The Watcher's House - FVK

13

Scratch, scratch, scratch, BANG "I love you Laurence Beveridge" Scratch, scratch, "I love you Lawwy" Scratch, "I'm not a little kid anymore."

I was awoken to scratching in the attic. Rats probably. I needed to get traps today. Wearily, I looked around sunlit room. I had fallen asleep and forgotten to close the curtains. I used to do that a lot when I was younger but not out of forgetfulness.

"Can we go back yet?" Kier moaned, sitting on the wall of the cemetery swinging his legs back allowing the back of his boots to hit the stone.
"Why?" I asked him. I sat near the back of the cemetery on the worn grass next to the grave of Sean Walker.

"We're fifteen. We should be out getting drunk, not sitting in a fucking graveyard"
"You didn't have to come"

"I'm worried about you Laurence. You spend all your time here. Nothing's really distracting you-" I held my hand up to halt his speech. I heard someone walking in the woods behind me. Kier froze, his gaze fixed on me.
"Can we leave now?" Kier whispered.

When we got back, I fumbled for my keys in my jean pockets.
"Hurry up, I need a piss" Kier jumped around behind me, holding his crotch.
"Quit it, will you? You could have gone home" I tried to find the lock, scratching the key against the wood trying to get the key to fit. Eventually, we got inside and Kier ran up to the bathroom.
"Fucking shh will you" I followed him. The clock on the small hallway upstairs read half past two. My bedroom door creaked slightly as I opened it but my parents would be long asleep by now. I just flopped on my bed out of exhaustion, it groaning under my weight.
"Where can I sleep?" I heard Kier ask before drifting off.

After dragging myself out of bed and making myself look less dead, I went into town. It wasn't that busy but then again it never really had been. I was looking in a shop window and thinking about how things had gone down with Kier yesterday when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
"Laurence?" The man asked me, looking me up and down. I nodded.
"Who's asking?" I shifted myself away from him slightly.
"Well it has been twenty years so you remembering me was a longshot... But still..." He looked down at his feet. "I thought you would have remembered" He brushed his fringe out of his tired eyes and looped it over the frame of his glasses.
"Shane? Oh my God, Shane" I pulled him into the big hug. He was weak, his body thin. I moved back.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine" He smiled, the toothy smile had never left him as he had aged. "What are you doing back here? I thought I was never going to see you again"
"It's a long story. Are the other boys around?" Shane's face fell when I mentioned them and his eyes dropped back down to his feet. He cleared his throat.
"Kier is. I've got to go. It's good to see you Laurence" He said before walking away.