Moving Forward

A Part of Growing Up

Luke's POV

I know I am supposed to be happy that the others will spend Thanksgiving with us, but I wasn't. I had forgiven them, but I was still hurt by their betrayal. Maybe I was too sensitive as North has always claimed. I didn't care. They had been my brothers. They promised to watch my back and it turned out to be a false promise. I regretted joining the Academy with them. We were much closer when we were still kids and doing our own missions. I won't lie. I had fun doing the jobs for the Academy. It wasn't the same though. It had been too much work and not enough playtimes. We were kids for Christ sakes, not thirty-year-olds.

"Want to talk?" Sven interrupted my thoughts. He was leaning against the doorframe leading into the tree house.

"Yeah, I guess." I muttered.

He joined me and settled on one of the beanbag seats we had dragged up here soon after we moved here. Cupcake had been sweet. She had given Victor and me the use of the tree house for our personal boy space. She only entered now if we invited her. She had her dungeon, the cabin, and a couple secret labs for her escapes. She had wanted us to have one of our own when we needed personal space. Victor claimed the main music room. He said he thought better when he was playing the piano. Except now, he was teaching himself to play other instruments. I chose the tree house for my thinking spot. I liked being up high and the quiet. "I don't want them to come here."

"Tell me," he urged. There was no judgment in his tone of voice, only caring.

"This is our place and they don't belong here." I started, then stopped to get my thoughts together. "What I mean is that their place is in Charleston. They kicked us off the team and now they want to come here and act as if nothing happened. Vic and I are still adjusting. We don't need them here to screw things up. "

"Why do you think they will?"

"Kota is team lead; he always has to take control of everything around him, even other people. North is second in command and always bossing everyone around. He has a quick temper and is always yelling at one of us. While quiet, Silas goes along with anything North decides. Nate is the same way with Kota. Gabe is the youngest team member and acts like a spoiled brat at times. He is insecure and has panic attacks. He would also have tantrums and was controlling how we dressed. The thing is if we mentioned even a word about how he dressed, he would throw a fit. It is a double standard with him. He is free to insult our appearance choices and us but no one is allowed to do the same to him." I wiped my hair out of my face. "Learning to make our own choices is hard. I keep waiting to hear Gabe cussing me out about a shirt or my cowboy boots. Being his best friend was not easy. I was always the one who had to make sure he ate. I had to calm him down when he had a panic attack. Listen to his sneers at how other people dressed. He insulted just about everyone he met, telling them that they looked like shit. He refuses to accept that we all have insecurities and that he isn't more important than the rest of us."

"Why are you worried about this now?" Sven seemed puzzled.

"He sent me a text earlier today." I confided. "He has quit the team, will leave once the Ashley Waters job is finished. He decided that he wants to go to college with Vic and me. He intends to move in with us. He didn't ask, he just assumed he was welcomed. He didn't even bother to ask us where we were living." I fisted my hands and gave a growl of disgust. "I'm not explaining any of this right."

"I understand what you are trying to say," Sven assured me. "Yes they hurt you, especially Gabe. You have to understand though that they hurt themselves worse. They have to live with the fact that they broke your trust and that they may never earn it back. Some will act as if it didn't happen, while others will work hard to make it up to you. The thing is you boys have lived as if you are physically connected at the hip for the past six years. You have no outside friends, you did schooling together, vacations, and holidays and there are no boundaries allowing you privacy. We all need personal space and we need to have a variety of friends to balance us." He paused and thought for a bit. "Using Raschel as an example; she is a musical prodigy like Victor. They share an interest in music and computers. She likes cooking, an interest she shares with you. She also enjoys pulling pranks with you. Then we have Corey Henshaw. They share an interest in computers and video games. His twin, Brandon, he and Chel share their love of tinkering and has fun together with it. When Axel visits, she drags him to the Aquarium for an entire day. They always pick one kind of sea creature and spend the day studying it. She has other interests that she shares with other members of their team that allows her to connect with them. Then there are the things that we like that she doesn't. One of the hardest things to get her to understand was that she didn't have to do something she didn't like just because someone else did and wanted to do it. Surprisingly Raven made her understand. Marc wanted to go on a food truck tour, Raven didn't want to. He wanted to watch Sponge Bob with Chel on the theater screen. She worried that Marc would stop being Raven's friend and couldn't understand why he wasn't concerned. I'm not sure what he told her, all I know is that she will now tell people no when she doesn't want to do something or she doesn't like something. She learned that friends don't have to like all the same things and it is okay not to join in every activity together."

"What you're saying is that we were trying to hard? That we didn't allow ourselves to be different in fear of losing our brothers?" I ask as I consider his words.

"You are different. No two people are alike. While you could have an identical twin, you would still be different from each other inside. Look at Corey and Brandon."

"Just because they come for the Thanksgiving holiday, it doesn't mean that we have to spend the entire time with them. We are allowed to pick what activities we join in." I nodded to show my understanding. "It is okay for us to like separate things, but we should also be willing to do some activities that they choose. We don't have to let them into our bedrooms or this tree house, we are allowed to keep our rooms private."

"Exactly," Sven smiled and patted my shoulder.