Sometimes We Take Chances [o1]

Luca woke up to the sound of her alarm clock beeping away on her bedside table. Slamming her fist down on it, she sat up in bed, stretching her arms above her head and letting out a yawn. As her feet met the white carpet of her bedroom floor, the door opened and Brendon came bounding in with a smile on his face.

"Morning little sis!" he sing-songs, hugging her with one arm. She smiles and reaches up, messing up his shaggy black hair and causing him to squeal in disapproval. "Hey, hey, it takes a long time to get my hair messed up like this." He says as he delicately replaces his hair, making it look like it did earlier. She simply smiled at him and popped her favorite CD, Take This To Your Grave, into her stereo and pressing play.

"Brendon, are mom and dad home?" she asks as she brushes out her equally dark hair and turns on her straightener. Brendon doesn't say anything but sits on the foot of her bed.

"No. There was a note on the counter saying they'd be gone for another couple weeks and for us to be good while they're gone." He answers, sounding a little put off. She too frowned slightly. She knew her parents were busy with business to be sure that she, and Brendon, would be able to attend college, but that didn't change the feeling of emptiness that filled her heart each time they were gone. So she shrugged it off as she started softly singing along with Patrick Stump with a wide smile on her face. Brendon smiled at her and then left her room to go get ready for school himself.

Luca continued her usual routine: straighten her hair, pick out an outfit and then do her makeup. Today she slipped into a pair of torn jeans, a black and grey striped shirt with long sleeves, and then slipped on her high top black pinstripe chucks. She never really did care when people thought of her; she thought if she was happy then that's all she should care about. Not in a snotty "I don't care about anyone else" way, but in a way that says I'm me and that's that.

So once Luca was done with her makeup, which was only a line of black eyeliner and mascara, she walked downstairs and smiled when she saw Brendon sitting on the couch watching TV. When she turned the corner to head into the kitchen, however, the smile slid off her face. There sat Ryan Ross, flipping through a magazine with a plate of waffles at his side. She didn't say anything, only headed to the refrigerator to retrieve some breakfast herself.

When she noticed that Ryan had finished off the waffles, she decided on cereal. Pouring herself some Fruit Loops, she felt Ryan look up at her, but she didn't look at him. She knew if she did she was only going to be insulted, like always. And as if on cue, Ryan spoke.

"Got enough cereal there, Luca?" he snorts, probably getting at a fat joke. Luca, having endured this for well over half her life, simply ignored him. However, it was when she did that that Ryan found himself getting irritated by her unresponsiveness. "Brendon is your sister deaf or something?" Ryan turns to Brendon who was looking over the back of the couch at him.

Snorting, Brendon narrowed his eyes towards Luca. "Yeah, probably. Either that or she's just too stupid to understand what we're saying." He kids. Again Luca doesn't respond but takes her cereal into her room, where she ate it quietly while listening to AFI play softly on her stereo.

Downstairs, Ryan sent Brendon a confused look. Brendon simply sighed and went back to his morning music videos. Ryan wondered what Luca's deal was. Well, she never did respond to insults from anyone but then again, she had never up and left the room before either. Pushing it to the back of his brain, he turns back to his waffle and magazine.

An hour or so later, Luca came downstairs seeing that Ryan and Brendon had left for school already. Not that she minded for the building was only a few blocks away from their house and she enjoyed walking in the crisp morning air. So she slipped into her favorite zip up hoodie and left the house.

The sun was already above the houses, burning brightly and the Vegas air was already starting to get warm. With her iPod blaring in her ear, Luca slowly made her way to the school. The bell rang just as she set foot inside and everyone in the common room got up and headed to their lockers. She followed, walking behind the jocks as they talked of their usual "who slept with who" business.

Once she got her books from her locker, she turned and headed to first and favorite period: art. Both fortunately and unfortunately, however, she had this class with Brendon. As she sat down across from him, he smiled warmly at her. She wound her iPod ear buds up and tucked them in her messenger bag before turning her attention to the teacher, who had already started that morning's lecture.

"Ok, today's assignment is for each of you to draw a picture that describes you using five things." Mr. Morrow said with a smile. "What those five things are is entirely up to you. This'll be due on Wednesday so get to it."

Luca sighed and stood, walking to the cabinet and pulling out a large piece of white paper before returning to her seat. Brendon was already scribbling down random things on his paper, probably eager to get this assignment done. Luca, however, always put time and effort behind her work. Not because she's an over achiever but because she finds she can open up with her art.

She picked up a brush and started working quietly and before she knew it, the bell was ringing, signaling the end of first period. Sighing, she scooped up her paper and placed it in her slot. Then pulled her messenger bag over her head and walked off towards English, her second favorite class. She walked in and sat in her usual spot in the back of the room.

