Déja Vu

Twenty-Seven

My heart drops to my knees when I see him seated there, looking at his shoes with the black shirt from earlier replaced with a white hoodie. I've changed on my way here as well, Nick can't see any of us in black. I was told that he is asleep now, so I came down to check on everyone, mainly Mr. and Mrs. Ahn. I take a seat on the chair beside him, patting his knee in speak of reassurance before my mouth does. I haven't talked to him since last night, in fact, all I ever uttered out of my mouth was whether he was fine or not, he just nodded. Though getting his back stitched isn't categorized under "fine.", I somehow wasn't in my right mind enough to ask further. We remain in our solitude for a while. I have no idea what should be said in a situation like this. He was the only one that came out of the wreck on his feet and had to call the ambulance for his unconscious friends and a dead one. My eyes fall on the jacket on his lap, Sam's jacket, the one he was wearing yesterday. And I know it as a fact because of the number of pictures Sam sent me yesterday as an update about his day. He liked his face way too much.

I seal my eyes shut trying to absorb back my thoughts.

"It could've been me." He whispers with his voice sounding like it has been fighting to escape his throat. I turn my eyes to him but he's still staring at the floor, seaming like life has been robbed out of him when it luckily hung onto him hours ago "It should've been me."

"Adam, no," I snap my entire body to face him, concern glazes my eyes onto his pale face "What are you even saying?"

"Why did I get to walk out on my feet and they didn't?" He says guilt-full as if he had anything to do with what had happened to them "Why did they go and I had to stay? Why didn't I just go with them? I don't have a dream I'm chasing, nor a child on its way to the world, nor a point where I should prove myself innocent. Who am I to survive and they don't?"

"You are you, Adam." I tell him as I place my hand on top of his "You are you with your own life, your own people, your own goals. You got your own world that you've been building for the past years, if the unspoken would've happened to you, all of this would crash down."

"So?" He utters, head still fixed to the ground and if I'm correct, there are sparkles of tears covering his eyes "Wasn't that the same thing that had happened to them? Then why do they go and I stay?"

"Adam if you need me to go on giving you thousands of reasons why you deserve to be in this world then I surely can," I take full hold of his hand and with the other, I'm caressing the back of his neck with his hair "But just know that one of them is because you have been the world to some souls out there, mine being one of them." He squeezes my hand back as he clamps his eyes shut, throwing his head back to rest against the wall. That's what he needed to hear. It's all survivor's guilt and all he needed was reassurance that he's fine. And most importantly, that it's okay that he's fine.

"Ash," He calls for me as his voice rasps up "You're not gonna leave me again, right?" I lean over from my place and press my lips against his cheek, pulling back with a grin drawn to my face "As a matter of fact, you were the one that left the first time," I tuck myself curled to his side with my head resting on his shoulder "But no, I'm not going anywhere." He pulls his hand from underneath mine, then flips his palm up, spreading his fingers away from each other to make room for mine. I pass my arm underneath his and lace my fingers with his, feeling like the whole world has just buzzed its warmth to both of us. As we're both sitting side to side, waiting for hope to shower us with news of our friends, it just feels like this is how it should've been. Him and I, against the world. And despite the rush of wrongs we're spinning through, it feels like the perfect amount of right. He got me and I got him, there is nothing more we'll both possibly need.

His phone rings in his bag on the floor and I lounge myself to get it before he bends down. After all, he got wounds on his back that were freshly stitched a few hours ago. He should be laying on his stomach on a bed. I have no idea what's he doing on a chair. I fish through his bag until I get hold of his buzzing phone, it's his mother, and I can see it wasn't the first time she had called him without an answer. I hand him his phone and he shakes his head "I can't handle all the babbling and cries I'll be receiving now, I just watched my friend being lowered into the ground."