‘Hey.’

I only fried my brain by trying to think about the whole dad thing, so I eventually just went to sleep. Yes, we sleep. Only a bit, but we do. It’s not completely necessary but it is better for the full human experience which we constantly chase. It’s different from the human type of sleep and more like a constant waking but also lucid dreaming state.

I was sunning myself out on the patio, trying to just melt into the chair and forget about my sucky life then suddenly Luca was right there. I’d felt him coming but still I was startled when he said something because my mind was too lazy to comprehend that he was here. We’d been done with the tutoring for more than a month now and I thought that he’d disappear afterwards, never to be seen again, but here he was.

I always wondered what he got up to when he was not here, about what kind of life he lived, but he kept everything else completely separate from me. Even back when I had tried to ask my mom more about him, she’d only told me the bits that I already knew. Besides his island life, he never really dove into what else he did after he came back home and I was still very curious.

‘Hey, what are you doing here?’ I asked.

I propped myself up in the chair and after he remained standing I decided to lazily get up as well. I only came up to his shoulder on a good day, that’s how tall he was.

‘Wow, you don’t seem so happy to see your beloved tutor,’ he said.

‘I mean, you haven’t been here for a while,’ I replied.

‘What’d I miss?’

‘Nothing,’ I said looking at the ground, suddenly thinking about Kyle and everything that had happened.

He immediately sat down and pulled me down onto the floor with him. It was so sudden and my knees weren’t exactly prepared for this sudden move.

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‘Oh I missed something, alright,’ he said while interrogating me with his eyes.

‘What?’

‘You tell me,’ he said.

'This is definitely new.'

He was pointing at the little sparkling piece of jewelry around my neck.

'It was a gift,' I said.

'Nice, looks good on you,' he replied.

‘How do you tell if someone likes you?’

If there was anyone I could ask these things, it was going to be him. My mom would freak, my dad was a non-starter and that was pretty much it.

Luca’s face was neutral, just like Kyle was like whenever you asked him something. He seemed so serious afterwards though.

‘Who are we talking about?’ he asked.

‘Well, there’s this guy...’

‘Guy?’ he asked.

‘Oh, right, I um. Yeah I’m into guys, I guess,’ I said nervously.

He looked at me again with the neutral eyes.

‘Oh, that’s cool. Thanks for telling me this,’ he smiled.

‘It’s all new, so yeah,’ I said.

‘I get it. So um, who’s this guy you like? Please don’t say it’s me, that’ll just be weird.’

‘I did have a crush on you at first, but I’m talking about someone else, the one who gave me this,’ I confessed.

‘Jeff, you have to be careful.’

‘Ugh, you sound like my dad,’ I replied.

‘Yeah, he probably really cares about you and is worried when he says that. So am I,’ he said.

I just kept staring at him, not saying a single thing. He didn’t mind that I was gay, so why did he get so pissy all of a sudden? Sure, I get it, he was worried, but why make such a big deal out of this?

‘What?’ He asked.

‘Is there something you wanna tell me?’

‘Like what?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know, sometimes it just seems like there’s something you aren’t telling me, like you’re holding back,’ I said.

He sighed deeply, then his eyes jutted from the yard to me, to the doorway that led straight into the living room, then back to me. For a moment it seemed like this was it, the big revelation moment, like he was about to come clean about something, then it was back to the official company lines.

‘It's just, you know what kind of situation you’re in. You don’t want to make things worse for yourself.’

I hadn’t paid attention when he looked into the doorway but now it made sense. My mom was coming. That's why the tone suddenly changed, wasn't it?

‘So I’m just never ever supposed to have a life because of a mistake I made when I was a child? I’ll just bury my head in the sand and never do anything?’ I asked angrily.

‘No, no,’ he sighed, I guess he wasn’t expecting that.

‘That’s not what I’m saying, Jeff. I just want you to be okay.’

‘Well thanks for absolutely nothing I guess!’

‘Jeff, come on I—’ he said.

‘What’s going on?’ Mom interrupted.

‘He was just waiting for you,’ I said before storming off.

I was just tired of everyone telling me to sit still and do exactly nothing while my life was wasting away. How was that fair?

‘Jeff. You’ll know, you definitely will.’

For a second I didn’t know what he was talking about but then I remembered that I’d asked him a question. I didn’t turn around or acknowledge that I’d heard him. I just wanted to be mad.