Coming Up For Air

2.5

"I'm so sick,

Infected with where I live

Let me live without this

Empty bliss,

Selfishness."

-Flyleaf, 'I'm So Sick'

⚑ Luke ⚐

"Luke! You--you're home!" Calum stuttered, looking red faced and flustered as Luke entered their apartment.

"Don't look so shocked. I live here, remember?" Luke was still beaming because Ashton, Ashton had touched him and kissed him and liked him and even though it had been an hour and a half since their last blushy touch, Luke was still unable to dilute the happy coursing through his veins.

"I--yeah, I know. Where have you been?" Calum asked. Now that Luke looked at him more closely, Calum actually looked kind of sick.

"I slept over at Ashton's. Are you feeling okay? You don't look so good." Luke told his best friend, concern tinting his voice light blue.

"I'm fine. I'm good. Ashton's? You guys are moving quickly." Calum clearly hadn't gotten any sleep, judging from the dark circles under his eyes so deep that he almost looked like he'd gotten into a fight. His bottom lip was chewed raw.

"Okay, Mom." Luke rolled his eyes at Calum, trying to lighten whatever storm was making Calum upset. Instead of the small smile Luke was anticipating, Calum winced and paled.

"Luke--,"

"I think maybe you should skip out on work today and get some sleep. You look like hell, no offense." Luke said, worry carving lines into his forehead. "I can call in for you."

"I feel like hell, too, Luke. Listen, I need to--," Calum started again, but Luke shook his head and interrupted.

"Whatever you need to talk to me about can wait. I have to get ready for work, and you need to go to sleep. Go lay down and I'll text Sonja and tell her to let your boss know that you're sick."

Calum still looked deeply troubled, but he slowly nodded and retreated to his room, his hands fisted in the sides of his tee-shirt, something he did during thunder storms and roller coasters and other times he was terrified.

Terrified of what? Luke vaguely wondered as he stepped into the shower.

x

The music store was slow, leaving Luke a lot of time to worry about Calum and think about Ashton and hope he could get in to do his upper A levels. He played with a rip in his jeans, wishing his phone wasn't dead.

There was also the matter of his dad. He hadn't spoken to him in about a month, not even calling to alert him that he would be moving out of the old flat. Luke didn't feel like he deserved it. His father had been dissolving for a long time, but trying to rip him away from Calum had been the last straw.

They had been happy this time last year--his family, that is. His dad was the general manager of a chain store, a huge one, and his mom taught math at the secondary school Luke attended, and Calum had just moved in with them, and they lived in a big loud house with Ben at home and Jack three blocks down and there was always laughter and music and just normalcy.

Of course, everything wasn't completely perfect; Calum was forced to move in because his parents had kicked him out, but Luke's family loved him and they let him stay in Jack's old room. And Ben, who should have been out on his own, was still stuck at home because he'd gotten his girlfriend pregnant when they were 17 and he could barley afford the child support. And then there was the relentless pushing of Luke's dad's bosses for him to move to New York so he could live at the center of operations of the chain store.