Paralyzed ▹ Luke Hemmings

01

Luke gripped the sliding door to his closet and prepared himself to open it. There are two reasons why Luke has to take some extra precautions while opening his closet to get dressed every morning: one is because it always gets stuck halfway, and two is because he's kind of a scrawny guy.

Luke struggled against his oponent and only got it to open a few inches before it got jammed again. "Oh great." he muttered under his breath, gripping the door tighter. He pulled it again but it wouldn't budge. It wasn't until he pulled so hard that his momentum caused him to let go and slam his fingers against the wall beside him that he groaned and gave up.

"Mom!" he said in frustration, opening the door to his bedroom. Luke's mother, Liz, came walking down the hallway with (luckily) a basket of fresh laungry in her hands. "Yes, Luke?"

Luke and his mom were really close, I guess you could say. Luke's father, Brent, was away a lot for business trips and was only home for half the year (or so it felt like to Luke). Luke and his mom did a lot together and Luke never really drove her crazy like your typical teenage boy would do. They respected each other just like family should, and sometimes he felt like Liz was his only friend. (Well, she practically was, but Luke's a little in denial about that).

"Oh, are those mine?" Luke walked up and peeked inside the laundry basket. Sure enough, he saw one of his favorite gray t-shirts sitting ontop.

"Yeah, do you need something?"

"I, uh...can't get my closet open again," he chuckled, grabbing the tee and a pair of clean socks that were at the bottom of the basket. "Thank you."

Liz nodded and kissed Luke on his temple (she was pretty affectionate towards her son since it was usually just the two of them living in their house, but Luke didn't mind). "Alright. Tell me when you're going to school."

"I will." Luke said, his heart sinking inside of his chest. Getting up this morning, Luke tried everything he could to try and not think about school. Luke absolutely hates school, and there are many good reasons as to why.

After quickly getting dressed in his usual attire (plain shirt, black skinny jeans, his black vans), Luke packed up his back pack with all the books he will need for the school day. On mondays he has his easy classes: pre calculus, english 12 honors, and then, for his last period of the day, he is a teacher's assistant for his old chemistry teacher that he had sophmore year. The days switch off between classes at Luke's school, so he has these classes every two days, and the rest on the other days.

Luke is probably the smartest kid in his whole school, and deep down he knows it, too. All the way back until kindergarten, Luke has gotten A's in every single class he's ever taken. He's been in advanced math and english since middle school, all his credits for college are almost complete, and he's never gotten below a B+ on a single test. There aren't many...well...intelligent people in his grade, as Luke has observed over the years. In Luke's mind, they're all a bunch of morons. To sum it up: Luke's a genius.

"Mom?" he called from the stairs as he made his way down to the living room. "I'm going to school!"

Liz came walking out of her bedroom and stood at the banister, now dressed in her work clothes. "Bye Luke! I'll be home from work tonight around six. Have a good day!"

Funny. Luke thought to himself, laughing at the idea of actually having a good day at school. He gave his mom one more wave before he walked out the front door and began his short trek to the town's high school.

It was an ordinary Monday morning in October, to say the least. Most days are always just ordinary for him, he can't remember the last time he's had a day that was anything but plain and normal. Luke was the definition of boring, so the moods always trail along with him with every day that he lives. He decides to walk to school on most days, even though he has a car of his own, because he likes the fresh air and the color of the sky when the sun rises.