Survival Of The Fittest

Luke opened his eyes, unable to fake being asleep anymore. He stared blankly at the cream-coloured ceiling and walls, shifting his eyes to take a note of his surroundings. His bedroom was dark, curtains still drawn, even though it was past 10:30am. His room, usually neat, was now unkempt, his clothing scattered everywhere. Books lay around his bed and in a pile on his desk. A notebook lay on the other side of his bed that he had been writing last night.

The fan above Luke's head spun, left to right, left to right. His eyes were keeping track of it, now.
"Mmm. That part has a bump on it." Luke thought, watching it spin. "I wonder how long I can follow it. God, this is boring."

Luke lay on his bed, watching it. He could hear his parents talking, Harold and Carol Templeton, just outside his room. Luke looked over to his clock, just to double-check. His parents should have left for work and more importantly, left him alone hours ago. They sounded like they were probably up to do what they had ever since he had ended up here; convince him to go to school.

School. No, never again.

Luke didn't give a damn anymore what anyone thought, least of all his parents. Not these days. "Enter," he called, sitting up and putting his glasses on, "I can hear you whispering out there. Or, you can save us all the hassle and not bother."

Luke's door opened, to reveal his mother looking a little sheepish. His father was behind her, closing the door as they stepped into the room. His mother was short, with sandy hair that swirled anti-clockwise around her head and a soft complexion. She was wearing a long dress with a white, red and green flower pattern. His father was where he got his height from, but he was wearing a standard shirt and jeans. One look at them brought up the obvious question...

"Why aren't you wearing your scrubs?" Luke demanded, feeling his anger rise. "Why are you guys still here and not at the clinic?"

"Son…" Harold grumbled, "Show respect for…."
"We decided to take the day off." Carol replied softly, cutting her husband off mid-sentence with concern on her face.

"But…. you guys never take the day off." Luke stated, feeling a little more alert then he was before. "What's going on?"

Carol drew closer and sat on the side of Luke's bed. Harold stood next to her, hand resting on her shoulder. Carol reached out to touch Luke's face but he pulled back, still worried.

"Your father and I had a discussion," Carol smiled, "about where we were headed as a family. We've decided to step down the clinic a notch, and open six days instead of seven. It means that we'll be home all of Saturdays and have the time off to spend with Claire, Brad and yourself."

Luke lay back in his bed, his eyes closed, processing it. In a way, this was all he ever wanted. But now, after what had happened? It just made him angry. "God damn it." Luke fumed to himself, "They wait for me, their son, to crash and burn before they do anything? Well, forget it. They don't deserve my forgiveness, after working me to the bone."

"…and?" Luke muttered, not looking at his parents but his voice hinted at the rage he had boiling over, "What do I care what you do? Do what you want."

Carol and Harold shared and look, and Carol tried again to reason with Luke.

"Luke…." Carol started, "We know we haven't been around as much as you'd like, but…"

"You're God-damn right you haven't!" Luke shouted, glaring at his now shocked parents, "You have no idea what it has been like. You guys never gave a damn, this entire time, too busy wrapped up in your careers to care about your own children! I have practically had to look after Brad and Claire while you guys were looking after everyone else!"

"Luke… a day hasn't gone by where we haven't cared and loved you all." Carol replied, taken aback by her sons' attitude, "You've never said a word of how you felt before…"

"and you!" Luke screamed to his father, pointing at him accusingly, "You're the one who has driven me here. All the constant hounding of me, trying to force me to live to some impossible standard. God damn it, all I ever wanted was some sign, some appreciation that you saw me as a son and worthy. I gave everything to make you proud of me. Do you even care at all?!"

"How dare you shout at the both of us!" Harold bellowed back, "You have a roof over your head and if you are not appreciative and respect us you can get out from under my home!"

The room went deathly silent. Carol was clearly upset and at a loss for what to do. Harold was seething and Luke was indignant, challenging his father.

