BAD OMENS ✬ luke hemmings

2.9 | luke

Luke is staying home this Friday.

He doesn't want to do his after school detention, and the best way to avoid it without further question is calling in sick. Turns out many people at school have been catching a form of the common cold or flu due to the sudden drops in temperature as autumn turns into winter. Besides, it's not like the school can make him go to detention.

The worst that can happen is an email or phone call to home, nothing serious.

The blond sits at his desk, guitar placed on his lap and laptop playing a tutorial for some song with the guitar tabs on screen. He hasn't had much time to practice, or learn, a new song since school started.

With assignments piling up, and the first math IA draft due in a week or two, he's been swamped with work and studying for tests trying to keep up with his dying motivation while aiming for a six in each of his classes.

Though, getting a six in English or Spanish doesn't seem to be that achievable at the moment. For one, he believes he's a good writer though never gets enough points on the analysis side of the rubric. Secondly, the reading comprehensions in Spanish are starting to kick his ass despite being in the beginner class.

Part of him wishes that he continued with French and didn't drop the language, then again, he's done four years of French at school and never figured out how to conjugate. At least with Spanish it's easier.

Nevertheless, he sits, rocking back and forth on the chair, as he sight reads the tabs to Anthem, Part Two by Blink-182. He's a lot more rusty than expected. It's as if he forgot how to hold a pick, and all the muscle memory in his fingers have vanished while he struggles to hold his fingers along the strings and frets.

Nevertheless, he continues, turning up the volume from the knob on the guitar, having the sound pierce through the amp and shake the smaller items on his desk from the vibrations. Luke figures the louder the sound is, the more it'll motivate him to play.

So, he watches the video, pausing every five seconds after he messes up to redo it. Running the verse over and over again at increasing speeds until he's comfortable with it before moving on to the next line, where he repeats it.

It's quite infuriating when he messes up. That frustrating feeling of getting it wrong after feeling confident with it. He forgot about how aggravating it is, those months out without practice finally kicks him in the ass.

Still, he perseveres and starts again. Precise with the placement of his fingers on the skinny strings, and the strumming of the pick.

Luke used to take lessons, every Wednesday, for a year. Though he quit in August when he realized that school should be his priority. There simply wasn't enough time to continue on with the guitar lessons when there were four extra higher level topics for physics and ten higher level topics for chemistry.

He has to prioritize, and unfortunately, music is not going to get him into a good university or a degree for chemical engineering. Sure, the subject is not a big passion of his, but there's not much he can do.

Going into music, as a career, or the arts in general is not a solid path for him to take and there's very little gain for the amount of effort that is put into it. Luke is trying to survive once he graduates, from both high school and university. He needs a job that can sustain the cost of living, and give him enough time for leisure activities.

And based on the universities he's looking at, Luke needs to keep his grades up and stay ahead of the content so he can get accepted. It's a competitive world out there, and he needs to prove that he's part of the 40, 30, or even 18 percent.