Something Changed: Day 4

Word Count: 24,024

Summary of Events:

Luke spent Saturday with Finn, telling him all about the chaos that had been the night before, which shocked Finn — especially the part where the adults had been completely unconcerned with the girl's injury. The following Friday Luke was told by his parents that he was going to the Domino Group again, which Luke argued against, as he hadn't enjoyed his first visit, and he didn't expect to enjoy a second, but later on, just after he'd finished his homework, his dad knocked on his bedroom door . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“Come on Luke, it’s time to go!” Dad called through the door.

“I’m not going!” Luke snapped, slamming shut his last book.

“Luke, we’ve been over this,” Dad said firmly. “We don’t want you loafing around.”

“I won’t be!” Luke protested.

“You said you have no plans,” Dad said. “That means you’ll be loafing around. Come on, let’s go.”

Luke gestured rudely at the lightweight white-painted door that shielded his father from view before packing up his school books into his backpack for Monday and taking up the small case with his clarinet inside.

He heard his bedroom door open.

“Luke, let’s go,” Dad said firmly. “No nonsense. Put that junk away.”

Luke looked angrily at Dad. His clarinet wasn’t junk.

Nonetheless, he threw the case down on his bed forcefully — grateful it didn’t bounce off the bed onto the floor even though the case was such that the instrument wouldn’t necessarily have been harmed if it’d happened — and stalked toward Dad, who looked satisfied.

He knew his parents thought that the clarinet was an obscure and useless instrument — having no interest in how playing an instrument with the air from his lungs helped him to control his breathing and improve his lung capacity so that his asthma wasn’t as troublesome as it’d been in the past at times, even if it still bothered him — since it wasn’t used in any popular music, as they’d derided him for his talent when he’d played it for them, but an instrument that cost several hundred dollars he’d carefully saved up for years was not junk, especially considering Finn’s dad had helped him pick out an affordable-yet-quality one.

Additionally, there was that loafing around nonsense again. He wouldn’t be loafing around playing his clarinet. He had to sit properly in order to be able to breathe at his best and play the clarinet well, and he also didn’t really slouch around while playing his guitar or his video games ever either.

More importantly, he’d been at school around people all day — all week, even — on top of his usual three evenings a week hanging out at Finn’s house, which was a lot of people time for someone like him. He wanted to have some people free time to rest, not unlike Dad always did watching Leafs games. Maybe he should throw that in Dad’s face, see what Dad thought of that.

Luke seethed all the way to the church before getting out and slamming the door forcefully. He heard the window roll down as he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket.

“You could break the windows doing that!” Dad snapped. “Check your attitude!”

Silently Luke glared at Dad, gesturing rudely at the SUV as it pulled away before looking to his cellphone. Hanging out with Finn would be better than hanging out here. He had enjoyed good alone time at Finn’s house in the past.

“Aw hey man!” Luke groaned. “Good to see you here again! I knew you had too much fun last week not to come back!”

He glared at Keeley, who brightly bounded over to him, clearly oblivious to Luke’s ire, and started shepherding him toward the door.