Blocked Away | A TMF Fan-Fiction

Chapter Four

Luke's P.O.V.

After Luke's awkward interaction with Zander, and his fake confession of feelings for some girl named Stacy he had never even talked to before, Luke continued to play soccer. Not nearly as well though. He was having a hard time properly focusing. He kept thinking about Zander's words, "Well, I hope things work out for you two." He said it very nonchalantly; it didn't seem like he was hiding any emotions when saying it. Why can't I just know how he really feels...that would make this a lot easier.

"Luke! Ball! Your direction!" one Luke's teammates called out to him.

Luke quickly turned and saw the ball, and just passed it to one of his other teammates. Despite Luke's performance being not great anymore, his team was still winning. This was largely due though, to Jake being on the opposing team, and he seemed to be barely paying any attention to the game whatsoever.

The teammate Luke passed the ball to scored a goal, and that was game. Gym class was over. There was only one class period left in the school day, LA with Ms. Jones. With the combination of slight heartbreak, and embarrassment from Luke's previous interaction with Zander, he didn't really feel like talking with him, so Luke just quickly got changed back to his regular clothes, and headed to the English classroom. He took his seat, and about a minute later, Zander entered the classroom, and he seemed a little angry. Zander then walked over to Luke, to their desks. Crap, I forgot we sat next to each other here. Maybe me walking on my own wasn't that helpful, I just put off the inevitable.

"Luke!" Zander said in an almost scolding tone, "Why did you leave without me? We always walk to class together."

"I just..." Luke tried to think of something to say, but there wasn't a good excuse. The real reason wasn't even that justified.

"Well?" Zander further questioned.

Luke couldn't think of anything, so he just told a meek fib, "Sorry, I just forgot."

Zander didn't say anything in response, and just sat down next to Luke. He seems mad. Should I say something? What should I say? I don't want to explain everything, but maybe I should just give a more sincere apology?

"Hey, Zander-" Luke started talking, but before he could properly apologize, Ms. Jones stood up from behind her desk, and started talking.

"Hi students! As you guys remember, we read the short story 'Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?' yesterday in class. Well, today, you and a partner of your choice will make a quick slide show presentation on the story! The assignment is posted with instructions on google classroom. If you have any questions, please ask me!"

Quickly, students started talking, and shuffling around the room, choosing their partners. With almost slight embarrassment, Luke looked over at Zander.

"Do you wanna be partners?" he asked hesitantly.

Zander turned around to look behind him. Luke looked to, to see Hailey, who seemed to be partnering up with some other girl in their class. Zander turned back to Luke, and sighed, "Yeah, sure." Luke felt a small knot in his stomach in response to just how apathetic Zander sounded. He really is just agreeing to partner with me because Hailey partnered with that other girl...if I had known ditching him on the way to class would have made him so mad I wouldn't have done it!

"Well, let's get started then," Luke tried to say cheerfully. Luke and Zander both logged into their school chromebooks, pulled up the assignment on google classroom, and got out their little packets that had the story on them. Zander was being pretty silent as he scrolled through the directions, so Luke decided to say something, "So the outline here says Slide One is just a title slide with our names. Slide Two should be uses of figurative language in the story, Slide Three should be the story's overall theme, and Slide Four should be a conclusion." Zander nodded his head along as Luke spoke. "So, figuring out the theme of the story seems like it would be the most complicated, so maybe we should work on that first?"

"It's fear," Zander coldly stated.

"Huh?" Luke asked.

"The whole story is about fear, and the manifestation of it. Look," Zander opened up his packet, as started pointing toward, and citing a bunch of events, and pieces of text in the story. Zander was an overall pretty academic student, but English was his specialty. Luke just stared, what he felt like was idiotically, at Zander's packet, as Zander kept on flipping through the pages, thoroughly explaining everything. Luke was hardly processing everything Zander was saying.

"Maybe you should work on the themes, and I'll just work on figurative language," Luke suggested.

"Works with me," Zander agreed.

Luke was impressed with Zander's abilities to analyze the story. Luke had always struggled with themes when it came to stories. He always made them way too complicated, and couldn't seem to grasp the fact that a story's theme could be as simple as one word. And this one's was fear. Luke felt a small shiver go down his back as he thought of it. Seemed to hit a little too close to home with how he was feeling right now. Luke put that aside though, and started working.

Luke and Zander were able to finish the slide show fairly quick. After Luke finished his figurative language slide, and Zander finished his theme one, the two of them created the conclusion slide quickly. And of course, the title slide pretty much took no time at all. Just a couple minutes after Luke and Zander finished, Ms. Jones spoke to the class again.

"Okay, students! Class is going to end in a couple of minutes, so start packing up your things. Everyone will be presenting their slides to the class tomorrow, so if you weren't able to finish, please do so after school. Everyone have a good rest of their day!"

Luke got all of his school items packed and ready, and soon the bell rang. Zander got up from his desk, and started walking to the door, but Luke spoke, "Do you wanna walk home together?" Usually this wouldn't even be a question. Most often, Luke, Zander, and Hailey would walk home together, though sometimes Hailey would stay late after school, and it would just be Luke and Zander, but today it felt like Luke had to ask.

"Yeah, I think I'm just gonna walk home with Hailey today," Zander said with a slight tone of sorrow in his voice.

Luke wanted to ask Zander more questions, but it felt best to leave it alone for the time being. "Okay," Luke softly responded.

Zander started to walk toward the door, but turned back before leaving, "Bye, Luke." He stepped out of the door.

"Bye, Zander..."

Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading chapter four of Blocked Away!  And thank you so much for 200 reads!  I didn't think so many people would read and like my little Lander story, but I'm so happy that you guys do!  Every read, favorite, and comment is appreciated!  Sorry this chapter took a little while longer to come out (and that it's a little shorter than the others), like I said, I started this project on the weekend, where I have far more time to write, so you may notice a somewhat inconsistent upload schedule.  Another reason it took a little while longer, is that I was planning out more of the story!  Before, I had known some of the things I wanted to happen, but I wasn't sure what order, or how exactly things would end.  I still don't have every single chapter planned out, but at least I now know the big general list of events.  Once again, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!