Discovering The Real Luke

Flattening Bumps in the Road

Waiting for the Uber, I’m trying to come up with ways of defusing the situation because I know that AJ is going to be annoyed about things and I don’t want World War 7 erupting at all. I get home about 20 minutes later “Hey man, I’m home” I call out not seeing AJ or hearing him.

Checking the bedrooms, I get pissed when he told me he would be home so that we can talk and I realise that he isn’t home which really annoys me after the way he carried on. I go and sit down on the couch and put the TV on as AJ walks in the door.

“Oh you’re home,” he says to me still with the annoyed tone to his voice as if he doesn’t even approve of me being here right now which is a load of crap because I’m still paying the rent so I’ve got every right to.

I look at him “Hey sexy” trying to chill the situation out but it doesn’t seem to be working that much as he washes his hands because he was taking the rubbish out which is why I didn’t see him. “Have a good time drinking?” he says to me in a tone that sort of sounds condescending like I’m just a party boy and that’s all I want to do.

“I literally had two beers with Cody and split some pretty awful fries… that was it,” I say to AJ as if I have to defend myself to him despite being an adult and always being reminded of it. AJ nods as if to imply a “yeah yeah” attitude but I don’t give a shit if he’s annoyed.

There is a noticeable tension in the apartment right now, nothing like the friendly space that it’s always been and somewhere I’ve just been able to feel comfortable talking about anything.

Deep inside me right now, I feel like I’m back at home in Franklin trying to deal with my parents questioning every move that I make whether it be right or wrong. At home, I’d get an inquisition about why was my mark only 80/100 and what I could’ve done to get 85 or 90 and then a review of what I had been doing during the time I had the assignment before a timetable used to get created.

I left Franklin because I wasn’t happy with my life being shadowed over all the time which is why it was good with AJ because even though he kept encouraging me to keep studying over anything else, he gave me autonomy about my life and if I said that I wanted to go to the movies or just out to dinner then we could. It was never a problem as long as I balanced everything out and I was successful doing that but lately, it’s been like I can’t do anything at all without AJ signing off on it.

Trying to think of why, there has been nothing changing about it other than the fact that maybe he had some doubts about my over-trusting nature considering what happened to me that night at the bar and the fact that I was trying to be friends with someone who was out to get me and that I later found out that it was Cam sending me the threats about outing me, even though I want to still be friends with him.

“So, are we going to talk about what’s going on between us? Because there’s clearly a disconnect between us right now?” I say to AJ who at least sits down next to me on the couch and pats me on the leg as I look across at him.

AJ lets out a sigh “I’m just worried that over the past few weeks that you’re opening yourself up to being hurt and everything like that” he says to me as I try hard not to groan because I know that there is more to it than that.

“You get that letter about being in trouble for potentially plagiarising and potentially being suspended from every college in the country and all you want to think about is how to spend the weekend,” he says to me which in his words does sound like I didn’t really care about it which is the complete opposite. “It just felt like you weren’t making it to be a big issue and that spending more time with Cody was on your mind more than anything else, I was just worried about you and then Saturday morning, I tried to help you and you snapped making me think you didn’t care about it”.

I stand up and let out a massive sigh as AJ says that “I am taking it seriously, when I read that letter the first thing I did was get angry before just being genuinely upset about it because I’ve tried my damn hardest to prove to everybody that I made the right choices in my life, then trying to prove to everyone what the real Luke is, that he can both be this muscled stud and still be a nerd at the same time” I say looking towards AJ.

“My parents would helicopter over me at every half-chance something would go wrong or had gone wrong and I used to send myself into panic and anxiety attacks if I knew there was going to be an issue about something,” I say now heading towards the balcony to look out. “Last night, all I could think about was everything that could happen with that letter and seeing the academic board because I am worried, I love doing all the OnlyFans stuff and everything it’s truly amazing, but I want to graduate from college and get my degree at the end of it all,” I say as AJ nods.

I sigh again “I wasn’t trying to tell you that I wasn’t taking things seriously, but I knew that if it was all that I focussed on then I would go back to so many of my bad habits that I had back home and the panic attacks would come back,” I say explaining my situation to AJ.

“Not even my parents know this, I was in Year 12 and it was one of my first final exams and all I had been doing for six weeks was studying 24/7 and so much so that I had even had to take leave from working at the movies to study” my mind going back to a time that wasn’t even that long ago.

“I was driving to school, going over things in my head so much that I started to panic so much that I pulled the car over and just became stuck in fear,” I say as I start to cry thinking about that feeling of never being so isolated before. That day and the subsequent days are all still in my mind so much, which is why I try to take a more relaxed approach to things.

AJ gets up and puts his arm around me and rubs my shoulder as I look out the balcony “It became that much that I had to call my brother to come pick me up, I was that desperate that I had actually found a nail or something on the side of the road that I had cut my tyre, to make It look like a puncture” I say realising how stupid that I probably sound with the situation and everything that I did.

