twenty three

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// twenty three // michael //

There's banging on my bedroom door at 7 in the morning.

"The fuck?" I ask, sitting up out of bed.

"Michael, it's Ashton again, lemme in.."

I wasn't sure what he wanted, but I decided to get hop out of bed and get it anyway because by the sound of his voice I could tell it was important.

I open the door, still in my pyjamas and all. "Yeah?"

"Get ready, we're leaving soon."

"Where?" I ask, scratching my head.

"We're going to get Luke."

---

I didn't care about what my parents would say, I didn't care how long it took, I didn't care how unclear I was of what exactly was going on. We were going to get Luke.

I put on a pair of jeans and slipped on an oversized t-shirt that was from a Jackson Guthy concert, it was super cool and even signed by him. I brought along a backpack full of movies and Daniel and my music and whatever, ready to go.

Supposedly, my mother knew about everything that was going on but knowing my father would easily get upset, she decided not to tell him and just keep him oblivious.

We took off around 8 am, I felt more scared than I was excited. I couldn't tell why, just the feeling of my stomach dropping when he told me where we were going made me sick- not in a bad way, just an unsure way.

Melbourne to Sydney was a long drive, nearly 9 hours. But I figured it was worth it and I took the time to get to know Ashton. Turns out that he's really fucking annoying and won't shut up.

He doesn't even talk about interesting things that I want to hear, just nonsense and jokes he's made up in his head that don't even make sense. I pretended to fall asleep while he was talking at one point, but he started freaking out thinking that I had died or something and started screaming my name from the top of his lungs until I sat up to show him I was awake.

We hit so much traffic on the way there, it was ridiculous. I was so fed up with the entire day, I was tired and confused, my ears rang from his voice, and it'd only been 4 hours.

After 12, he stopped with the bullshit nonsense and starting talking for real. "How come you and Luke were kicked out in the first place?" I asked, hoping it wasn't too much of a personal question.

He sipped some soda out of his Pepsi can and looked at me, then back at the road. "Well, obviously both me and Luke are somewhat fuckasses in the first place, which was one huge part of it all. The two of us were failing school, we'd never did any chores, I actually feel a bit bad for all the stuff we did, thinking back on it. We sure did ruin a lot of mum's crap, but she got real fed up after we both decided to set some things on fire.

"The two of us didn't think it was too much of a deal, we just picked up random stuff throughout the house for an actual science fair project, we thought she'd be proud of it. While she wasn't home, I went into her closet and grabbed what looked like garbage, because you know, it was sitting in the corner of the closet in a large trash bag that I'd never seen before. I was careless at the time, I was only 13 and Luke was 9. I asked him to help me with the project, thinking I was clever for coming up with the experiment for school all by myself.

"We put it all in the garage, brought out some matches and oiled it all down. I honestly can't remember how this had anything to do with an actual science experiment, I just found a bag of shit and lit it on fire like any person would. Well, turns out that that bag was anything but garbage. It was everything that had to do with Luke's father. You see, we don't know where he is. He was sort of crazy and had all these mental disorders, and right after Mum got pregnant with Luke he ran off. She married a man before him who fathered me, but they got divorced quickly after my genetic dad found out she was cheating on him with Luke's father. Mum still loves him, though, both of them. Although, Luke's dad meant a hell of a lot more and was the real father. She still knew all the great qualities about him and he was a genuine guy before he'd lost his mind.

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