Intertwined

Part 46: Trouble

It was a struggle, leaving his bed this morning.

Then again, the last few mornings have been hard for him to leave his bed- let alone find the want of leaving his room.

Sitting in home room before school starts, Lukas stares at his history book and simply feels heavy beyond measure.

He really is struggling.

Between what happened in Halloween and everything else floating around his mind, he can't get a grip and refocus himself here.

"There you are." Max says as he comes in from making copies all morning. He hardly seen the kid move upstairs. He would've figured he was in the gym practicing since Championship's are coming up.

"Here I am." He says muted.

"While we have a few minutes..."

" I don't wanna talk about anything...okay?"

"I was just gonna ask if you heard about the new Prime Minister of Sweden."

"Oh...um no. What about him?" Lukas asks curiously.

"The founder of IKEA just became the Prime Minister."

"That's... that's pretty c..."

"Yeah, right now he's assembling his cabinet." Max grins widely as he cuts the boy off and it takes Lukas a moment to realize it's a joke.

"Haha...what's wrong with you?"

"Just making use of my Dad jokes." Max sits across the small aisle and sets his stack of papers down. "In all seriousness though, did you hear about the guy racing across Scandinavia?"

"No..."

"Oh yeah- he's almost to the Finnish line."

"Come on, Mate!" Lukas tosses a balled piece of paper at him and laughs as Max dodges it.

"Huh...they never get old." Standing up, Max takes the stack of papers to his desk and Lukas' smile slowly falls as the man leaves him in the back of the room. Looking between the door and Max, Lukas feels weird.

Very weird.

Like- he wants to cry and throw up- but also wants to just not...ya know- be here.

"Hey..." Lukas says softly. Too softly for Max to hear properly. So clearing his throat, Lukas tries again. "Hey, Dad."

Max perks up from looking at his papers and turns and smiles at Lukas.

"Yeah, Brov?" He tries to remain chill.

"I...I don't..." He keeps stopping himself because he doesn't want anything to happen that he isn't prepared for- because when those kind of things happen- they tend to be bad.

Yet, he also feels too anxious not to reach out for some sort of support.

"I don't feel good." He finally says and his voice crackles a bit- which he hopes Max doesn't hear- but he most certainly does.

"I'm sorry, Mate. What can I do to make it better?" Max comes towards him and he can see the boy struggling.

"I...I don't think th...there is anything...anything to do." Lukas says, feeling himself ready to just cry.

"What do you want to happen right now?" Max asks as he sits back down across from him.

"I...I want to be...sick."

"So you can go home?" Lukas nods. "And what do you want to do at home?"

Max is internally worried for the kid. He's been through so much and he obviously isn't coping well- which Max can hardly blame him. Lukas feels the tears bubbling in his eyes and he wishes he could just go away.