Lonely Hearts Club // Book One

Chapter Thirty-Eight

October 9th, 2014

"Finally, you're back at school. I thought I'd be alone forever," Calum said to me. I guess it wasn't my fault that my mum had decided to make an impromptu trip down to see Alice. Baby Riley was no longer as small as he was. "Luke's not here, though."

"Cal, I know, it's 7th period, I have two classes with him," I chuckled and took out a pen.

"Well you don't have to sass me, I'm just putting it out there. It's not usually good if he's not in school as long as you were gone, and that was a week."

"He's been gone a week?" Before Calum could answer, Mr. Wright walked in, in his usual corduroy pulled up to his waist.

"We're taking notes today!" he announced. "Samantha, spit out your gum, there are other things to blow but surely you know that." Ladies and gentlemen, my Chemistry teacher, he was an easy favourite of mine. She began coughing in disgust, but most of us were snickering or dying of laughter. "Is Lucas sill not here?" my teacher asked with a sigh.

"Nope," said Calum. Mr. Wright let out another sigh, he sighs so much that we call him Your Sighness.

"Is he okay? He's gone a lot."

"He's out of town," my friend lied and looked over at me. "After school, we'll try to find him," Calum whispered. I just didn't understand, why whenever Luke was gone, any form of contact was somehow out of the picture.

•••

"They're home?" I asked myself as we drove up the driveway. "They're never home when Luke's not in school. I don't even know where they go."

"John's hearings in Brisbane," answered Calum. "That's where they go."

"Oh." We made our way to the door, and rang the bell, having John answer it right away.

"Paige and Calum, hello? Looking for Lukey?" He called him Lukey? We both nodded and John sighed, I guess we can call him Your Sighness, too. "Sorry, kids, he's in the hospital."

"Why?" Calum asked before I could even muster up a response.

"He passed out on Tuesday doing housework and they found that he has iron deficiency, and they're keeping him longer to make sure he gets his health back up," explained John and I let out a sigh of relief. "You guys can go see him, room 232, he could be sleeping, he has to do a lot of that."

I also didn't understand why John was being so nice to me and Cal, after all, I thought John didn't like Luke, and we were his friends.

"Uh, alright, thanks." The man closed the door without saying anything, and halfway down to the car, Calum asked me, "was that John?"

"Sure was," I muttered. "He's been like that ever since he got off probation."

"Freaky."

I was insanely anxious to reach the hospital, but that didn't necessarily mean I wanted to see my sick boyfriend look like he's dead. At first, when John told us that Luke was in the hospital, I was freaking out again just like when Maggie went. But, now I knew that he was depressed and had APD, so I didn't really know what could possible happen.

"Don't be a slow poke," I said to Calum while we made our way up the stairs. The long stairway caused my voice to echo, and sound more awkward than it already was. He huffed and skipped a few steps to catch up to me, but I had already stopped at the doors to the second floor wing. Opening the doors, we took our first steps into the hallway where Luke was being held. It already smelled too clean.

Calum furrowed his eyebrows and pursed his lips. "This place looks awfully familiar," he said curiously.

"You stayed here after you got your tonsils out; remember?" I didn't know how I did. He muttered an oh and followed me down the hall as we looked for room 232. It wasn't long before we were stood in front of an open door with a clipboard with Luke's name on a paper on the side of the door. "Alright," I whispered.