Expiration || M.C

15 || Unexpected Turns

Luke

Seventeen minutes. I had made it through the hall and English class with all the stares and pity looks and comments thrown at me for seventeen minutes before my name was called through the speakers.

"Can Luke Hemmings please come to the principals office? I repeat, Luke Hemmings, please report to the principals office."

People started laughing and saying things I had decided to unhear.

Now here I am, standing in front of the door to the principal's office. I shake my head and and walk towards the lady behind the desk.

"Luke Hemmings." I say as she looks at me up and down. She nods. "Counselor's office." She points to a door. I freeze.

Therapy? No fucking way.

"Sorry, what? I thought I was here to see principal Jones." I say but she just starts flipping pages in her calendar. I roll my eyes.

"Fine." I sigh and turn around as I walk towards the door to the counselor's office and knock a few times before I slowly open the door.

A man looks up. He's about forty with very short brown hair and friendly blue eyes. He's smiling at me.

I don't smile back.

"Luke, it's good to see you. Sit down." He sits up straighter in his chair and points to the chair on the other side of his desk. I sit down.

"Do you know why you're here?" He opens a notebook and gets a pen. He hides what's in the notebook from me, but I can see my Notes: Luke Hemmings written on the top of the page.

I shrug and shake my head.

"Well, Luke. I'm Mr. Mason, school counselor. You're here because of what happened to your friend," He smiles at me with that annoying hint of pity in his eyes. "And I'm very sorry about that."

I shrug again.

He gets off the chair and walks around the room. "I'm here to help you, Luke. You're a survivor. But you can't keep surviving alone, you need someone to talk to." He says, sitting down on the edge of his desk.

I smile at him. "Sorry, but I have someone to talk to. Another survivor. We're a tight group, thanks." I stare at him. His smile fades for a moment and he almost looks annoyed, but it happens so quick I barely realize it.

He sits down behind his desk again and puts his hands together. "Luke, listen. You randomly show up at school again after something like this and we understand the circumstances. We need to know you are ready to be here and we need to know you don't have ideas of following what Michael did," When he says this I start laughing silently.

He ignores me. "So you're gonna come here twice a week, or more if you want to. I will see you again tomorrow and Friday, bring a good attitude. That will make this a whole lot easier. Now get back to class and have a good day." He says, letting me know I can leave.

I stand up and walk towards the door. "Oh, and Luke?" He asks before I open the door. "Please tell Spencer to come by at lunch time." He smiles and I slam the door.

-

Spencer and I spend the day in silence. I didn't tell her about when my name was called and I didn't tell her they were expecting her. I'm guessing she knows, since she probably did actually visit principal Jones before. Mr Mason came to get her at lunch, and she looked at me accusingly, which I decided to ignore.

Feeling all the stares burning in my back I decide to leave and have the rest of lunch in the library. I sit down at a table and take a few deep breaths to calm down.

Just a few more months. Just study, go to school, pay attention in class, go to counseling and you will never see these people ever again. And somewhere in between, Michael will wake up and support you in all of it.

When the bell rings I don't wait for Spencer and decided to just go to maths already, which is my last class. But Spencer doesn't show up, and after school I don't see her either. I wait a while for her to text me, but she didn't.

-

I have been sitting on my balcony all night with my guitar. Writing things down and looking at astronomy sites to find something to look at in the stars. I used to love astronomy and could tell what everything was what you could see in the sky, but I lost interest.

I have been sleeping okay for the past few days, the bags under my eyes say otherwise though. I feel like it's bad I'm sleeping alright, or sleeping at all, since it means I'm getting used to my life being like this. Without Michael. I don't want that.

All of a sudden I feel stones being thrown at me. "Luke." I hear a voice whisper. I look down and see Spencer in her sweatpants and a baggy sweater on from some university her dad went to.

"What are you doing here?" I speak with a normal volume, since mom is working.

"Can I come up, please?" She asks, shivering since the temperature cools down so much when the sun's gone.

"Yes, just a second." I get up and walk back inside where I put my guitar back on the wall. I run down the stairs and get the key to open the door.

"Let's go up, okay?" I ask as I close the door behind Spencer and put the keys back in the kitchen. I run back up the stairs and I hear Spencer's footsteps follow.

We stare at each other for a while, just standing awkwardly in the middle of my room.

"Do you want to sit on the balcony? It's not that cold and I can leave the door open so we can sit inside but still outside, in a way. Or do you want to sit in the attic and watch the stars through the window or-"

"Luke. Please just sit down somewhere, alright? We need to talk." Spencer says, brushing her fingers through her hair. I nod and sit down on the floor, resting my back on the end of my bed.

Spencer walks over to me and sits down. She starts playing with the sleeves on her sweater and it stays quiet.

"What's going on?" I ask her. She looks up at me and I can tell that she's tired.

"Listen, principal Jones went to talk to me today about you. He wanted to know if you were planning on.. killing yourself. Like Michael did. So I told him no, of course not, and I said that you're fine. But I realized later, Luke," She holds my hand. It feels soft but cold. "I don't know if you're fine. You don't talk to me about how you really feel and I need to know. I need to know if you are okay. Don't sugarcoat it, just give me the truth." She sighs.

I stare at her for a while. "No." I say, which causes her to look confused.

"No, what?"

"No, I'm not planning on killing myself. But I'm not fine, either. I did, for a while." I say, looking at our hands.

"When?"

"Just after it happened. When I found him, actually. But then I believed he could just be passed out and they could get him to live in a matter of minutes, hours. But when we heard he was in a coma, I just.. I just couldn't think about going on. I felt like he was already gone," I take a break from speaking as I feel a lump in my throat.

"Do you know how hard it is to realize your best friend doesn't want to live anymore? He had so long to think about this, he thought it all over, he considered all his other options, and still this seemed the only one. There was nothing we could do to get him to stay. We weren't enough anymore. That hurts, Spencer. He wanted to die. He wanted it. He was sure. He might still want to die. What if he wakes up and he's angry at us for not letting him go? What if he just tries again?" I put my head on her shoulder. "I just don't know what to do anymore."

She strokes my hair. "We just need to be there for each other. I need you. You need me. We can get through this together." She says, holding my hand tightly.

I lift my head and look up at her.

And then I kiss her.