miss mysterious - luke hemmings au

eight

"Are you nervous at all?" Calum asked as he sat next to Luke in the car on the way to the open mic night.

"A little," Luke mumbled, shrugging his shoulders and trying to focus on the road ahead of him.

By the time he got to the shop he would be performing at, it really started to hit him that he was actually doing this. He was performing in front of an audience for the first time since he was a kid.

He had already signed up, and there was no going back, no way to get out of this. He had to do this and he was ready - at least he thought he was, until an all-too-familiar face showed up.

Luke blinked. Maybe he was just dreaming - but he wasn't. Becca and her new boyfriend were sitting in the audience, and Luke started to get more anxious than he was earlier. He knew he had to turn his focus away from Becca. She was moving on, and so was he.

By the time it was his turn to get on the stage, Luke was more nervous than he had ever been in a really long time, but when the song actually started, he felt free. He felt as if he was letting go of everything he had kept inside for so long. It didn't matter that his past was metaphorically and literally staring him in the face. It didn't matter that it took a long time for him to get to this point. It didn't matter that there were around thirty other complete strangers watching him as well.

As he finished the last line of the song, he felt like he had finally started to let go.

"If you love someone, let them go."