Streaker.

39

Luke ended up having to stay in the hospital for two more nights, just because the rest of the nurses disagreed with the doctor and said that Luke should be looked over a little more.

Luke was fine with that, because he knew that the sooner he got home the sooner he would get yelled at by his mom, and he wanted to stall that for as long as he could.

When Luke finally did get to go home, his mom was very upset with him, just as Luke had suspected. It wasn't that she was mad, she was just concerned. Liz had no idea that Luke had been drinking so much and she was more scared than anything when she got the call from Michael saying that Luke was being taken to the hospital with alcohol poisoning.

They had a very long talk about pretty much everything, and then Luke and his mom agreed that Luke should go to some counseling/therapy sessions/whatever to try and work through this. She didn't yell at Luke that much, which was good, and when they were done talking Luke walked away with only a two week grounding instead of two years like he'd planned.

Luke went back to school for the rest of the week after coming home from the hospital. Now instead of people talking to him in the halls about his famous streaking incident at the Homecoming game they asked him about how he almost died in Ashley Miller's front lawn on Saturday night. Luke still didn't his sudden "fame" around the school.

It was late Saturday afternoon when Luke's phone started ringing, probably for the first time since what happened last weekend. His friends had basically stopped talking to him outside of school, Luke didn't really know why, and they hadn't called or texted him in days.

"Hello?" Luke groaned, rolling over on his bed. All he really did now was sleep, because his mom had taken his laptop away for the two weeks and Luke had nothing to do. No porn, no Netflix, no online shopping for puppy-related things that he could put all around his room, nothing.

"Hi, Luke?" It was Ashton, and he spoke to Luke like they hadn't talked in years.

"Yeah, that's me." Luke scoffed. He rubbed his eyes, having just woken up from a long nap.

"Uh, well, hey." Ashton laughed nervously. Luke could hear people talking in the background, and he knew that Ashton probably had everyone over and didn't invite Luke. Again.

"Hi." Luke said blankly, wondering what Ashton could possibly want.

"So, um, Calum and Michael and, uh, a couple other people are over right now, and I was wondering if you wanted to come?" Ashton questioned, still sounding too nervous to even be talking to Luke.

"I'm grounded." Luke said slowly. He didn't even know if his mom was home right now, and if she wasn't then Luke could very well just sneak out of the house and return before she got back, but Luke wasn't that type of person.

"Oh, are you sure? Can't you just talk to your mom and ask her if you can come over for about an hour?" Ashton sighed. Luke didn't even know why Ashton wanted him to come over so badly, Luke already knew that this wasn't going to end well.

"I'll see." Luke shrugged to himself. "I also am not allowed to drink anymore, so if you're planning on getting me drunk and watching me cry like you usually do that's not gonna happen." He added.

"No, Luke, we all just want to talk to you." Ashton promised.

"I'll see." Luke repeated and finally rolled out of bed, tripping over various pairs of dirty jeans and shirts that were scattered all over the floor. "Hang on a minute."

Luke walked out of his room and down the hallway, into the office where his mother probably would be if she was home. She was in there, actually, sitting at her desk with her laptop opened in front of her.