I never told anyone about this and I struggled through my exams and everything from there started to push everything into motion about making changes in my life, especially getting that College letter with the partial scholarship.

AJ looks at me and hugs me tightly, I can see that he feels bad about this morning but I know there are still plenty of issues that we need to talk about because even though I’ve explained to him why I acted the way I did, he needs to talk to me.

“That was why I kept saying to you that I wanted a few days where I didn’t have to think about things, because I know how stressed that I am going to get in the lead-up to it and trying to defend my case,” I think that I’m trying to do the right thing but then I’m not totally sure if that is right in AJ’s eyes.

I breakaway from him having his arm around me and walk to grab a bottle of water, “That was why I snapped this morning because it felt like being back with my parents a bit, I asked not to worry about it or bring it up because I just wanted a weekend where I wasn’t with my head in the computer doing work, studying or anything like that, I just wanted a normal chilled weekend” I say looking across at AJ knowing that I’m about to say something that could hurt him.

“The last couple of weeks, I just feel like there’s a dynamic change in our friendship and us living together, the first weeks and months were great because it was like two best friends but lately there feels like there is something different about it,” I say as AJ looks across at me confused about what I mean.

He looks at me “There isn’t anything that different man, I mean we’ve both been pretty busy and all that stuff which happens when you’re an adult these days”. I don’t know if the last part was a dig at me but that’s how I certainly take it as well.

“Are you trying to imply that I’m just another kid or something?” I say to him as the tension rockets between us again. “I mean I got away from my parents treating me like that to somewhere where I was treated like an equal… well at least that’s what I thought was happening,” I say to AJ who is clearly getting annoyed at me now.

He throws his head back “Oh come on AJ, It all started good and proper between us like we were friends but now what I quickly realise is that you’re doing is actually just controlling everything that I am doing, telling me that we can’t do this because I should be studying or doing school stuff instead of just taking a break”.

AJ looks across at me and snaps in a way I’ve never heard before “Fucking hell Luke, maybe you are just a petulant little child with all this… You have the biggest opportunities before you, and you try to throw them away like they don’t matter” he says to me as I get hurt by his words.

“Talking to you in that hotel room that night and then getting to know you, I felt so much empathy with you because you reminded me so much of me growing up and yes I got hurt when I came to the city too, not physically like you but emotionally and mentally,” he says to me opening up a bit.

“When you applied for the room, I could have easily passed you over for the other guy that was wanting to rent it, he could’ve moved in straight away and covered the rent easily in all that time you didn’t,” he says to me as now I’m starting to feel guilty about things like that.

AJ sighs “I didn’t, because I saw a lot of me in you and I wanted to help you be the person that you should be and for the most part, that is what you became and I grew feelings for you because people like you are a rare feature these days,” he says to me as his anger is subsiding a fair bit right now.

“When you got beaten, I was worried that I’d lost you but then everything with the messages, you took them so personally that I was just trying to help you and everything plus you trying to be nice to people who were trying to hurt you, I was just trying to protect you” AJ continues showing how much he cares but honestly to me it feels like we’re just going around in circles right now because we both know how much we care and want to protect each other.

“Look, AJ I know how much you care about me and the same applies to me ok? But without making such a drama, I know something is bothering you that is more than just me snapping at you yesterday, I’ve felt it and don’t say it’s just work because we both know that it isn’t”.

AJ looks across at me and sighs as I keep going “Yesterday when I went out with Cody” AJ groans as I say that which proves the point that Cody made to me yesterday. “Look, I was planning on spending my Saturday with you doing nothing but hopefully having sex with you,” I say to him as he smirks a bit.

“But when you stormed out and wouldn’t talk to me, I was feeling pretty shit so I decided to get out of the apartment when Cody messaged me ok?” I say to him. “There was nothing going on but we were just talking generally about things and about us and he said something that got me thinking about this whole situation as well”.

AJ turns around and looks away from me as I keep going“ I was telling Cody that I felt something was up for us for a while, which is what I said to you before and he told me that he thinks that we are in two separate places in our friendship and what we’ve got going on at the moment” I say to him as I start to explain.

“We both agreed that we had feelings for each other and that we were still going to keep it fun and light with no strings attached to what we have because that’s why we called it brofriends because we weren’t dating but it was our way of being more than friends” my nerves getting the better of me as I worry about that I’ve overanalysed things. “Since our trip away to visit my parents and then your family, it doesn’t seem that light-hearted anymore and I just feel like that’s where you’ve started to control things for a lack of a better word,” I say as AJ still keeps his back towards me.

