Wild (Cherik Book One)

Distance//The END

And here we are, the finale. Enjoy  <3

-Aiyanah

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The morning sun was beginning to just peak through Charlie's white curtains when Erik began moving. A rustling deep in his chest as he woke up further into consciousness. His surroundings were slightly confusing as his mind caught up with his body. Each one of his senses comes alive one by one. The first thing he noticed was the shades of the morning sun reflecting off Charlie's colorful glass window panes. Each shining color like a rainbow cascading across the light colored surfaces surrounding them. Erik's eyes began peaking open, his pupils adjusting before growing in size as he focused on the sleeping figure beside him.

Charlie's mouth was agape slightly, small puffs of air escaping his pink lips. His eyelashes tickled his cheeks in long perfect strokes. Brown mahogany curls fell in his face, imperfect waves twisting around his features. A gentleness held in his face, untouched by trouble or doubt. He looked ethereal. Erik memorized all of it, the way Charlie's arms flailed haphazardly over his body, the speckled dots that covered his bare chest as the blanket rustled with his own movements. How his eyebrows always looked to be thinking, contemplating something of great importance. Erik felt a ball in his throat, heavy like an anchor and punching him in the heart with each beat. A single tear fell and was soaked into the silk pillow beneath his head. How am I ever to leave you? Erik thought to himself.

Charlie began moving about slightly, his eyes moving rapidly under his closed lids before they fluttered open softly. Blurry and glazed he focused on the smiling figure beside him.

"Oh, good morning," Charlie spoke through a raspy whisper. Erik leaned forward and kissed him softly, small intimacies like these is what he would miss so much.

"Good morning."

"What time is it?" Charlie yawned and adjusted himself to look at his clock.

"We're running a bit late but I couldn't wake you up," Erik shrugged and Charlie nodded with a sigh.

"I suppose they won't be too happy if we don't show for breakfast," Charlie pointed out.

"You're probably right."

And with that both boys sat up, embracing what would be their final morning together. It was filled with laughter, embraces and whispered poetry into tickled ears. They were falling briskly and quickly into a routine that would burn down as easily as it had been built. It was a dance, interrupted only when one hadn't felt the other for too long. Music strummed in the background, an old record that would have lied dusty and forgotten if not for this.

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Breakfast went as briskly and as warmly as one could have hoped. The clan fell into their own intimacies from which they never truly recovered, sharing stories that beckoned high doses of nostalgia like a drug. Euphoria set in, alongside child-like laughter and happiness that didn't dare tell them to stop. Jaybirds was a glowing pillar of light that morning as the teens stuffed their faces with food more familiar to them than anything else in the world. Erik found himself quieter than usual, taking on the role of the humble observer. He was memorizing again, each face and emotion and gesture. His friends all were so beautiful and unique in ways he would never know again. Darwin's smile, the kind that you read about in books. Alex's bravery that never ceased and often got them in trouble. Angel's kindness that flowed thickly from her in ways she wouldn't make known immediately to anyone. Hank's brain that held secrets about the universe that Erik could only pretend to comprehend. Sean's ability to bring them together, even at his own expense sometimes. Emma who had joined them this summer yet was so deeply entwined in each of them it was impossible to imagine life without her. Marina, the star child who understood you in ways you didn't understand yourself. Raven, the girl who would be his sister in another life, a firecracker that kept him alive in more ways than one. And then Charlie, his lifeline, his soul, the boy who changed everything. A soul so kind and so pure that it spread about a happiness to others immeasurable by anything of science. What would life be like without them? Boring for a start, very, very boring.