Carol was the first one to break the silence. "Luke…"
"He's not able to hear this yet, Carol." Harold said flatly, breathing slowly to control himself. "Let me talk to him alone."

Carol looked at her husband, nodded and stood up. "Good luck." Carol whispered into Harold's ear. She turned and closed the door behind her, looking back through to Luke and smiled as the door closed. Harold moved from where he stood and sat on the bed, with Luke staring at him with seething hatred during the entire exchange.

Both men sat in silence. Luke took his eyes back to the fan above him. Left to Right. Left to Right.
"….what have I done?" Luke thought to himself, his eyes going wide. "I've never raised my voice to them before."

Luke looked back to his father, who seemed to be searching for the words. Luke started to panic. "Dad, I…"

"No, it is I who should be apologising, Luke." Harold said, not looking at his son. "I am sorry for what I said before."

Harold shifted his weight on the bed, getting in a more upright position. "But what I have to say is important and neither of us are that good with our emotions. So I ask that you give me the space to just talk, uninterrupted, for a bit."

Harold looked to his son, who just nodded in agreement. Harold smiled and then started speaking, his eyes going distant.

"I know you haven't had things right by us." Harold began. "But, my past wasn't so good, either. My own father, your grandfather, was a great man. He had the respect and admiration of everyone around him, so I was told. He was drafted into WWII, and two years later he came back a drunkard and a useless man and leeched of my mother and later on, myself. All he did was drink to forget the things he saw, things he never let us kids know. He wasn't there for us anymore, and my mother, my five younger siblings and I spent our lives for the remainder of his life in a poor and abusive environment."

He father paused, and Luke watched him closely. "I've never heard this before," Luke thought, wondering where it was going. Then Luke's mouth dropped. "Is Dad…crying?"

"I swore on my father's grave that I would never be like him." Harold continued. "I would be a healer of people, not a killer like my father was. That I would be a man who would never abuse my children and would do everything in my power to make a great life for them. I would teach them to be caring, respectful people of society."

Luke said nothing, but tears were welling up in his eyes.

"I also, had to look after my siblings." Harold smiled, putting his hand on Luke's shoulder, "In my day, there wasn't anything so fancy as we have these days, of government-funded education, at least, not what the family could afford. I worked wherever I could to supply the household with money, and studied in my spare time to become a doctor. I guess the apple never falls far from the tree, in the end.

"Luke," finished his father, staring at Luke intently, "I've done wrong by you, to Brad and Claire, and to Mum, my beautiful swirl. I haven't led this family the way I wanted and have realised I've become more like my father then I ever wanted to be. If you don't have it in your heart to forgive me, I understand. But, I am sorry. I am sorry I was so hard on you. I am sorry it took so long for me to realise what I was doing was wrong. I am sorry I…"

"I...I forgive you!" Luke cried out, and the men embraced. Tears streaming down their faces, they spent minutes in each other's arms, crying and laughing. Luke felt as if years of pain were washed away by each tear that fell from his face. He let go of his father and removed the bed covers off his legs.

"Dad?" Luke smiled, wiping his tears away from his face. "I want to go to school today."

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It was around the start of the lunchbreak when Luke and Harold pulled into the Bayview school parking lot. Luke sat in the car for a moment, breathing in deeply. This was the first time he had appeared here for a little over four weeks, after his collapse.

"Do you have everything?" Harold enquired.

"Yeah," Luke nodded. "I don't know why, but I'm even carrying the notebooks I had when I was at home. It just feels comfortable to write in now, you know?"

"Mmm." Harold grunted in agreement, "Do you remember the plan?"

"Make friends," Luke replied, "Though, I have no idea how."

"This is good for you, son." Harold replied, facing his son in earnest, "Each connection or encounter with another worldview gives you more of life to discover and increases your knowledge and understanding, making you a better person in the process. Plus, you need people around your life, Luke. We all do."

