Introduction: After Luke's grandmother Kathy sells her home, he's given the task of helping her drive her car to his family hometown.
CHAPTER 1: INTRO
FEBRUARY 2021
"Are you kidding me?? Just come home already!!" Luke screams angrily into his phone as he pulls into the driveway of his house.
"I don't care if you're a High-Risk! You're already vaccinated!! Just come home Sara!"
...............
"FINE!! Stay in Denver! WHO GIVES A FUCK that we haven't seen each other in a YEAR!!" He screams into his phone before hanging up angrily.
Without much luck in winning his argument, Luke ends the call in utter frustration. He has had enough! Ever since the start of the pandemic, his fiancé Sara has been away from home dealing with COVID patients at a major hospital up in Denver as a volunteer nurse due to the overwhelming amount of cases throughout the state. The local hospital where she worked at in Colorado Springs looked for voluntary Paramedics, RNs, and Doctors willing to travel to Denver to deal with the surge of cases during the spring and summer of 2020. Luke was initially supportive of his fiancé Sara's decision to be a volunteer RN in the COVID ward at the hospital. He's grateful for her time and service doing her best to save as many lives as possible.
Unfortunately, with her heroic service came the cost of damaging the relationship between them. Due to the nature of the job, Sara was not comfortable coming back home to him or her family. With people dying everyday from the deadly virus right before her eyes, she developed a sense of paranoia that she could accidentally transmit the virus to her loved ones. For months, Luke tried to convince her to come home on her limited days off for a visit. He reminds her that she must do frequent tests and show a negative result in order for her to report for duty. She does all the necessary precautions with washing her hands, social distancing, and wearing face masks. She stays in quarantine with several colleagues from her hospital, sharing a temporary apartment lease up in Denver. Sara had even received her vaccine in the early stages of the mass distribution due to the nature of her job! Luke reminds her of all of these things, yet she still lives in fear. Sara has not left Denver to visit home in Colorado Springs since the spring!
In present day early 2021, Luke and Sara have made things work through phone calls, FaceTime, and texting. They were supposed to get married in the fall of 2020 but had to put their wedding on an indefinite hold due to the pandemic. Luke and Sara have been in a tough spot for most of her time spent up in Denver. There has been a lot of stress, arguments, and sadness between the both of them. The only reason they've stayed together is because they know the issues are because of not being physically together. They both hang on to the hope that things will get better in the near future.
Luke steps out of his car after returning home from work. Around the start of the pandemic, his apartment lease ended and he made the tough decision to return back to his family home to save money. Being in his mid-twenties, he had already moved out and lived on his own at the start of his college years. Luke is a personal trainer and a fitness coach but got laid off after his gym was shut down once most businesses went into lockdown. He found a temporary job working for a parcel delivery company. The money is good but it's not what he ever envisioned himself doing. The one thing that helps him get through each difficult day is the fact that he knows he's not alone. Many others just like him had to make tough decisions and sacrifices to make ends meet. It was just the nature of dealing with a worldwide crisis. Luke makes his way inside the house where his parents are seated in the dining room, waiting for him to commence dinner.
"Hey sweetie! How was work?" Luke's mother Lisa asks.
"Same old, same old. Just really annoyed right now ma," he replies.
"Did you talk to Sara?"
"Yeah."
"She's still scared to come home huh?" Luke's father Henry asks him.
"Yup. Even though she's already vaccinated and stays in quarantine when not at the hospital. It's insane! She's less than a two hour drive away from here and we haven't seen each other in almost a year!" Luke says angrily.
Both of Luke's parents try to calm him down and reassure him that things are going to get better, sooner than later. Luke can only hope for the best. After dinner, Luke heads up to his bedroom to undress and wind down. He takes a long, hot shower and gets out feeling refreshed and in a better mood. That is until he takes a good look at himself in the mirror. Being a personal trainer, he always admired his athletic body. Broad shoulders, big chest, clean cut abs. After the lockdown though, he slacked off and lost progress. He fell into a depressive state, coming home too tired from his temporary job to even do an at home workout. He gained some weight from having too many cheat days each week, eating his favorite comfort foods. When he did workout at home, he struggled to do some of the same routines he could easily do at the gym when he was training others. Luke could see his lost progress in the mirror with his abs no longer visible. He isn't fat or out of shape. He now just has an average looking fit body. A body he feels no longer fits the look of a bodybuilder. To take his mind off his low self image, Luke heads downstairs to the living room. Since he moved back home to his parent's house, they all have a tradition of binge watching shows on a streaming service. Sure enough, his dad has the remote with the television set up on the main menu. His mom is in the kitchen prepping some popcorn in the microwave.
"Just in time!" Henry says with a chuckle.
"Wait for me!" Lisa shouts from the kitchen. The family watches a few episodes of a crime thriller series they're all heavily invested in. Just as Henry shuts off the television, Lisa's phone rings.
"Hello?.......... Hey momma!" Lisa says, speaking to her mother Kathy over the phone.
