Pathways // Gawsten [Book 2]

04 - Boys Lie, Mama

"Otto." 

The name that falls from Grace's lips is enough to make Awsten jump up from where he's sat and gaze at the person everyone else was staring at.

Sure enough, there he was, alive and healthy. Otto Wood - his 'dead' best friend - was stood right in front of him, breathing. He blinked and rubbed his eyes trying to believe that he was real. 

The room was silent, the only noise being Grace's sobs from where she fell to on the floor. Awsten couldn't stop staring at Otto. He was here, he was really here. He wasn't dead. As soon as Otto looked at him, he felt a tear fall delicately onto his cheek, but he didn't even flinch. Otto gave him a warm smile and Awsten swore his heart stopped. This was really happening.

Otto slowly paced over to Grace and knelt down in front of her, placing one of his hands on her legs to tell her he was there. It felt like an invasion of privacy in some ways, but they all knew they all needed to be here, and there was no where any of them would rather be. They could hear Grace's sobs get louder as she felt Otto's hand on her knee, but before any of them could even think, she threw herself forward into Otto. She had her arms tightly wrapped around him and her face pressed into his neck and Otto leaned in and held her as much as he could. He pulled her forward so she was basically sitting on his lap, and looked away from his friends as he felt tears well up in his eyes.

They hadn't seen each other in over a year, well over a year, and Grace spent a long time thinking he was dead. Neither of them thought this day would ever come, yet here they were in each others arms. 

"You're alive," Grace whispered as she pulled away to look at Otto. Otto gave her a small smile and nodded, taking her hand in his and helping her stand up. She clung to him like her life depended on it, never separating their hands and keeping herself pressed into his side so she wouldn't forget he was there... As if she was scared he would just disappear again.

Geoff coughed, breaking the silence in the room,

"Let's sit down." He spoke, voice cracking slightly. Opposite the TV was a two seated sofa, and next to that against the wall was a chair. They also had a beanbag which was on the other side of the coffee table, and Geoff gracefully took the least comfortable seat. Grace clung to Otto as they sat down, and Geoff watched as Awsten hesitantly sat down in the chair. He quickly glanced into the kitchen and saw Jawn wasn't there anymore, and he assumed he'd gone into one of the rooms to work on some of their demos or his own pictures.

"What are you doing here?" Geoff asked, an open question to both Grace and Awsten. His eyes flickered between the two, waiting for an answer,

"Letters." Grace said quietly, "You left the letters in the box."

"When did you find them?" Geoff asked, swallowing the lump in his throat and begging the nerves in his stomach to go away.

"A couple days after you left... I tried to call, but-" Grace choked out, another tear falling down her face. Otto pulled her in a little more trying to console her,

"I read them yesterday." Awsten said quietly, although his voice had a slightly bitter taste to it.

"He refused to read them... He didn't want to know what was in them." Grace shrugged, wiping her eyes.

"That doesn't explain why you're here." Geoff pointed out, letting the nerves in his stomach show through the way he spoke his words.

"As soon as he read them, he wanted to come find you. Jawn helped us." Grace spoke quietly, 

Geoff's eyes blew wide. Jawn had helped them? Jawn had given away his location to them? Why?

"Please explain everything," Awsten's quiet voice said from where he was sat. He looked so small where he was sat, pulled into himself, taking up hardly any room on the sofa.