The drive home was awful. Awsten was staring out of the car window at the dark rain clouds clustered in the sky, raindrops unevenly splattered across his window before running down the glass.
He inaudibly sighed to himself, there was no music playing in the car, the only separation from the incredibly awkward silence was the droning patter of the water splashing on the bonnet of the car.
Neither of them had said anything for the entire drive so far, despite being locked in the small space alone for fifteen minutes already; the worst part was that they were only halfway to Awsten's house.
Each minute seemed to carry Awsten through an infinite timeframe, it just dragged on as he curled his fingers and dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand until he broke the layers of skin, blood caking underneath his white fingernails.
The closer he got to his house, the more memories of the place hijacked his brain, he wanted to ask Geoff to turn around, even just drop him off on the side of the road, he'd rather be discarded and left to die in the freezing rain.
"I'm sorry," Geoff's voice sounded hollow, Awsten quickly focused his attention on Geoff, completely startled as if he'd never heard anyone talk before.
"W-what are you sorry for?" Geoff didn't have anything to apologise for. He'd let Awsten stay at his house, cared for him constantly, it wasn't even his fault that Awsten had to go home.
Geoff looked angry as he kept his eyes on the road, Awsten hated it when people were angry while they were driving, although, oddly, Awsten trusted Geoff enough, his presence was indescribably comforting. "Just... I should have been more careful. I promised I'd keep you safe and I didn't, I'm so sorry, Aws."
"Don't say that," Awsten snapped, he didn't mean to say it so harshly but he couldn't let Geoff take the fall for this, not at all. "You looked after me. I felt- feel, I feel so safe with you, none of this is your fault, I should have never stayed with you for so long; we knew it was dangerous but I was too much of a pussy to go back home."
He wasn't entirely sure if the scenario was actually his fault, he started to wonder if maybe there was no fault to this. "That's not it, at all... you don't understand, I- you just need to believe me. This isn't your fault, Sarah had her reasons to get mad."
It was obvious that Geoff didn't want to elaborate so Awsten dropped the subject, going back to staring out his window at the gloomy weather as the silence commenced once again. Thankfully, this period of silence seemed to be much shorter than the first one as Geoff pulled into Awsten's driveway.
He took a deep breath. He could feel it constricting already, he just had to hold off having a panic attack until he got inside and actually had a reason to. "It's going to be okay, Awsie."
Awsten felt Geoff's warm fingers interlock with his own cold ones, he didn't realise how badly he was already craving the feeling of Geoff's soft skin, he was glad that he didn't seem mad at him. "What if it isn't okay?"
"It will be," He gave Awsten's hand a reassuring squeeze as he locked eye contact with him. "I promise," he wanted to kiss Geoff so bad, his icy blue eyes had Awsten's heterochromic ones locked in, although Geoff had pretty much broken up with him before. We can't see each other anymore. Did that mean 'as of now' or did that only apply after Awsten had gone back home?
The sudden feeling of Geoff's warm lips connecting with his own suggested the latter. He tried to desperately make it all last, he wanted to hold their kiss for as long as he possibly could before he could never kiss this boy again, although it was cut off too short and Awsten was left in the passenger seat with the sudden realisation that he would never get to experience that ever again.
Neither of them said anything more as Awsten cracked open the car door and climbed out, the gentle rain soaked into his hair and overly-large clothes, walking up to his doorstep and sighing before hesitantly turning the doorknob, luckily it was unlocked. He turned back to look at Geoff although he wasn't looking back at him, he was changing into reverse and pulling back out of the driveway.
Awsten was alone.
He pushed on the door until it opened, quickly stepping inside and shutting the door behind him again, immediately bracing for the screaming to start. It didn't.
He didn't know where anybody was, neither of his parents appeared to be home, maybe Gracie would be in her bedroom upstairs. He climbed the familiar staircase that made him feel sick, past his own bedroom door before knocking on Gracie's door. Nothing.
He didn't think they had anything on, church never ran that late unless there was an after-party at one of the volunteers' houses, that was probably about right. He was just glad that his parents weren't here to crush him even more.
He opened his bedroom door, everything was exactly the way he left it before his life had completely taken a turn, including the dark stains on his white carpet from where his stomach bled before Geoff had cleaned his wounds for him.
It was going to take him a while to stop relating everything back to that boy.
YOU ARE READING
Serendipitous (Gawsten)
Fanfiction[COMPLETED] An apathetic boy with colourblindness and too many problems serendipitously meets a boy who may be able to help him feel all of the colours he'd never seen.
