Abet

350 mg

July 26th, 2020

"No! Please put your cameras away!" my mom shoos a photographer off as she tried to walk me away from the entrance of my preschool. This was definitely the part of the day I dreaded and hated all at once, the lights were too bright, and I don't think my mom liked them either. She argues with a man refusing to delete pictures of me as another man crouches down to my height, a friendly smile on his face.

"Could you hold this for me son?" he asks, shoving a heavy bottle in my hands. I let go of my moms hand to keep it from falling to the ground.

"What is it?" I asked, he's aiming the camera at me as I hold it, trying to read the words scrawled on it. "Vode-ka."  I pronounce it my best, my mom rips the bottle from my hand and throws it to the ground.

"Delete those pictures." she snarls at the man, clearly fed up that the body guard we usually had called in sick last minute. She takes my hand again with a stronger grip and pulls me into the car.

"Momma, whats vodeka?"

"Something I hope you never touch again, sweetie."

December 17th, 2030

Look at me, look at me, look at me... I stared intensely at Night- Clary, and her friends as they ate their lunch. I wanted to talk to her more than anything right now, she must know something about these guys, right? She refused to look at me, and got up to throw away what was left of her lunch. Giving up on trying to get her to come to me, I went over myself and tapped her shoulder.

"Clary."

"Luke." she blinked at me. "You figured out my name."

"I did."

"Who told you?"

"Uh, I don't know." I stuttered, unprepared for that question.

"Did you stalk me?"

"No!"

"Look its fine." she chuckled. "What's up?"

"I need to talk to you."

"But you already are."

"Yeah I know but seriously, Night- I mean Clary. Have you noticed anyone, suspicious lately?"

"No." she looked at me, confused. 'Why?"

"No reason." I said quickly. "Just wondering."

"Luke, do you think someone is stalking you?"

"Maybe? I don't know..."

"You don't seem to know a lot."

"Because I really don't."

"Look, I'll keep my eye out for you." she reassured me. "But in the mean time, get some sleep, you look awful."

"I'm trying to quit smoking again." I sighed.

"God that must be killing you." she murmured.

"I'm doing ok." I shrugged, I didn't want to look weak in front of Clary, I was a little afraid she'd see right through me and my lies, did she even know about these guys anyway? My lie seemed pretty convincing to her, and after talking for a little bit longer, she left to go to class, now all I had to worry about was getting home.

-

"Luke? Is that you?"

"Yeah mom." I call back to my mom as I walk into the living space to see her standing there, like she's been waiting for me. "Is something wrong?" I slow down and set my backpack down on the couch, my mom's look feeling intensified by the blink.

"There is something wrong." my dad comes around the corner, holding his coffee cup like usual. My heart beat picked up at the dozens of situations that could be brought up right now, all of them ending badly.

"Dad? I thought you were busy with radio interviews today..."

"I did, but I finished them." he shrugged.

"We wanna talk about Jack." my mom gets around to the point, my dad takes a long sip from his cup, something he usually did when he didn't want to add onto a topic. He was nervous.

"What about him?"

"The police came by today to search our house, he was caught for underage marijuana possesion." electricity zapped at my neck at her words. If they searched my room...

"They found something in your room." my dad added, I swallowed a lump that would soon form.

"When were you going to tell us? Were you going to tell us at all?" my mom asked me, her eyes sparkling with fresh tears.

"I'm sorry." I sighed, not really knowing what to say. I knew this day would happen sometime, but I had never prepared myself on what I would say. "I'm trying to stop,  I have been I swear. I wanted to tell you guys at some point but I didn't know how, and I didn't want to risk someone else hearing about it and having it released everywhere on the media."

"But you couldn't have kept it a secret forever." my dad points out, edginess lacing his voice. "You know I was like you when I was younger, and I don't want you to go through what I did."

"He's right." my mom adds. "His bad decisions impacted his life greatly. And you need to wake up and get a hold of yourself, you know it's bad for us and for you, and I know you've known that since you took your first drag."

"i just didn't know what else to do." 

"You could've came to us. We could've talked. We know how it feels."

"No, you don't." I protested softly. "You became famous later on in life, not as a child. You didn't have cameras constantly following you everywhere, you don't have kids coming up to you and being nice just because they like your parents, everyone just wants to use me, I've never had a true friend or kept one for more than a year except for Jack,. I just thought I could trust him because I had no one else to trust, you guys are always gone anyway."

"I'm here often, your dad is busy with his life."

"His life that got me and everyone into this whole mess."

"This isn't a mess Luke, we can fix it, it's ok."

"No it's not, there's more to it." I grumbled, walking past them and up to my room. I needed to be alone, I needed to think about all of this.

Jack, arrested? What did it mean? I wanted to connect the pieces, and even though they made sense I tried not to think about it. Was this the little taste they were giving me on what would happen if I didn't get the task done fast? I still didn't have the ring, and I was afraid they knew that.

 ✌☠

HEYHEYHEY WHATS HAPPENING I'm really sorry for leaving you guys for almost three months hopefully some of you are actually still here... I won't leave like that again (explanation on my profile, didn't feel like typing it out again lol my motivation levels are literally at -2)

But this was good, I've though about what's really gonna happen in this one a whole lot and I'm excited! :^)

Also since I've been gone I've gotten into the habit of adding noses to smiley faces, they've been around so long and deserve noses

Lia