“Part of me thinks that you’re thinking this is more serious than what we both thought it would be, which isn’t a bad thing because I would love to be with you because idolise you, not because you’re a hot muscle stud or anything like that because you’re the kindest, sweetest man I’ve ever met and you encouraged me to be me,” I say to him as I still can’t get a handle on his reaction.

“Look, I love you and I mean that but my only thing is that I only turn 19 in 2 weeks and I’m not ready to settle down in a relationship like that right now, I know it’s probably not what you want to hear and I can pack my bags and move if it’s a problem”.

It’s not what I want to do, but if AJ potentially thinks that it could be the best then I would do it “I don’t want to be the reason that you’re unhappy and I don’t want you to be waiting around for me until you’re well over 30 for me to be ready for a long-term serious commitment” I say feeling really upset by all this.

I don’t hear AJ saying anything which worries me a lot because I think that I’ve hurt him so deeply with what I said as I realise that I was way out of my depth with this whole situation. I walk up to him and turn him around to look at me when I can see that he is crying, something I’ve never seen.

“Are you alright AJ?” I say as he’s quite upset and I feel like I’ve broken his heart and that it’s ended everything that we have had so far this year living together. AJ looks across at me as I pull him towards me to hug him tightly as we stand there and he nods.

There isn’t much said at the moment and we just hug as I look at him, I feel bad about what I said as I see AJ broken by what happened. “AJ… I never lied when I said I loved you because I totally do, you’re the most amazing guy in the world and I would love to be with you forever” I say to him as I mean that.

“But right now, I’m still not ready to be serious especially given our age difference” I don’t know whether my words comfort him much but I think both of us getting our feelings out, well it might help me at least and make the situation much better right now.

Hugging AJ for a while, he pulls off me and looks across at me “I love you too Luke and I was just trying to make sure that everything is going alright for you” he says to me as I nod and realise that he wasn’t trying to parent me but just trying to make sure that I was ok.

“Look if things are going to be too awkward then I can move out man,” I say as AJ whacks me angry that I even came up with the idea. “You are not fucking moving out Luke ok?” he says to me as I rub my arm where he punched me quite hard.

“We can hit reset on things, it’s normal man and I’ll take a step back, I realise that I was probably smothering you a lot and I know where you’re coming from about our relationship I got a bit carried away about everything,” he says to me as I nod and I don’t hold any malice towards him for doing that.

“How about we just everything over? As in we just spend the afternoon apart but we just take it back to how we used to be together” I say to him as he nods agreeing that it would be a good idea because I know neither of us wants to lose the other and the connection that we have. I grab my keys and head back out for a while, not bothering to change, I head down to the bar and I don’t know what comes over me right now but I get my phone out and sit down on a bench at the park not too far away.

I scroll through and hit a number on my contacts list that I don’t think that I have called in such a long time and dial it not expecting an answer. The phone rings until I think that I’m going to get the message bank when I hear the voice answer.

“Hello, this is Greg Munro” I hear Dad’s voice and I quickly panic about what I’m going to say as he is going to hang up because I’m tongue-tied.

“Hey Dad, it’s Luke,” I say right before he hangs up, part of me is hoping that he missed me talking before he hung up but I hear him answer “Oh Luke, how are you mate?” he says to me almost with an excited tone in his voice as he talks me.

“I’m not too bad Dad, I feel bad for not calling sooner but I thought it was just time to talk things over with you for some advice” my words and intention are probably wrong because Dad is the last person to talk about issues with my boyfriend with but then I’m more just into the general advice that he could give.

Dad murmurs for a minute, probably thinking the same things that I was about the advice but it’s good to just talk to him and let me tell him about what happened, because I know that he accepts me even if Mum hasn’t still fully dealt with things and won’t really talk to me at the moment.

“Everything ok down there Luke?” he says to me as the hesitation in my voice is obvious as I start to talk things through with him. “Kind of, well not really at the moment because all hell is breaking loose at College and then at home with AJ in its own sort of way,” I say as I can hear Dad walking and the door opening and closing through the phone, knowing he’s going to sit outside.

Dad sighs for a moment “Tell me everything about College” he asks as I don’t know where to start about things. “Well it’s probably going to sound weird, but there’s a girl in my class that comes from one of the powerful families in the city and has always had everything gifted to her and she came into the semester needing to top the class for her scholarship although I think that’s a load of rubbish,” I say to Dad.

“The thing is she has this group of cronies that do all her bidding for her, you know the follower type so it turns out that she can’t top any of the four subjects we’ve got and she’s behind me so there has been so much going on with that and because I’m the one stopping her, I’ve become the target” my tone of voice is one clearly filled with emotion and nerves about everything going on.

Dad stops for a minute and lets out a big sigh “Something major has happened, hasn’t it?” I can sense that Dad is upset by this as I can hear him sighing. “Look Luke, tell me what’s happening and I don’t know what I am going to be able to do from here but talk me through it,” he says as I know that but I just want to talk it through.

