alumni ➢ luke hemmings [DISCONTINUED]

2.3 ➢ Mum.

LUKE HEMMINGS

I used to read a lot as a kid. Novels, short stories, excerpts from freelance writers on online blog posts. If it had words, I'd be on it in no time; deducting and picking apart random phrases here and there, trying to figure out what it all meant, attempting to drill into my head whatever information I could find. It felt like a sudden thirst, for knowledge, for more words, for more things to distract myself with. Often it felt comforting, like a hobby I could keep to myself. It only started feeling like a burden once the books were replaced by numbers, and the thirst was substituted by force.

"When you finish High School, you can have all the time in the world at Uni to read whatever it is you please," Mum had always told me. She couldn't have been more wrong.

University meant many different things, opened many opportunities that closed the doors of any time I thought I could dedicate to leisure. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, but I guess I am.

"You, me, five hundred campus go-ers and pledges left, right and centre tonight. Party central. Right here in this very building, you in?"

Ashton's making motions with his hands, flicking them with erratic movements from me, to him, to the outside beyond the window of my penthouse. When he says "five hundred", he gestures towards the entire campus, ensuring that he includes the entirety of Upper Manhattan.

Fucking fantastic. They don't even wait for me to dish out invites, anymore. They just show up whenever they want to show up.

I raise an eyebrow, I flip the page to another poem, another soliloquoy, another forgotten epilogue of an indie novella that has never truly been done any justice. But I don't speak.

"Dude," Ashton drags the vowel on, puckering his lips and forcefully pulling on the sound like it's velcro against a carpeted floor. I don't look at him. "Come on. You've been cooped up in here for the past two days-"

"Thirty-six hours."

"Two days," he continues, "That's not good! Have you even had a proper meal since you came back from your little debacle with the Delta girl?"

Ashton reads, but not as much as me. He mainly reads things he doesn't understand. Using the word 'debacle' in a sentence alongside 'little', for example. Or the fact that Sophie clearly has a name yet he continues to dub her what he dubs the rest of them.

I decide not to answer him, instead I focus on what I can. These past 'two days' have been utterly peaceful because I haven't been forced to do much. A majority of my frat are ahead of initiation, so we don't have to worry, at least not for a short while. I can afford to be careless and sloppy for the time being. And as much as I tolerate Ashton Irwin, I just wish he'd leave me to do what I want to do and get the fuck out of my apartment.

Parties are great. They're fun, I'll admit. Being surrounded by a plethora of sweaty bodies and wandering hands and certain girls knowing exactly what they want and how they want it, even better. But god fucking damnit- sometimes, it gets a little too much.

"I'll think about it."

"Ugh, so that's a no," he huffs, "Come on, man. This happened last time,"

No reply. He carries on, "You start overreading and overthinking because of overreading and then bam," he claps his hands together, "Depression." then, as if he can't quite believe he'd left the preposition behind, he adds, "Again."

It doesn't quite work like that, I want to tell him. It doesn't just happen in an instant. Thirty-six (about to be thirty-seven) hours of my eyes on a page has it's own consequences, but the D word isn't one of them.