Yours, truly

Chapter 10.

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Luke

"That's amazing Beatrice" Alan cheered. "Sometimes our most important relationships are with friends"

Beatrice smiled softly looking pleased and then turned her head to the person next to her, Rodrick, who hadn't been paying attention.

Alan gestured him to talk and he sat up straight looking confused. "Wait what are we doing?"

Nearly everyone in the room chuckled as Alan informed him "Your Up and Down for the week Rodrick"

"Oh yeah! I guess my up would be...uh, I got two bags of gummy bears from the vending machine on Wednesday, instead of the one I mean" he grinned widely as he said this like he was expecting each of us to stand up and applaud.

That was the highlight of his week?

Alan, without any reaction, asked him "And your down?"

"I got in trouble at school. I wasn't paying attention during my Maths class" Rodrick had severe Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Sometimes his weekly stories were hilarious.

"Although I think Ms Agnes hates me" he muttered getting lost from what he was supposed to be talking about.

"Yes, Rodrick that must be hard..." Alan was interrupted by him.

"...she put a sad face on my Trigonometry test last week, I thought that was quite mean. Nobody else got a sad face, I checked" Rodrick went on ignoring or not noticing Alan's attempt to talk to him.

He continued to explain how Ms Agnes always swears at him in Greek.

I smiled and looked down resisting the urge to laugh. Alan shot me a look, he could be scary went he wanted to be.

Then he turned to me. "Luke, your Up and Down"

Now he was punishing me.

Everyone stared at me and I sighed. Last week's down was when I lost it in Coaches office which was quite bad.

"My up would be...I went to a party yesterday. Which I usually don't like but I ended up having a good time" I explained.

"That must have been hard for you. I'm guessing there was alcohol at this party?" Alan asked and I nodded.

"Were you tempted at all? Have any cravings?" He questioned with a proud look on his face as to say 'well done'.

"None" I answered truthfully remembering my nine cups of coke last night.

I haven't taken my medication in a long time because I don't have any cravings anymore. My parents and old therapist both agreed a few months ago when I asked them to take me off it.

I never liked it at all. It made me never want to eat so I lost a shit ton of weight last Summer and I always felt energetic and had trouble sleeping. It also didn't help with my withdrawal symptoms which were the worst.

But now I didn't need it anymore.

"And your down?"