Luke

Chapter 12

I woke up the next day, still leaning against a wall. I rose my head, my vision still blurry from before. There was a blanket draped over me; where'd that come from? I rested my hand on the wall, trying to use it to help myself up. I coughed into my hand, stumbling to the bedroom door and opening it, crossing the hall into the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror, or what I could look at. It looked as if someone tried to smudge off the blood on my face with a towel or their hand. I didn't know who would do that. I grabbed a cloth and ran it under hot water, applying to my face and scrubbing the brown layer off. I rung out the cloth, the water tinted a brownish-red. I looked back to the mirror, seeing my left eye surrounded by a purpley-blue. Oh, wasn't that just wonderful. 

I went back into my room, grabbing my bag and dragging it into the kitchen. I opened up the cabinets, grabbing a bag of chips left over from God-knows-when and shoved it in my bag, heading out the door. I saw a pair of sunglasses in the key-bowl and grabbed them, pulling them over my face and heading off to school.

It was early - way earlier than I usually leave for school. I wanted to leave before Sam and Lilly woke up. My whole face was throbbing now, but I could pull off the pain thing. It was attention I was worried about. I didn't want any more than I already did.

The walk to school is relatively boring. It’s about half a mile to get to the campus and you have to pass a couple busy streets and some stores and shit. There’s this one garden I pass by if I go the long way and it’s actually pretty relaxing. I should really visit more often. I try to avoid as many people when walking to school as possible. Once I get into town, lots of students are seen hanging out, getting early morning coffee or getting high in some alleyway. Sometimes I see Brad and his friends hanging near the bleachers that Jay and I sit at. Anyways, I usually stay on the opposite side of the road, hoping I won’t run into anyone.

By the time I got into school, only the AM gym kids, or band and chorus kids, or those kids who get here early because they want to study because they’re obsessed with high grades, were there. I kept my head down, which was always pretty normal for me, and went upstairs to shove my books into my bag, then headed over to Jay’s section of school. I slid down the wall and sat by her locker, waiting for her to come.

I felt a book hit my head sometime later. “Luke, hey, wake up," I heard someone say. I looked up and Jay was next to me, putting her books in her bag. I must have dozed off.

“Hey, Jay,” I greeted, standing up and stretching.

“Hey, how’d you sleep?”

“Enough with the sleeping jokes.”

“Oh c’mon, they’re funny.”

“Mhm, yeah. Okay.”

She put her last book in her bag and closed her locker, swinging her bag over her shoulder.

“Well don’t you look as emo as ever,” she teased, giving me a smile.

“And don’t you look as Asian goth as ever.”

“Hey, it’s just ‘goth’. There’s no such thing as ‘Asian goth’.”

“Yeah there is. You’re Asian goth.”

“Shut up, Luke,” she scoffed, fixing her bag on her shoulder. “Why are you wearing those sunglasses inside? You look like a douche.”

“I thought they looked extra emo,” I joked, adjusting the frame on my face. I hope no one could see through the lens.

“Luke, seriously. Take them off. People are gonna stare at you.”

I sighed and took them off, revealing my black eye.