//SMOKE//

0.3

Luke and Calum had spent the rest of their evening together in the common's area. The room was full of grey couches and tables stacked with board games, puzzles and a deck of cards.

The two boys sat on one of the couches and talked about what they'll do after they get out, what their long term dreams were and what their home lives were like.

Luke had learned that Calum was the best football player back at his high school, he also learned he enjoyed playing bass. Although he ruined the instrument when he had a manic episode and swung it across his room and broke it into pieces. The boy seemed disappointed in himself while speaking of the incident.

"So, you're roommate is Ashton, right?" Calum nodded. "Why doesn't he talk?"

"Anxiety. He does talk, just only around people he feels comfortable around. We went to the same school and everyone always used to make fun of him for crying in the middle of class and I always felt bad for him so I talked to him sometimes. I guess that's why he feels comfortable enough to talk to me now. And you learn a lot about a person when you're stuck in a room with them for 15 hours a day."

Luke nodded and the two sat there quietly for a while before a lady in a blue shirt and pants came up to them and told them in the most soothing voice to be in their rooms by 20 minutes.

She walked away without another word and Calum got up off the couch, took Luke's hand and brought him up to his feet. Luke's heart jumped at the sudden touch and blushed when Calum noticed and smirked.

"Uh, I-I should get back to my room." The taller boy said awkwardly, realizing how close the two were.

Calum nodded and let Luke pass by him, heart still racing while he quickly made it back to his room where Michael laid on his bed, silently reading.

Luke sat down on his bed, pulling out a book himself. You obviously weren't aloud any type of electronics, which was extremely difficult for Luke since he was so absorbed in social media. How was he to find out if his favourite band decided to drop an album? Who would tell him?

Luke opened the first page of 13 Reasons Why and began to read it for the third time. Some say it's a girly book to read, but he doesn't agree whatsoever. It's an eerie book about a dead girl talking about why she died. What was girly about that?

Once in a while he could hear Michael reading to himself which threw of Luke's concentration. Instead of trying to keep reading, he closed his book and laid it on the floor beside his bed and listened to Michael.

After a few minutes of listening, Luke realized he was reading To Kill A Mockingbird. He had read it in Grade 10 and thoroughly enjoyed it. He remembered how in the beginning, he genuinely thought Scout was a boy and Jem was a girl, despite the pronouns being used the entire time.

"Who's your favourite character," Luke asked. Michael abruptly stopped reading in mid-sentence and gently started to rock back and forth. He opened his mouth to say something, but then violently shook his head and shook his body faster. 

Luke sighed, figuring he wouldn't get Michael to talk to him. He wanted to be able to socialize with someone other than Calum. Don't get him wrong, Calum isn't a bad person to talk to, Luke doesn't want to only have one friend. Back home, he used to have tons of friends. That is, until the incident. 

He looked at the clock above the door ahead of him. It was only 10:06. Luke usually stayed up until 3 in the morning on Tumblr or Netflix. The boy blew a raspberry out of boredom and looked back at Michael to see the boy had gone back to reading, but still gently rocking on his bed. Luke flopped on his bed so he was looking at the boring, white, and stuccoed ceiling. When he was younger and couldn't sleep, he would try and make objects out of the shapes on the ceiling.