A Silver Lining

Epilogue- Part 2

continued...

I froze at hearing the voice. For a moment I thought I was hallucinating. But then there he was.

On the other side of the road, Caleb is standing with his full glory.

His hair is cut shorter than he used to wear it. He looks pale, thinner than before, but nothing else was changed about him.

The same carefree tone, the same stupid smirk on his face, wearing skinny jeans and a leather jacket.

Then he sees us. "Yo guys!" He says nothing has happened. Like more than one year hasn't passed since he had been declared dead.

I scream and cross the road running ignoring traffic lights. I stop when I'm in front of him.

He smirked. "No hug?" He said and I threw my arms around him. He hugs me back.

"You' are you's-" I struggle to complete the sentence.

"Yes I'm alive," he finishes. "But if you don't let go of me now, your boyfriend over there might kill me."

He untangled my arms and wiped my face. "There you go, that's the problem with girls. You start crying over breaking a nail too."

I ignore his comment. "I- I can't believe my eyes."

"Then don't," he says. "Believe your ears."

I start to laugh. Only him.

Ryan and Brad cross the road too. Caleb high fives Ryan.

"How did you survive man?" Ryan asks with a grin.

Caleb replies with a wink. "My charms even fail death."

Brad hits him on the shoulder. "I thought we agreed you won't tell anyone that anymore."

Caleb grins at his father. "Okay. So Jordan shot me on the shoulder but I managed to get away from the fight. But I might have gone in the wrong direction and reached the highways. I saw a car coming and signaled it to stop. But my head was aching badly and I fainted," he says. "Next time I woke up it was two months later. It took me another four months to recover enough to talk. The man who admitted me in the hospital told me what had happened. He helped me to call dad."

"Yes. Carol and I went there as fast as we could. He was shot in the left hand and it wasn't healing. So they needed to take in down," Brad pauses. I wince and look at Caleb's left hand. But didn't Brad just say it was cut off?

Caleb notices me staring. "Oh this one is mechanical by the way. Isn't it cool?" He moves it and shows us.

I glare at him. "How funny? Almost dying is funny to you?" I stalk to hit him but an arm around my waist holds me back.

"Let it go princess," Ryan says, then looks at Caleb, "I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm glad you're alive."

Caleb's grin widens. "See? Even your boyfriend is being more reasonable."

I sigh. He will never learn.

"But it was a year ago," Ryan says to Brad. "Where was he till now? Everyone was worried sick about him."

Caleb's smile faded a little. "Well that was me. I needed time to recover from it. And I wasn't sure if my hand would be replaced ever. There was a possibility I might die from the infection. Then everyone would be sadder than they were. I didn't want to upset anyone or worse, pity me."

Ryan walks over to him and pats his shoulder. "I know the feeling."

A knowing look passed between them.