Wheels || Lashton (boyxboy)

•Seventeen•

[Luke's nose makes me happy

this story will most likely have 30 chapters until the sequel. Hopefully I don't go over 30 and drag this on.

Question: should I have a writing schedule?

I'm not really sure about that since I have a lot of stories and sometimes I have random ideas and write entire chapters in a single sitting and just have to update that day but idk. Thoughts?]

After school I took the bus home and rode my skateboard down the dusty road to my house like normal. The bag on my shoulder felt like it was weighing me down with the weight of the x-ray papers in the Manila folder. I needed to get rid of them straight away.

I quickly unlocked the door and carefully, without making a sound, closed it and hung my bag on a hook, taking the cigarettes and the folder out and hiding them under my shirt. I was planning on tossing out the cigarettes, something I should have done a long time ago.

Unfortunately for me, I happened to stumble over a wrinkle in the rug in the entryway, tumbling to the floor and spilling the cigarettes from the box and the x-ray papers falling out of the folder. I scrambled to pick everything up, but struggled due to my shaking hands and the fact that the cigarettes had scattered all over the room and under furniture. I completely disregarded the papers until it was too late.

"Luke?" Shit. I forgot Claudia was still here. "What's going on? Have you been hiding something?"

My face paled and I snatched the paper from her hands, holding it close to my chest next to my other fist clutching the cigarettes in a crumbling grip. Half of them were probably ruined by then, but that was the least of my worries.

"I'm fine." I snapped. "Nothing's going on."

"Then give me the paper." Claudia challenged. I held the paper tighter, crumpling it against my chest.

"No." I said. "I'm not giving it."

"You at least have to explain. You're not in trouble yet until I hear the whole thing." She sighed, sitting cross legged on the floor across from me. She patted my ankle lightly, as if telling me everything's okay. I'm not judging. "What's up, kiddo?"

I sighed sadly and dropped the smashed cigarettes and the x-ray papers. "I smoke. You can probably obviously tell that." I said after a long stretch of still silence.

"I could tell that already." She snorted. "How else could I explain you coming home late at night with gas station receipts and a fake id you probably shouldn't leave on your bedside table?"

"That's the least of it." I sighed sadly. "I went to the hospital the other day with Ashton for one of his therapy appointments and I decided to make an appointment myself since I knew something wasn't right. I got these x-rays done and- uh. Jeez this is really hard to say-" I trailed off, starting to choke up.

"Let it out, kiddo." Claudia smiled sadly. "I can take it."

"I have lung cancer, Clau." I sobbed. "And I'm not going to live until this time next year if I don't do something about it now."

She didn't say anything, instead she took my x-ray pictures and flipped them over to look at the notes written on the back. "Five thousand dollars for treatment, the rest is covered by insurance." She read aloud. "And I'm guessing you need to win the art competition you've been talking about to get this money without your mum and dad finding out, huh?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself." I mused. "But I looked things up and Ashton's treatment costs the same with insurance. What do I do?"

"It depends on how you look at it." She observed carefully. "Would you sacrifice your own life for Ashton?"

"In a heartbeat." I answered quickly. I didn't even have to think about my decision to answer quickly.

"That sounds like an old fashioned case of true love right there, kiddo." She smiled.

[writing the slang in this book brings me back to the days when I had to
re-teach myself the entire English language so I wouldn't be made fun of in school for having an Australian accent. Those damn koala brothers ruined me for life.

Short and sweet. I'm making up for the two week gap of laziness from before.]