Blocked Away | A TMF Fan-Fiction

Chapter Fifteen

Luke's P.O.V.

Compared to the previous night, Luke was able to get a good night's sleep. He ended up falling asleep a tad late, due to having two cups of coffee that day, but the sleep he got overall was decent. And he did feel better in the morning after talking. He felt more at peace with his whole ordeal. He still had no idea what he was doing to do, but at least he was able to embrace that.

The whole day had gone by pretty fast. In first period, the teacher did a continuation of the slide show from yesterday, since the other one was cut short by the bell the other day. Second period was just another math worksheet. Music rehearsals went well too. The day before, Sean and Hailey worked on music tracks, and now the club actually had something to go off of. All of rehearsals were pretty much different club members making small musical riffs with their instruments to go along with the tracks. They decided that they may actually try to decide what their song should be about, and get some sheet music written down, on Sunday, when they had their rehearsals at Zander and Hailey's.

Gym was hardly the ordeal it was the other day. Zander wasn't forced into participation, so he read his book at the bench, and Luke went back to playing soccer. The most noteworthy class that day was Ms. Jones. Everyone had chosen a classical book to read for that class a couple weeks ago, and now they were meant to finish their book by the start of next week. Ms. Jones announced that next week, on Monday, everyone would start writing an essay on their books. Luke had made a kind of lazy choice for his book. He chose To Kill A Mockingbird. It was a lazy choice since he had already read the book in eighth grade, but he didn't remember the book in a ton of detail, so he assumed it would be fine.

The last two days had been so jam packed with emotion for Luke, so today felt refreshing. Maybe I can get through all of today being normal.

English class, and school, was now over, and Luke, Zander, and Hailey were now standing outside of the English classroom. Luke was about to say something about the three of them walking home together, but he then remembered something.

"Oh, yeah! Zander. I'm sorry; I forgot to mention earlier. I won't be able to walk home with you and Hailey today."

"You're talking to him like I'm not right here," Hailey said, with a fake, more teasing, tone of saltiness.

"The only reason I'm not talking to both of you, is because you already know. You're the one who asked me to stay after, and clean the music room," Luke explained.

"Oh, and by the way, you don't need to clean the music room itself since Sean did that pretty recently. It's mainly the instruments: the spare guitar, and Zander's piano. Maybe wipe down the table in there too," Hailey instructed.

"Okay, got it."

"You better be careful cleaning the piano Luke," Zander warned, with a slightly dark tone in his voice. Zander wouldn't usually be strict with his friend like this, but a while ago, Milly got put in charge of cleaning duty, and she used this soap on Zander's piano, which clogged up the keys. They were able to get it fixed, but Zander screeched at Milly after that. And ever since he's been far more wary of people cleaning the piano for him.

"Don't worry, Zander. I will."

"It actually works out kind of well that you can't walk home with us, Luke," Hailey chimed in, "Because Zander has to help me with a book thing in the library."

"I do?" Zander asked, clearly not previously aware of this.

"You do now."

Zander groaned, "Ugh. Fine."

"We should actually go do that thing now. Bye Luke. Happy cleaning."

"Bye Luke."

With that, Zander and Hailey walked off to the school library. Luke himself went off to the music room.

Most of the cleaning went by relatively fast. The spare guitar didn't take too long, but the piano took a bit longer, mainly because Luke took his time, wanting to be extra careful. He was now wiping down the table they had in there, with a spritzing cleaner, and cloth. He was in the middle of wiping, when he heard the door creak open.

"Uh...is it okay if I come in?" Luke heard a high pitched voice ask.

He looked up to see Stacy at the music club doorway. Luke chuckled inside his head a bit. Oh. That's the girl I "like."

"Of course!"

Stacy walked fully into the music room, twirling a little bit of her hair on her finger. "So, Luke..." she hopped up onto the table to sit near him.

"Oh! I wouldn't do that. The table's still wet from cleaner."

"Oh!" Stacy hopped off the table, "Sorry."

"It's not a problem!" Luke assured, "Did you have something you wanted to say?"

"Uh, yeah. Um..." Stacy was becoming far more nervous in her demeanor. Luke noticed she was fiddling with her hair even more now, and she seemed to be blushing.

There was a pause, until Stacy suddenly grabbed one of Luke's hands with both of her's, "Luke! I do have something to tell you!"

Luke was taken aback by the gesture. The same sentence kept repeating in Luke's mind: What is happening?

"I really like you, Luke! And I would like to go out with you sometime!"

A wave of different thoughts entered Luke's head. Well isn't that convenient? Isn't it so convenient that the one person, out of everybody in that whole field, I happened to say I like, likes me. Luke yelled at himself sarcastically. Then Luke was trying to think of the right words to say, but then he realized if Zander figured out that he rejected Stacy, he would have to come clean, and then he started panicking, and couldn't think straight. Oh God. I can't have Zander figure out. I'm not ready for that. You know what? Stacy seems sweet. I can just suppress all of the emotions I've ever had for Zander to avoid confrontation, right? Luke knew that wasn't rational though. But then he realized. Zander should have no way of knowing about this. He'll have no idea at all, right?

Luke slowly removed Stacy's hands off of his, "I'm sorry, Stacy. You seem really nice, but I don't feel the same way."

Luke saw a look of confusement enter Stacy's eyes, "You don't?"

"I don't. I'm sorry."

Stacy looked extremely puzzled, "B-but...I-" Stacy seemed to be struggling to find the rights words, but she just took a breath, and recomposed herself, "Okay."

Luke now felt extremely awkward with it just being them two in the room, and since he had pretty much finished cleaning, he decided to use that as an opportunity to leave, "I should actually go. I just finished up here. I'm sorry again."

Stacy was staring off, seeming to be lost in her own thoughts, "It's fine."

Luke grabbed his backpack he had placed on the club room floor while cleaning, and slung it over his shoulder, "Bye Stacy."

"Bye Luke."

With that, Luke exited the music room, and headed out on his way home. Guess today wasn't perfectly without being emotional... Luke thought to himself, But at least it should end here.

Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading chapter fifteen of Blocked Away!  Dang we're getting close to the end.  Three more chapters plus and epilogue (I still have to figure out exactly what I'm doing for that epilogue TwT I have an idea, but it needs more fleshing out)  Gah, I really want to write the next chapter right now, because it's going to be a good one (at least I think) but I need to finish planning out the last chapter first TwT Well, as usual, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!