Luke smiled as he got out of the car. "Yeah, I know Dad, I know." He waved as Dad drove off, leaving him to face Bayview on his own.

Okay Luke, deep breaths. Luke internalised to psyche himself up. Putting on the bravest face he could, he walked into the closest building to his class year's break room. Walking down the classroom halls, he could feel the whispers going around him. Luke hoped that people wouldn't pick it up, but they had and they had immediately.

"God, do I really stick out like a sore thumb?" Luke muttered to himself. "If I can make it through today, and then the rest will be okay." He took a seat near the corner of the room as not to stand out and pulled out his notebooks. He had acquired quite a few over the past few weeks, it was time to put them to an order. He grabbed the closest one and wrote "SOCIAL" on the font. Flipping it over, Luke wrote "SOCIAL GOALS". On the first page. He mused on this, wondering what his goals exactly should be.

It had been a particularly lazy day for Peter. He hadn't seen his friend Ridley around yet, which was surprising. They almost always met up in the Lunch Line, since they were always the last two to get out of their classes. Either way, it was never really anything special, the day trudged on whether or not the duo ever saw each other that day. Lunch had been going on for about ten minutes, and thankfully the line was moving fast. Backpack slung over his shoulder, the short boy had grabbed the Chicken Nuggets, and a carton of milk. It was usually the least poisonous thing that they tried to serve. Tray in hand, Peter took his usual seat in the back corner of the room. At the most it was usually him, Ridley, and maybe one or two other kids who just plain didn't have room to sit with their friends. The usual activities ensued; Pouring over one or two textbooks while munching on overcooked meat products.

Being that he had his nose buried in a book, as per usual, he didn't even notice the other boy sit down two seats away from him for a moment. It wasn't until he noticed another boy who had seemingly just appeared in the room, his interest just as equally divided into a notebook. Peter wasn't one to spy, but he couldn't resist. There were so few people who tried to make any kind of progress or really anything constructive during lunch. "Social Goals" Huh, that wasn't... Quite what he had expected to see. Maybe he was new to the school? Peter wasn't the most up to date on the social life that the school had all it's own. It was then that he decided to pipe up... Maybe in a minute. He dipped another Chicken Nugget into a small glob of Barbecue Sauce, nibbling slowly on it. Peter wasn't much the social butterfly. In fact, the only reason he was such good friends with Ridley was due to an after school incident a few months ago.

It took him a minute, but he finally looked straight up at the other boy, closing his book and sliding it aside. "Hi! I'm Peter." "I hope that didn't sound too overly excited..."

"Okay, what am I looking for? What do I want to acheive?"

Luke tapped the side of his notebook in thought. This was not his forte at all. English essay? Easy. Mathermatics? Luke could do equations with his eyes closed. Science experiements? He took to those like a duck and water. But people? Those were far more complex problems to solve.

Hmm. First goal; find someone who knows friendships from a practical position and then could teach me. Luke scribbled down "Find Teacher" on his pad. But that still doesn't help me right now. What can I do now with what I personally know? What do other people do?

There's only one thing for this, Luke decided, the scientific method. He flicked over a fresh page, writing as he pondered on what he saw of other students getting along in class or at lunch.

Observation: Luke wrote, Friends are often talking about a variety of subjects or they are participating in a variety of events, such as sports.

Well, the immediate problem is that I'm not interested in doing or talking about everything. Luke noted, but then, no one could be interested in everything either, so people must have interests just as well as disinterests. Therefore, that would mean...

Hypothesis: Friends talk about subjects and do activites that are common interests Luke wrote, faster now, while the thoughts were coming in quickly. "Therefore, the solution would be...

"Solution: Find people who do similar activities or have similar interests as I do."
Luke flicked back to his orignal page, writing this under "Social Goals"

Before he could continue, he heard a voice that seemed to be directed at him.

"Hi, I'm Peter."

