Page 46 of Hittin' the Right Note
They walk up to the front and door and go inside.
Luke breaths deep. Aunt Patty’s been baking, of course, and the house is filled with the smell of chocolate chip cookies and cherry cobbler and a dozen other things. If he knows her, she’s probably been baking all day, which means it’s hard to tell just how many baked goods there are scattered around her spacious kitchen.
She guides him to his usual place at the kitchen table and, without saying a word, gets him a glass of milk, a huge piece of cherry cobbler (heavy on the cherries), and a heaping plate of chocolate chip cookies. Luke doesn’t even wait until they’re fully on the table before he dives in. He knows he’s probably going to regret eating all of these sweets at once, but something about Aunt Patty’s baked goods always helps him forget about whatever is bothering him.
He relishes the way his aunt’s cobbler combines a sweet biscuity dough with tart cherries, the way her chocolate chip cookies are the right mix of soft and crunchy. He washes it all down with the milk and, when he’s done, he finally takes a deep breath.
“Okay,” Aunt Patty says. “I know somethin’s wrong. I don’t know what it is, and if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. If you do…well, I’m here to listen.”
Luke panics a bit. What can he tell her? How much can he tell her?
He’s tempted to just lay the whole truth out for her, but when his eyes flick to the picture of Jesus hanging on the wall behind her, he immediately changes his mind. He knows Aunt Patty loves him, but he also knows how devout she is. If he tells her the truth about what Mikey meant to him, let alone if he tellsher they were actually boyfriends, he doesn’t think she’d be very accepting.
And so he does the next best thing.
“Um…do you remember my friend Mikey? You probably saw him at the concert.”
Aunt Patty thinks about it for a minute, and then she nods. It might be Luke’s imagination, but he swears he sees a bit of a shadow creep over her face. It’s gone the next minute, though, and he doubts it was ever there.
“Yes,” she says. “I remember him.” She sighs. “Let me guess. He doesn’t want to be your friend anymore?”
He sniffles a little, feeling the tears trying to come back. All he can do is nod.
She sighs. “I knew it. That boy…you can’t rely on boys like that, Luke. They’re always going to go after something else.” Aunt Patty pauses, and he can tell there’s something else she wants to say. He braces for the moment when she’ll say something homophobic, but instead she drops a different kind of bombshell on him.
“I didn’t want to say anything, but Loretta said she heard he’d gotten a contract with some big agent from up in Pittsburgh. I was hoping he wouldn’t do something like this.” She shrugs. “I guess I should’ve just been honest.”
So that’s why Mikey broke up with me,he thinks.He got what he wanted out of NACA, and now he’s just going to…go away.
Thinking about Mikey leaving NACA makes Luke ache but, at the same time, he thinks it might be for the best. If Mikey leaves–and why would he stay, when he’s got a contract?–then he won’t have to see him and be constantly reminded of what he doesn’t have anymore. Even though the summer program is over, Luke can’t bear the thought of even another day of seeing Mikey.
Good riddance,he thinks but, once again, he doesn’t mean it.
Aunt Patty reaches out and puts her hands–rough and yet soft at the same time–over his.
“It’s gonna be okay, sweetie,” she says. “I promise. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow. But it will be. Even the worst heartaches pass in time. And don’t you let his success get you down. You’re gonna get your own contract, and you’re gonna show the world what you’re made of.”
Normally Luke would roll his eyes at that kind of talk, but today it’s just what he needs to hear. He has no idea what the future holds, but who knows? Maybe Aunt Patty is right. Maybe he’ll find his own path forward.
He gets to his feet.
“Thanks, Aunt Patty. You really helped.”
She smiles at him and gestures to the guest bedroom where he sleeps when he spends the night here. “You can spend the night, if you want.”
“Thanks,” he says, “but I think I’m okay now.”
She gets to her feet, moving a bit slower than she used to. When she wraps him in another hug, though, her arms are just as strong as ever. Luke takes a last little bit of comfort.
As he walks back to his house–he fortunately only lives about a half-hour walk away–he feels so much better.
He knows there’s a long road ahead–for his heart, for his career, for everything–but he knows now he can handle it.
CHAPTER 17
MIKEY—2005
Even though he knew it was the right thing to do, Mikey hates himself for breaking up with Luke.
