Cost

When Lucus got home, he actually did wash his hands. It was weird. He didn't feel disgusted, so much as angry. As he scrubbed, he stopped and sighed before retiring to his room. How useless. Lucus laid down on his bed, before getting up and grabbing his laptop. He plugged in his headphones, missing a few times and punching his mattress each time before finally making it. He typed quickly, relying entirely on muscle memory. It was a skill Mother had taught him at a young age. Every word was made of letters. Each needed the other in a string of characters that meant something. It was beautiful how a series of memorized motions could help Lucus learn.

[How mych dpes lung vancwer cosr to treayrr]. He moved his mouse down automatically to the correction, [how much does lung cancer cost to treater], and clicked on a few random sources. With insurance, over fifteen to thirty grand. Way too much for a broke highschooler. Still too much for an adult. Even with insurance, if they somehow got that, that man would have nowhere near enough to survive. For some reason Lucus could not explain, his heart sunk as the google search was read aloud to him. No. He had told his father off and took away any hope that Lucus would help pay for the treatment. There should be no reminiscence of a desire to help and support him. Still, his hands continued typing. Nate wasn't home that evening. He hadn't been home until late most days. It was only extra classes in an excessive after-dinner school along with some voluntary extracurriculars, followed by some late nights out with friends. Apparently, he had really been slacking off on his work. Regardless of the reason, this allowed Lucus to work much later than usual without annoying anyone else and without anyone coming in to stop him. Before he knew it, it was already midnight.

What Lucus had found, he hardly remembered trying to find, however the notes were still there in his notebook. It listed the pricings, the best insurances and even some miniscule details about vitality rates and dieting. Even with everything else about money and health, the most valuable thing he had found was his father's phone number. Lucus hadn't wanted anyone to know about his little late night research project. It felt shameful to care about the man who so cold heartedly abandoned them.

Nate was passed out on the bed next to him. He wasn't covered in any sheets or blankets and seemed to have clocked out the moment he hit the bed. Lucus had woken up to his snoring and checked the time. 8:00. They were going to be late for school. He dashed around with a new sense of awareness. Not just from the groggy state of waking up, but he felt so much more alive than he had in the past few weeks. Maybe his meeting with his dad had given Lucus the kickstart he needed.

"Nate!" He shook the boy, "Come on! It's already eight!" Nate snapped up in confusion. This had been Lucus, right?

"What the heck?! Lucus? Why are you up so early and why are you so excited? I mean, I'm all for it but what happened to the moody boy I didn't talk to yesterday?" Lucus didn't answer him. Instead he began throwing on his school uniform in record speed for a blind person and ran out the door, not bothering to wait for Nate.

"Come on! You don't wanna miss the bus do you?"

By the time Lucus arrived at school, the rush had left him but he still felt much more upbeat than before. He finally felt normal, even with the heavy weight of his dad lurking in the back of his mind. He talked to a lot of people and worked hard on his tests. Almost everyone reacted in surprise. Not as much as Nate did, but still enough for Lucus to wonder if he really was that bad while he was moping. He didn't even realize he hadn't been doing his work until he went to check his grades and they were at his record low. (A-s and Bs but this was still low) Eventually, Lucus gave in to the urge to ask someone what he should do.

"Hey, Ben," He caught up to his friend as they walked to class. "What should, I, I mean, my friend do, if they had another friend who's not really a friend, and well, he-they ditched him for some rich friends who party and drink all night. Now this friend, well, the friend of my friend was suddenly ditched by all his party group and is broke without any way to buy alcohol or drugs. Along with this, he also needs a ton of money to pay off the lone sharks who might kill him if he can't. In fact, they probably will. Well then they come crawling back to the other friend for help under the alias of new friendship. This friend was made broke by this other guy before he was ditched by the bad friend and then built himself up again and might be able to get the bad friend what they need. What should I-he do? Leave him or help?"

"Well can't the bad friend work to get the money himself?"

"No." He shut it down flat. "For undisclosed reasons he cannot."

"Well that's really all I've got. Your story made absolutely no sense. I don't know if this is some stupid analogy geniuses use or something, but you are terrible at explaining things. My average human brain cannot fill in all the spaces and differentiate all the friends at the speed you can. Slow down. Just give me the full story man." Lucus wavered. He didn't want to have to drag anyone into his mess. Even if it wasn't Lucus's fault, it could still affect others. Even though he didn't want to, Lucus was done underestimating people, so he took a deep breath, and told Nate the whole ugly truth.