"Luca what are you always writing about in that notebook?" the boy in front of her asks, making to snatch it from beneath her hand. She closed it quickly and tucked it under the desk before he could get it though. He looked taken aback but a smile came across his face soon after. "Whatever. Probably just stupid girly love notes." He snorts and then turns around to face the front as Mr. Cronn began his speech for the day.

Luca had finished the assignment that day before anyone else, so she sat back and listened to her iPod in silence while doodling nonsense in her notebook once more. Every once in a while, she would look up and see the girls in the class sneering at her while the guys in the class were waving and waiting for the chance to toss notes to her. Rolling her eyes, she closed her notebook and laid her head on her arms, closing her eyes and falling into a light sleep.

As class rolled on, Luca continued to cough in her light slumber. The girl to her right was starting to get annoyed so she turned and flicked Luca on the top of the head. Luca groaned and looked into the girl's eyes as she blinked away the sleep in hers, then glared slightly when she realized that she had woken her when there was still a full fifteen minutes left in class.

"Your coughing was driving me mad. Go get a drink or something." She jeers irritably as Luca started coughing again. She sighed and stood from her desk, grabbing her messenger bag and books before walking to the teacher's desk and asking to be excused. Permission was granted and she left the classroom, coughing vehemently as she went.

Lunch came two periods later and Luca did as she usually did: bought some Pop Tarts and a juice box and then sat in the hall way with her notebook and wrote. She didn't get much done though, because shortly after she had sat down, she started coughing hard. She got up with my stuff in hand and walked to the bathroom and once there, keeled over the toilet and vomited. But you know how it goes; once you throw up you immediately feel better afterwards and she did. So she shrugged it off, thinking maybe it was something in that Pop Tart she just ate.

She continued her day feeling tired and by last period her muscles felt like they had been pelted with rocks. Her head pounded with a headache and she couldn't stop coughing. By the end of the day, she was looking forward to going home and sleeping.

When she got to the big glass doors of the school, she saw that it was raining outside. Sadly enough, Ryan had driven Brendon to school today in Ryan's car and he was already gone, saying they were having band practice at Spencer's. So she zipped her hoodie up and pulled it over her head as she stepped out in the cold wet air and started walking home.

With her iPod closed in her fist, determined to keep it from getting wet since it was sixty gigabytes of her life, she simply walked in silence with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company. Coughing and holding her throat while it seared, she saw her house as we walked up the hill towards it. She didn't waste any time getting inside and going straight to her room for dry clothes, stopping along the way for multiple coughing fits.

She threw open her bedroom door and walked in, turning to her closet and pulling out some sweatpants and an old band tee. Slipping into them, she turned and went to the bathroom and stopped, keeling over with coughs. Her rib cage ached and she found herself shivering even though it was a cozy seventy degrees in her house. Wondering what in the hell could be wrong with her, she ran to her messenger bag and pulled out her cell phone, pressing the one button and then send. Brendon would know what to do.

It rang three times before someone answered. "Hello?" a voice asked, clearly not Brendon.

"Um, who's this?" Luca asks timidly before coughing again.

"Ryan. And I'm guessing this is Luca?" he asks in a sour tone. She rolls her eyes, glad that he couldn't see her.

"Hi Ryan." She says a bit too sharp; she could almost see him scowling. "Where's Brendon?"

"He's…" Ryan trailed off, "Right here." He says and she heard the phone being exchanged while also feeling shocked that Ryan would simply hand it over without so much as an insult towards her. She shook this off as well though as Brendon's voice flowed from the speaker.

"Luca? You there?" he asks, sounding a bit worried. There was incoherent chatter in the background and he laughed; probably Ryan making a smart ass remark, but she paid it no heed for she was coughing again.

"Brendon…" she croaks as he throat burned and he ribs twinge. "When are you coming home?"

"Uh, I don't know, Luca. It's only four-thirty." He answers, again chuckling at something his friend said in the background. But his voice turned serious when Luca began coughing violently again. "What's wrong? You don't sound too good."

"I don't feel too good either." She replies as she swallows to try and keep her throat from scorching but only causing her to cough more. "Brendon…" she says again in an almost-whisper, "Can you come home soon? I really think something is wrong."

Brendon sighs on the other end of the line. "Alright, give me half an hour ok?" he reasons and she tries to smile.

"Deal." She says and clicks her phone shut before turning and diving for her lap top. That's the thing about Luca; when she's concerned and Brendon's not exactly around, who does she turn to: the Internet. Going immediately to WebMD, she typed in her symptoms and results began popping up in seconds. Reading through a few, they all came to one conclusion: pneumonia.

Sighing, she sat her laptop on her bedside table and lay flat on her mattress, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, coughing only slightly but still feeling pain surge through her like an electric shock. Closing her eyes, she fell into a light sleep while she waited for her brother to come home.