all we have is now / feral boys fanfiction

~45~ clay

Alex, Karl and I are sitting on the couch talking when George walks through the front door. My brows furrow when I see him.

"I thought you were asleep upstairs," I point my finger up to the ceiling.

He shrugs as he takes off his shoes by the door. "I woke up like two hours ago and left to go somewhere."

I nod, not pushing where he was.

Alex laughs. "We were about to wake you up, too. Imagine we went to wake you up, and you were just gone."

Vegas jumps up from Alex's side and tries to get closer to George.

George chuckles as he props himself up on the couch's arm. "George would not be found."

Alex puts a hand to his own forehead. "Oh gosh you did not just make that joke."

"What?" George laughs, "I would be living up to my name. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?"

"Hey, at least he's self aware." Karl giggles.

We're quiet for a moment. Karl shifts in his seat to look directly towards George now. "Do you know where Nick is?" he asks.

"Oh, um," George rubs the back of his neck, "Not exactly, but I know he had somewhere to be."

"That's oddly not specific at all," I chuckle as I get up to go to the kitchen.

"Forget about Nick actually," Alex says, "Where's Celeste?"

"Probably in my room," George says, "Want to see her?"

"Hell yeah."

All four of us make our way up to George's room. Celeste is sitting on his bed. Alex sits on the floor next to the bed, and George sits to the right of her.

Karl is looking at the pictures on George's wall. He asked me to help put them up a couple weeks ago.

They're a total of three pictures, each very simple. The first two are portraits of Vegas and Celeste. I'm not going to lie. I was slightly offended Patches didn't make the cut, but I didn't say anything. I think there's a deeper meaning than what meets the eye because the middle one doesn't fit the theme at all.

It's a sketch of two wheelchairs.

Everytime I see this picture, it's on the tip of my mind what it means. I just can't quite reach out and grasp it. It's almost as if my self conscience has blocked it out in some way.

I feel like it has something to do with Taegan, and maybe that's why I don't bother him about it. I let him have his little thing with her. If this is what helps him cope and heal, then that is what he should do.

Something in Karl's brain clicks as he studies the portraits, but he doesn't say a word either. He just turns around and puts his back to the wall.

I walk out of the room for a moment. Right across from George's room is Nick's, but diagonal to it is Tae's.

I take a deep breath as I stand in front of it. It's a looming thing that almost haunts this house more than anything. Nobody's gone into it since the accident.

Her room was never something super personal when she was alive. If anything it was a hotspot. We would all go in and out of it all the time. I remember one day I wasn't feeling my best, and I went to lay on her bean bag chair. She didn't say anything when I walked in, just looked up from her computer for a second. I laid there for a really long time until I was ready to talk. When I started talking she set the computer aside and just listened.

I think that's something we always loved about her. She was so welcoming to anyone. Everyone needs a Tae in their life.

"Is it bad I kinda want to go in?" Karl says from behind me.