games ▹ muke

1.7 - heart to heart

This was the start of the happiest time in my life. Every day I’d go to school and Luke and Calum would wait for me at the gates, and me and Calum did our usual greeting ritual, but Luke – he hugged me. And that was one of the best things ever, because for a brief moment when my face was pressed into his shoulder and his arms were wrapped around my neck I felt like the world wasn’t so bad, I felt… wanted. And I shoved back the thought that it wasn’t the way I wanted to be wanted, Luke was there and I felt content with it.

Calum didn’t really get why me and Luke got so close since we supposedly only met few days ago, but when he asked us up front, I saw that Luke didn’t want to tell him the real reason and I followed his lead. I didn’t want to lie to Calum but I still felt like my history with Luke was something extremely personal, and I was kinda glad he felt this way too.

That weekend Luke suggested a guitar practice again, but having sensed my stupid fear of public judgement, he wanted to practice somewhere more quiet, and I was thankful for understanding. I suggested he came over again, because my parents didn’t seem to mind that much the last time.

On Sunday Luke showed up at my door with a guitar on his back and a goofy smile on his face, and I let him in happily. We went upstairs immediately, because my mum was in the living room and I didn’t want to see her.

I was still bloody awful at guitar, so our lesson didn’t last long. Luke got sidetracked when I wanted to learn a Fall Out Boy song (they’re damn hard to play on guitar), and somehow we ended up arguing whether their “Save Rock And Roll” was a better ballad than “What A Catch, Donnie”.

“I’m telling you, it’s not even entirely Fall Out Boy! Elton John sings half of it!” Luke exclaimed, trying to defend his favorite song from Folie à Deux.

“Look who’s talking,” I argued. “Did you forget about a shit ton of cameos at the end of What A Catch?”

Luke glared at me, and I laughed.

“Just admit it, it’s too old now. If it was supposed to be their last song, this new album kind of defeats the purpose,” I said, and Luke slouched a little, sitting on an old chair in front of me.

“It’s not about that,” he mumbled, staring at the floor, and I stopped smiling. It was kind of a banter before, but it was clearly turning into something serious.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I get why they added all the parts of old songs sung by their friends and stuff,” Luke started, looking up, and I saw that sparkle in his eyes and I knew he was going deep now. “But it's so amazing that Pete wrote it for Patrick, from Patrick’s point of view and he always said it was like a reminder for Patrick that he wasn’t half as bad as he thought he was.” The blonde in front of me finished with a sigh and looked at me: “I’m probbaly not making any sense, sorry.”

And because he said that, I knew that he was baring his soul and that I’d better make him talk again.

“No, you tell me everything, I get what you mean. Keep going,” I reassured, and Luke smiled a little as a thanks.

“Well, frankly, this song is about feeling like shit and I often feel like that about myself and I know that you do too, but…” Luke looked down again, his cheeks starting to burn rosy red. “I wish I wrote that song, about you and for you. I wish you knew you aren’t at all shit, okay?” he finished with a question, his blue eyes now staring into mine with some sort of desperation while I tried to make my heart work and my tongue move.

“Luke, I…” I stuttered, and, not really finding any words to say, moved forward and hugged him tightly. I didn’t know how to tell him that I saw it meant a lot to him and the fact that he told me about it was priceless for me. I didn’t know how to tell him about the fuzzy feeling inside beause of his words. I couldn’t believe he found me… not shitty, not shitty enough to want to write me a song about it. I only could hold him, queezing his lanky body in my arms, feeling his heart beating rapidly against mine and hope that he understands.

It seemed like hours before I let him go, and his face was still red when I did. But Luke was smiling now, happy that I didn’t laugh at him and didn’t just brush his words off.

“Fuck, it’s dark. I should get going,” Luke said, looking behind the window. “God, why does time always pass so fast when I’m here?..”

“Call your mum,” I said, still being on the high of his compliment. I felt weirdly confident, or else I would have probably never said that. “Tell her you’re staying the night.”

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omfg what did i just write