Off One's Rocker - Lashton

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-eight

-

"I think that was a little extreme taking Luke out of there," Jack told his mother as they arrived home after a long drive. Luke ignored them both and didn't mutter a word to them the entire drive home.

"I know," his mother agreed, putting her head in her hands as she sat on a chair behind the counter in the kitchen.

"You could send him back," the middle brother suggested. He was unsure if Luke was going to be okay. Likewise, if they could cope with him just yet.

"I'd look like a fool. We're just going to have to cope with looking after him ourselves. I'm sure he'll be fine anyway," Liz admitted looking up the stairs to where her son had gone straight to his room.

"Did you leave his scale in his room?" Jack asked beginning to grow worried.

Liz nodded, whilst placing her head on the work surface. "This is going to be hard."

-

It was all about trust. Trusting Luke to eat by himself. At first, there was very little trust because they only knew the Luke that refused to eat. But, they soon realised he was capable of eating now.

Of course, there were times where he didn't want to eat anything. Either he wasn't hungry or was having a bad day. His brother and mother thought that he going back into old troubles on those days, and would force him to eat.

But, soon learnt it was normal for him to be like that and let the boy get on with sorting out his eating habits and gaining weight sufficiently. Liz wouldn't let Luke go back to school until he reached a healthy weight of 137 pounds.

It took four weeks for him to do so, his progress was a lot slower than in the hospital. Maybe because he was free to go out on a walk whenever be pleased. However, it was rare for Luke to ever leave the house. He barely muttered a word to his relatives. He isolated himself to his room.

When in his room, Luke was either trying to find some sort of way to communicate with Ashton. Someone who be missed so dearly and really needed to see. Or spoke to Alex over the phone about how he was feeling and about his physical progress.

-

"Hi," Luke said smiling slightly as he received a call from his therapist.

"Hey Luke, how are you doing?" the man asked. He always asked that question first. It had two different meanings. It was just a friendly thing to ask about life generally seeming he'd been stripped out of a psychiatrist ward half way through his recovery. Or it related to his progress from the recovery of his anorexia. Or the voices that were in his head.

Fortunately, Luke hadn't missed any pills yet so his family hasn't had to witness their son talking and going mental to someone they couldn't see. He was a very reliable boy.

"Good, I reached one hundred and thirty-nine yesterday so mum said I could go back to school now," he beamed excitedly.

"That's good," Alex commented. "Do you have any worries about going back to school?" he asked.

"Well, I don't know if people know why I was gone. I guess if they don't then I'm going to have loads of questions fired at me. I don't like being bombarded by lots of questions, so what if I snap at them?" Luke admitted anxiously.