“I just want to talk it through with you, you’re far enough away from the situation to give me the advice that I need,” I say to him because, with his work, he might be the best person to talk to deal with this. “Alright Luke, tell me what happened,” he says to me as I don’t know how to explain this.

“So we had this major project, had to be a 5,000-word information report and I did it on Franklin and everything and did so much amazing work on it and used quotes from people that I had contacted and things that both Mum and you have said over time” explaining the project Dad is actually keen to read it even if I don’t say all nice things about the town.

Dad listens to me and then starts asking questions about it “So I put it through the submission system that we have to use and it checks it for plagiarism and I’ve been cleared on that at the usual 2% which is just mainly identified with common phrases or sayings used”. Talking about it makes me worried about what would happen this week.

“I get home from working yesterday and get the mail and there’s a letter from the College, instead of getting the marks that I thought it was going to be, it turns out that it was a letter from the Academic Review Board because I need to front them because I have apparently plagiarised my report and I don’t know how or why they think that,” I say getting upset down the phone.

Sitting there I hear Dad getting annoyed “So what do they think you plagiarised and what do you need to do to defend it?” he asks me as I don’t know any details. “Well I don’t know, they didn’t give me any details other than having to see the board to discuss what happened”.

“So, was there anything in the letter that could tell you what the issue was other than it being for the report?” Dad asks as I quickly realise that it doesn’t say anything. The letter just told me that I was up on a plagiarism charge so to speak but without any details.

“The first thing you need to do on Monday is to seek what the issue actually is because you need to be able to defend yourself and you need to know what the issues are so that you can prove that you didn’t do it, I know that you would never have because the effort you have for your schoolwork has never changed”. Dad’s advice is spot on and I would never have thought of doing that and really it could have been in AJ’s stuff and I just pushed him off this morning.

“Now talk to me about the AJ problem, it can’t be anything too major because both of you care about each other,” he says as I throw my head back. “This isn’t going to be something you want to hear but I need to talk about it anyway,” I say as Dad is understanding which surprises me a lot.

I let out a massive sigh because this is weird talking to Dad about gay sex “Well, AJ and I have sort of a relaxed relationship if that makes sense, we both agreed that we had feelings but it wasn’t anything serious for us you” I say as I could only imagine what Dad’s thinking about this right now.

Sitting there, I think that this situation is going to weird Dad out but to my surprise, he is a lot more open-minded than what I was expecting ‘Ah right, what you do when you’re young” he says laughing as I laugh as well, hearing him talk to me makes me feel really good.

“Well, AJ and I had a fight this morning because he’s been pushing me really hard in my studies and last night we… I was in bed” I say as Dad stops me. “Luke, you don’t need to cover anything up because I know you and AJ would’ve had sex… you’re 18, you don’t think I hadn’t had sex before I got married did you? I mean with a girl obviously not like”.

I laugh as Dad scrambles his words and I try to settle the situation right down and get it back on track between us as we keep talking. “Alright, so we were talking about my situation and AJ said about how I wanted to deal with it and I told him that I wanted a quiet weekend that had nothing going on because I didn’t want to stress”.

“So this morning, he put a whole heap of stuff together and he could help me defend it and well I stupidly snapped at him because you know I just felt like he ignored me and I said things that I didn’t mean”.

Dad listens to me as I keep telling him the situation right up to the point where I rang him, his listening to me feels like the old days when I was in Franklin. “I don’t know how much help this will be but you’re a smart, strong young man Luke, I know that both you and AJ care about each other and this is all that matters,” Dad says to me even though I know that, it’s reassuring advice.

“You’re only young and I think the problem is that AJ cares too much about you and he takes it personally that something is wrong and I think that’s because you and he are so much alike,” he says to me as I laugh because it’s not the first time I’ve heard that, especially from AJ.

Dad sits there for a minute “You two have a friendship, that’s most important and I know you’ll be able to sort this out just because it’s all new for you and probably new for him” he adds before giving me the best piece of advice. “Do you love AJ and want to be with him?” he asks me as I quickly respond positively.

“Then that’s what matters because he loves you as well and you’ll get through this, I think you’re more important to AJ than what he has probably said and I know that it’ll all work out”. Dad then realises he has to go “Your Mum’s home so I better go, I’ll try and call you soon ok?” he says to me.

“Thanks, Dad and on my birthday, I want to take you to a game, ok?” I ask as he says that he would love to have that happen. I look at my phone and the time realising that I was talking to Dad for well over an hour before heading back to the apartment.

Dad’s advice has given me confidence both about dealing with the issue at college as well as being able to talk to AJ and reset things with him because we both care about each other so much. I wander down to the place and get excited to see AJ and hopefully restore everything with the most amazing person I know.