On your knees // Bandom

45. The Kids Are All F'''ed Up

Frank: hey brenny?
Brendon: frankie?
Frank: do you wanna come help me pick gees stuff from their parents house bc I said I would but I dont have a car?
Brendon: Sure
Brendon: It'd be funny anyway to see you w their parents
Frank: thanks b
Frank: tommorow @ lunchtime ish?
Brendon: one?
Frank: sounds good ly

Brendon pulled up only ten minutes late and Frank and Gee slid into the back.

"Ryans coming," Brendon gestured to the boy sitting shotgun, "He can help carry and he's cute."
"Fair enough,"
"Also can you drop me of at Dall's? It's practically on the way to mine." Gee asked.
"No its not," Brendon replied. "But sure."
"Thank you."

Brendon started driving, and Ryan plugged his phone into the aux cord and started playing some nameless song. Something they could all sing along to. Frank reached up and opened the sunroof to the January air, and Gee shivered but didn't really care.

They felt young. Like they had this brief snapshot of time when they weren't meant to be doing anything but driving along and singing and talking.

The weight of their responsibilities, just for a moment, fell to the wayside.

They dropped Gee off first, and honked at Dallon, who laughed.

"Road trip!" Ryan hooped.
"To my boyfriends homophobic parents house!"
"Which is less than half an hour away!"
"McDonalds!McDonalds!McDonalds!" Ryan yelled.
"One black coffee please," Brendon said, to no one in particular.
"We have food at home." Frank reprimanded from the backseat.

They pulled up at Gee's, and Brendon cut the engine, stopping the music.

Frank steeled himself and got out, Brendon and Ryan followed his footsteps down the front path.

Gee's old house looked like almost every other house along that road, and Frank tried to focus on little things to calm his nerves. The grass on the left hand side needed clipping. The gnomes on the right had paint chipping off.

"You good?" Ryan checked.

Frank nodded and knocked firmly on the door. There was movement inside; someones blurry shadow approaching the door.

Mikey pulled it open. "Frank?"
"Why didn't they just ask Mikey to bring them their stuff?" Brendon mumbled to Ryan, who poked him.
"Gee wanted me to take some stuff back to mine." Frank told him.
"Oh."
"Can we go up to his room?"
"Sure." Mikey sidestepped out of the way, and let them in. His face betraying none of his thoughts.

In reality, he felt abandoned and rejected and not enough. His own sibling had up and left him to deal with their parents, who suddenly became a lot less lenient, not that they were liberal to begin with.

Suddenly the arguments happened a lot more, and the house was falling apart, which didn't feel right because it wasn't like Gee had kept them together much in the first place.

Mikey had expected to become the golden son, the favourite, but it hadn't happened. He was just alone, and all of his friends rallied around the person who'd left him there.

~

"What was that rule again?" Jimmy asked Ray, eyes shut softly.
"You have to tell me you love me, for real, before we... go anywhere."
"Dicks out at I love you. Right."
"And you don't love me."
"Not yet, but I will."
"Mmkay,"

Jimmy's hair was wet from the shower, so it fell to his shoulders. Ray had picked him up alone, as Lindsey had overslept and they'd kissed, as they were want to do in moments of privacy.

Then Jimmy had slid over the centre console and into his secret boyfriends lap and Ray had turned up whatever song was playing.

"You better fall in love with me, too." Jimmy told him.
"I don't think it'll be difficult."
"Remind me again why you believed you were too straight for me?"
"Dude I still have no clue whats going on."
"Hetroflexible?" Jimmy suggested with a mischievous smile.
Ray shoved his chest. "Asshole. Im not that straight."
"Hmm, debatable. You wore sandals the other day."
"We went to the beach."
"NJ Beach, babe, in January."
"Shut up."
"You kinda are that straight tho." Jimmy teased.
"No I'm not! What even classes as a straight thing?"
"Umm," Jimmy laughed. "Asking that?"
"You're so unhelpful why do I even like you."
"I mean if you didn't like me you'd be even more straight."
"You're so mean to me."
"It's because I like you."
Ray laughed.

"We need to talk, though." Ray said, avoiding eye contact.
"What?" Jimmys heart jumped into his throat.
"At new years? In the bathroom? Ryan and Awsten heard us, and, obviously, Ryans.... and Awsten won't talk, but..."
"Yeah, sorry."
"I just, im not a public person anyway, Jimmy, and I need to figure things out first, before I say anything to anyone."
"I know."
"I'm sorry."
"It just feels wrong, doesn't it? Joking and kissing and living, when Ryan can't. Survivors guilt or some bullshit."
"Does anyone know what actually happened?"
"No. Not yet."
"It wasn't long ago, at all..."
"And yet here we are. Here everyone is, having fun ignoring it." Jimmys face was stormy.
"Frank cried in RS, we were doing some sort of meditation and he just started crying."
"Did you cry? When you found out?"
"A little. I mean, we left to go to yours just before it happened. So I found out via, like, snapchat? The next day."
"Yeah."
"I guess I was in shock, I dont know. We weren't like best friends, but... y'know. What about you?"
"Again, probably snapchat. I didn't cry though, maybe I should have."

They both basked in the pain for a moment, or the guilt, or loss, or whatever emotion was sinking Rays car into the tarmac.

"C'mon," Ray broke the silence. "We'll be late."

~

If Awsten wasn't even talking, he really wasn't in the mood to answer the phone.

But Ryan was calling, and Ryan was dead, so that was an unusual enough occurrence to pick up.

He answered it. "H-I." His voice broke over the opening word, from lack of use. It felt so weird to speak after a week of silence. He was surprised he was still able to.

"Hi, its, uh, Ryans dad."
"Oh." He croaked.
"Are you alright, son?"
"Yeah, lost my voice, is all." Technically accurate.
"Well, we got the, the h-hospital results."
"Oh."
"They think he must have fallen, his neck was snapped,"
Awsten thought he could hear crying. "Oh."
"I don't know why I'm telling you, I, I thought you'd want to know, you were his top contact, and... I mean, you could tell his friends, im sure they'd want to know."
"Thank you."
"And you two were, I dont know slang, a thing?"
"Sorry?"
"You weren't subtle on boxing day, son. I don't care. He seemed happy and... I don't know, maybe he would have told me."
"Did he tell you about Dallon."
"No, but I knew about that, too. I know, knew, my son."
"Know." Awsten corrected quietly.
"Look, would you want to come round? I don't know what to do with his things, or.. anything."

Awsten thought about it. Thought about how he had talked to this man over everyone, because he might be falling apart but Eric Seaman definitely had the short straw.

"Of course," He said.
"Good. Good."
Awsten hung up.

Of course. Of course. Of course.
When he was silent, sometimes phrases got stuck in his head, going round and round until he couldn't think about anything but it.

Of course felt too much like a promise. Like he'd do it against all odds when he really wouldn't, it was lying then. He might not even go because it would hurt so badly. He would be Caesar, stabbed to death, each word he spoke a blow. He'd said 22 words, one more and he'd be gone.

An// is this ever gonna end? I feel like I just keep rehashing things and not even nicely.