Streaker.

19

Luke decided to stay home from school the next day. He'd spent the whole night crying and laying awake in bed thinking about everything that had happened earlier and when he finally woke up in the morning he realized that he didn't even want to leave his house. He didn't want to face Ashley and he especially didn't want to face Michael.

He came out of his room for a few minutes to talk to his mom, who just freaked out about his nose. It didn't look any better than it did the night before and Liz was sure that it was broken, even though Luke insisted that he was fine.

"Mom, I swear, I'm okay." Luke assured her again, walking down the hall and towards his room.

"Are you sure, Luke?" Liz followed him. "I can take you to a doctor if you want. It doesn't look good."

"I'm alright, Mom, I promise." Luke rubbed his eyes tiredly, leaning up against his doorframe. "I'm just not feeling very well, can I please stay home?"

"I guess." Liz said, letting out a sigh. "Just go back to sleep for a while, yell if you need anything."

"Thanks Mom." Luke gave her a small smile, turning away from his mom. "I love you."

So after getting permission from Liz to stay home for the day, Luke went back into his room and cuddled up under a million blankets to try and hide away from all of his problems like he normally did.

After a few hours of Luke falling asleep and waking up and falling back asleep again, his phone started to ring. He let out a small groan and threw the pile of blankets off of his head, searching around on his nightstand for his phone. He saw that it was Ashley calling and answered immediately.

"Hello?" Luke said groggily as he answered the phone.

"Hey, where are you?" Ashley asked. "You're going to miss English, we're watching a movie today."

"I'm at home. Why are you calling me? Shouldn't you be in class?" Luke questioned. He sat up and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, wincing a little as he touched one of the bruises on his nose.

"I'm walking to English right now, I just realized that you weren't here so I decided to give you a call." Ashley explained. Luke could hear the voices of other students behind her as she walked, probably dodging freshman like they normally had to do when they walked to class together.

"Oh, well, I'm at home. I didn't sleep at all and my nose is all gross and swollen. My mom let me stay home." Luke said softly.

"Wow, that sucks." Ashley sighed. "Do you want me to come visit you?"

Luke opened his mouth to say yes, but then he stopped himself. He felt that Ashley was only offering to come over because she felt bad for Luke. She knew what happened last night and that he was upset and was probably just acting like she cared.

"No, I'm fine. I'll probably be back at school tomorrow, you don't need to come see me." Luke said, letting out another big sigh.

"Are you sure? I can totally just ditch school this afternoon and come over." Ashley said happily, not even suspecting that something was wrong with Luke.

"You don't need to." Luke shook his head. He knew that if Ashley came over he would most likely end up feeling hurt about her whole situation with that Brandon guy again. Every time Luke thought about Ashley he thought about Brandon too, and it just made him sad. Having Ashley with him would most likely make things worse. For once, Luke didn't want Ashley here.

"Luke, I think I should - " Ashley stopped talking and only the chatter of the school hallway was heard on the other side of the phone. "Oh my God!"