He looked up to see a guy from his year, a blonde-brown haired guy, smiling at him. Luke had seem him before: In math and in science. Luke took note of the smarter kids in his year out of a respect for the effort, like him, they put out in their studies. Not that he ever really talked to them all, only whn he absolutely had to for a partner experiment. He worked better alone.

"Hi Peter." Luke replied, "I'm Luke."

Luke was thinking fast, "Okay, similar interests, similar interests. similar interests...."

"You're from my science class, right? Are you....interested in Science?" Luke said, grasping for words.
"Gah, this sort of thing is supposed to be more fluid, right?" Luke thought, twisting the ring on his finger. "I must sound like an idiot."

Peter just kind of chuckled to himself. Not because of the way the person sitting across from him had just said it, or how obviously shy and awkward he was. Peter didn't care about, or even notice either of those things for that matter. "I think that's a little bit of an understatement. I'm hoping to make a career out of it. I'm just not sure which science yet." He mused for a second, and then making a point not to be scatterbrained, glanced back down at the table. "I would love to make a breakthrough someday, discover something... Honestly, I'm kind of leaning towards Chemis-" He stopped in mid sentence, realizing that here he was, rambling this kid's ear off when he was almost sure that the question was nothing but a formality in conversation. "Er... Sorry about that. Tend to ramble sometimes." He let out a deep breath, his hands occupying themselves with another chicken nugget a little awkwardly.

"So... Heh. I couldn't help but notice the notebook. I was going to guess you were new here, but I guess not if we've had a class together! I've never much been the social person either." He glanced down at a particularly interesting fleck on the speckled linoleum of the cafeteria, that disgusting look that was made solely to make the Janitor's job easier. "I'm guessing you're not either, huh?" The small piece of chicken, now completely smothered in the deep brown sauce made it's way to his mouth. He pushed himself back on the uncomfortable little seat some, his eyes flickering to his own notebook on the table. Unlabeled, unremarkable. A lime green cover, his name scrawled neatly in sharpie in the top corner. After a minute, his eyes finally met Luke's again. "Wow, you're a dork Peter. Nice job. Just serves as a lesson that you suck at making friends. The kid probably hates you now." This entire mental tirade wasn't foreign to him. Every time he ever went out on a limb to be social, his subconcious made every possible effort to 'beat him back' so to speak. Becoming so self conscious, wondering what the person he was talking to thought of every single word he said... It was maddening. Somedays it was better to just leave it at him versus the world, because that was so much easier than him versus himself and the world. At least that's the way he felt.

Luke listened to Peter, picking up as much as he could. Scientific breakthrough? In Chemistry? Not so good at social things either?
It sounds like Peter and I are similar in many ways. Luke thought to himself. He breathed out a little, fiddling with his ring as he spoke.

"No, I'm not." Luke replied, matter-of-factly. "I've ben focused on my studies my whole life, so I never really bothered with anything outside of that. I have a similar goal as yours, but in the field of medicine. I hope to be a great medical researcher, maybe even a doctor like my father and mother."

Luke thought back to his mornings events, and upon his father's words. New worldview, huh? What are my options here? Luke pondered, shuffling his notebook, Best case senario, Peter and I keep getting along well. Failing that, maybe he might even be able to help me. At worst, I go back to square one and learn from this. Even a guy like Edison failed the lightbulb 3000 times before he succeeded. I guess the best thing is to bite the bullet and be upfront about it.

"I have realised that maybe that isn't the optimal way to live and I should endeavor to have people around my life. Hence the notebook,"" Luke here lifted it up off the table to show Peter, "so I'm writing down some thougts on how to go about it."

A doctor, huh? Very interesting. So few kids our age have that kind of drive...

