Chapter Thirty-eight
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"I think that was a little extreme taking Luke out of there," Jack told his mother as they arrived home after a long drive. Luke ignored them both and didn't mutter a word to them the entire drive home.
"I know," his mother agreed, putting her head in her hands as she sat on a chair behind the counter in the kitchen.
"You could send him back," the middle brother suggested. He was unsure if Luke was going to be okay. Likewise, if they could cope with him just yet.
"I'd look like a fool. We're just going to have to cope with looking after him ourselves. I'm sure he'll be fine anyway," Liz admitted looking up the stairs to where her son had gone straight to his room.
"Did you leave his scale in his room?" Jack asked beginning to grow worried.
Liz nodded, whilst placing her head on the work surface. "This is going to be hard."
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It was all about trust. Trusting Luke to eat by himself. At first, there was very little trust because they only knew the Luke that refused to eat. But, they soon realised he was capable of eating now.
Of course, there were times where he didn't want to eat anything. Either he wasn't hungry or was having a bad day. His brother and mother thought that he going back into old troubles on those days, and would force him to eat.
But, soon learnt it was normal for him to be like that and let the boy get on with sorting out his eating habits and gaining weight sufficiently. Liz wouldn't let Luke go back to school until he reached a healthy weight of 137 pounds.
It took four weeks for him to do so, his progress was a lot slower than in the hospital. Maybe because he was free to go out on a walk whenever be pleased. However, it was rare for Luke to ever leave the house. He barely muttered a word to his relatives. He isolated himself to his room.
When in his room, Luke was either trying to find some sort of way to communicate with Ashton. Someone who be missed so dearly and really needed to see. Or spoke to Alex over the phone about how he was feeling and about his physical progress.
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"Hi," Luke said smiling slightly as he received a call from his therapist.
"Hey Luke, how are you doing?" the man asked. He always asked that question first. It had two different meanings. It was just a friendly thing to ask about life generally seeming he'd been stripped out of a psychiatrist ward half way through his recovery. Or it related to his progress from the recovery of his anorexia. Or the voices that were in his head.
Fortunately, Luke hadn't missed any pills yet so his family hasn't had to witness their son talking and going mental to someone they couldn't see. He was a very reliable boy.
"Good, I reached one hundred and thirty-nine yesterday so mum said I could go back to school now," he beamed excitedly.
"That's good," Alex commented. "Do you have any worries about going back to school?" he asked.
"Well, I don't know if people know why I was gone. I guess if they don't then I'm going to have loads of questions fired at me. I don't like being bombarded by lots of questions, so what if I snap at them?" Luke admitted anxiously.
"Do you want people to know about your eating disorder?" the grey haired man queried.
Luke thought about it and shook his head, only to realise that he could not be seen. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because I know people will take the piss out of me for having a girl problem," he told his ex-therapist.
"We've talked about this Luke, it's not a girl problem. It's a mental disorder that's dangerous."
"I know that," Luke protested. "But they don't."
"Then maybe you should tell them that," Alex urged. "Tell them your story. About how strong you are and maybe you could help others, Luke."
"I doubt it," Luke debated. "No one likes me."
"What about your friends?" Alex asked. He didn't know the boy had no friend at school, only Victoria did.
"I don't have any," Luke admitted embarrassedly.
"Why not?"
"Everyone thinks I'm weird."
"Really? You easily made friends at the ward," he pointed out.
"Yeah, but they were like me. They had problems that made them different too," Luke argued back.
Alex frowned at how negatively the boy was thinking. He didn't like it. Partially because it could soon affect his eating again and he'd soon be loosing weight again. "Are you happy Luke?"
"Not really," the boy said honestly.
"Why is that?"
"I feel so alone. I feel like have no one."
"That's not true. You have me. You have your family. You have a whole world of people if you try talking to someone." The blonde sighed, crossing his legs from where he sat shirtless on his bed. His room was a mess. Clothes everywhere. A few cups littered over the room. "Are you still annoyed at your mother?"
"Slightly."
"You need to get over that Luke. I think you should talk to her. Get out and do stuff. Because if you keep isolating yourself you are going to get back into bad habits. And we don't want that do we?"
"No," the blonde agreed. "I'll try."
"Good. So 139 then, how you feel about that?" the grey haired man asked.
Looking down at his body luke took in the tiny bit of stomach he was staring to form. Alongside the little roll above it. He knew he was naturally the type of boy to have fat cling to him and he felt okay with how he looked. "Okay, I look okay as well," Luke told him.
"Are you going to stay how you are or are you going to gain more weight?" the man asked curiously knowing Luke was in control now. Not him.
"Probably gain a little more. What do you suggest?"
"To be considered a normal weight I would continue to gain until you're 150."
"Will I look fat?" Luke asked curiously knowing twenty pounds would make a big difference to what he looked like now.
"No, you'll, of course, have extra fat clinging to you but you could tone it up if you'd like. But you'd look just fine Luke."
The blonde once again thought as the line went silent for Alex. "I suppose I'll take it one step at a time and when I don't like how I look I'll stop the step before, Luke suggested.
"Sounds good," Alex agreed proud of how far the blonde had come. "Now that you're a healthy weight I can give you something."
"Give me something?" Luke asked confused.
"Have you got a pen and a piece of paper handy?" the man double checked.
"No, why?" the blonde frowned.
"Get some," Alex ordered, so the boy did.
"I have some." The man then read out a bunch of numbers and Luke figured out by the amount of them that it was a mobile number. "Who's number is it?" Luke asked curiously.
The line went dead. "Hello? Alex?" the boy called down the phone but the man had gone, leaving Luke with a number.
Curiosity eating him alone the boy decided to give it a call. Only hoping it could be one person. Pressing the call button Luke held his phone to his hear. After three rings the receiver picked up their phone.
But, unlike any usual person who would generally mutter a confused hello. This person excited asked, "Luke?"
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