, hitting his leg as I stood up. Knowing that I would not be able to make him see any reason in his current state, I went for the next best thing. "The surf is waiting for us."

He groaned, but did nothing to protest, rising to stand next to me, his board in his arms.

"How much drama do you think this beach has seen?" I asked, as a wry grin formed on Luke's face.

"From us? Or from the rest of Summer Bay?" He replied sarcastically, as I laughed a little.

"The rest of Summer Bay doesn't hold a candle to us." I replied finally, clapping him on the shoulder as I walked into the cool, early morning water.

-

"You don't really hate her, do you?" I asked Luke later; finally believing it was safe to venture into that conversation once more.

"No." Luke replied finally, as the water moved gently against our boards. "No, as much as I'd like to, I can't hate her, I could never hate her."

I nodded in reply, knowing what he was feeling. The utter torment and guilt that had engulfed my soul after the forbidden kiss Cassie and I had shared had been one of the worst feelings the world had to offer. I strongly suspected, sneaking a sidelong glance at my best friend, whose features were clouded over with annoyance, with pain, that Luke had been feeling that way for more of the summer. Because, as much as he'd loved Sara, I knew his heart, in one way or another, would always belong to Matilda. Their histories were simply too intertwined for him not to.

"I just wish," Luke continued, his voice breaking my current train of thought. "that she'd stop dancing around the issue Or stop avoiding it. Whatever she's doing, she'd not making it easy for me to talk to her… for me to tell her…"

"Tell her what?" I asked, even though I was almost certain of what it was Luke wished to say.

"Tell her that there will never be anyone else." He said finally, sighing deeply as if a heavy burden had finally been lifted from his shoulders. "Tell her that she'll always be everything to me, no matter the time and space between us. Tell her that I love her, and will always love her, if she'd only let me in again, and let herself love me once more." He finished sadly, hastily wiping away the tears that had fallen from his eyes.

I knew better than to speak right now. He didn't need my words yet, he simply needed the comfort of knowing he was not alone in his fight for love.

-

"Do you remember when Mattie kissed you?" Luke asked me later, as we took a moment of our time to enjoy the rays of sun on the beach.

Groaning, I shook my head, as my brotherly instincts took hold. "Really, must we go back there? I already feel like a perve whenever the memory just happens to flick through my mind."

"That was when I'd first bordered on hating Matilda. Until then, I couldn't imagine feeling anything but this heart-warming, awe-inspiring love that she managed to make me feel. Which I hadn't felt, in a long time… because I'd never really been taught that kind of love. Only the unconditional love of a parent to their children. But then, she betrayed that love, and I couldn't see a way out of hating her. I just couldn't."

Luke and I had never really talked about that night. Or the events that followed. We'd chosen to live with the complications that had arisen, without ever really moving on. Maybe that's where we'd always gone wrong, especially last summer. We'd never really talked about things, only taken it for granted that they'd always return to the same. That we'd always return to be the same.

And when they finally didn't, we hadn't known how to go on. So we'd stumbled along the way, until we found ourselves back at the beginning once more.

"I told her that summer that we were fated, and that nothing would ever come between us. She was ready to shut me out of her life, she was waiting for me to shut her out of my own, but I promised her that I'd never let it happen. But I did. Over the stupid distance between us. And the belief that maybe things had changed between us."

"At least you fought for her?" I threw in, as Luke shot me a look. "What? I just let Cassie believe that I didn't want us to last. That I didn't want to be with her. I just let her walk away…" I said, but Luke interrupted me.

"But she came back to you. She didn't run you ride you around in circles on her emotional rollercoaster. Cassie came back to you." He repeated, as his point sunk in.

"And Mattie came back to you." I replied, trying to cling onto anything with substance. "In her own roundabout way, she came back. I mean, how else do you explain her behaviour this summer, towards you, towards Sara. Mattie isn't a mean person, and she generally doesn't dislike people without good reason… didn't you ever begin to ask yourself why she shut you and Sara out like she did?"

"Every day." He replied rather wistfully. "I just wish I knew if it was because she wanted me back, or because she was so terrified of losing our friendship."

I nodded, not knowing what else Luke really needed to hear.

"I guess," He continued "in the end, maybe holding on for dear life doesn't work. Especially if the person you're holding onto doesn't want to be restrained. Doesn't want to be held. Doesn't want to be loved."

I clapped his shoulders, but couldn't say anything for fear of my voice failing me. Luke obviously needed to deal with this by himself, anything I said couldn't, or wouldn't change his mind. But that didn't mean my heart didn't break for the guy who had felt like my best friend forever now, knowing that this turmoil didn't look as if it was going to resolve itself any time soon.

AN: Hope you all enjoyed it. : ) Jade xox