Peter quietly mused to himself for a moment, listening to Luke's musings on the notebook. "That's not a bad idea at all. I never actually thought to do that for my social life though... Honestly out of a lack of caring though. I have what, one close friend?" He thought to himself for a second about how to word this next bit. "I guess you could say I'm from the school of thought that if someone doesn't like me, they aren't worth knowing?" He mentally slapped himself. Honestly he wished he could be like that, and that's what he did his damnedest to portray. But really, he wanted to be liked by everybody. How could he help people if everyone hated him?

He mentally shook himself from that train of though. "If you're wondering, my notebook is indeed similar, but more on the scientific side. I write down my ideas and theories, then cross them off as I test them. It's fun. Well, to a dork like me it is." He closed his eyes, taking a quick breath. He felt so awkward, and he could swear he felt a blush on his cheeks. "Any idea what specialization you want to have when you become a doctor?" He was very eager to get the hell off that train of conversation, he hated talking about himself. "Looking at you... My guess would be... Hm... Neurosurgeon?" As much of a wild guess as that was, Luke just had that extremely intelligent air about him, someone who probably could pull something on that level off.

Luke nodded as he listened to Peter. Peter mentioned a school of thought about friends, whom Luke mentally filed away about as Peter was talking.

It....seems to be wrong, somehow. Luke wondered, his mind poking at the concept. Like it fails at a point... His attention was taken away from that when Peter mentioned his own notebook.

As Peter explained what it was to him, Luke's curiosity was ignited a little and wanted to see within it. But, before he could ask anything about it, he was asked about his future career.

"Well, a doctor doesn't really choose a specialisation till very far into their degrees." Luke explained to Peter, thinking on the process and counting the years on his hand, "A Neurosurgeon? Maybe. Whatever I do, it's a long haul. After graduating here and getting into university, the relevant university course can take at least four years. Then you do a year as an intern at a hospital, then at least another year as a resident of the hospital. After that, you apply for a specialisation and train for at least another three. So, all in all at a minimum, it'll take 9 years to be qualified. Right now, I'm not so sure what I want to do as a specific field."

Luke looked down as he continued, feeling he was saying more then he felt so comfortable with to a stranger. "I'm probably going to go into Oncology." Luke said, pausing and then realising Peter might not know what that meant, "Ah. The study of cancer and its many types and logically, getting it cured. It's my best shot to…" Luke trailed off, his mind clicking in place once he had mentioned the word "logically". That was what the problem with that friendship line of thought.

"Hey!" Luke said out of interest, wanting to learn a little of Peter's worldview, "Isn't that bit about that school of thought of friends a bit of a logic fallacy? If 'doesn't like me, they aren't worth knowing' is considered a truth, then how can they get to know you, and therefore to form an opinion of you, thus to like you?"

"It's like a catch 22, endless cycle." Luke said, motioning with his arms a spinning motion, "That is, unless I am missing something."

"Isn't that bit about that school of thought of friends a bit of a logic fallacy? If 'doesn't like me, they aren't worth knowing' is considered a truth, then how can they get to know you, and therefore to form an opinion of you, thus to like you? It's like a catch 22, endless cycle. That is, unless I am missing something."

Peter grinned. Never a dull moment. Then again, arguing semantics over a high school social philosophy would be the definition of a dull moment to ninty percent of the United States Populous. Time to bust out a little discrete math.

"Actually, you are missing something Luke. Public perception. People always judge and label long before they actually interact. Well, most people anyways. And a good portion of those who do judge make those judgments become realities. To them at least. I mean, people look at me. They see the glasses, the notebook, the AP Classes, and automatically hate me. Because they assume that I have nothing to talk about or nothing that makes me a worthwhile person to meet. Which does indeed leave that philosiphy a logical validity."

He was very, very good at rambling about nothing, but based on what he'd seen of Luke so far, he gathered that this rambling would lead to a favorable resolution rather than the usual.

This was turning out to be quite the interesting lunch. His attentions turned momentarily back to the carton of milk on the table. All it took was a quick spark to melt the awkward of meeting a new person away. And he'd definitely just felt that awkward melt away.