Breathe

healing.

As time went on, Clay slowly began healing. Things slowly got a little easier, and the days slowly got a little brighter. Soon the bright summer days turned into breezy fall afternoons, and Clay decided it was time he livened up the house a little bit.

Even though the three rooms and their consecutive bathrooms were decorated and lived in, the rest of the space was hardly used. Of course, they used the kitchen, but there was no life to it. There were no posters or signs or bowls of fruit. There were no magazines or coffee stains on the coffee table, and there were no pillows or throw blankets on the couch. Since fall had hit the town like a freight train, Clay felt motivation hit his bones, and one day, he sprung up off of the couch, tossed his laptop to the side, and went upstairs to his friends' rooms.

Calling Nick into George's room, Clay paced the floors. George slowly shut his laptop and eyed Clay carefully. He couldn't tell if Clay was upset or full of adrenaline. Was this another panic attack ? He didn't know.

Nick entered the room and was greeted with the same sight as George. Sitting down on the desk chair, he studied Clay. Was something wrong ? This worried both Nick and George as Clay just wasn't talking. He just kept pacing the front of the room, walking back and forth over and over again, until finally, he took a deep breath and turned to look at them.

"This house is boring."

Nick and George were taken aback. That certainly was not the phrase they expected to come out of Clay's mouth, especially considering what he's been dealing with lately.

Stuttering, Nick replied. "Wha- uh, what do you mean ?"

"This house is boring," Clay said dramatically, waving his hands around as if to showcase the boring of which he spoke. "There's no life to it. It's just three guys living in rooms and a kitchen. We haven't put up the fan-art yet, we haven't bought funny mugs for coffee, we haven't even bought blankets for the couch. Do we have fall decorations, or even a Christmas tree ?!"

The other two boys just stared. This was new and completely unexpected. Clay continued to ramble like a maniac about the lack of personality in the house while the other two watched in shock. It was refreshing, seeing Clay act in a way that wasn't unmotivated. Even though Clay was actively working on getting better, he was normally too tired to care about the way the house was decorated. 

"... and it doesn't even look like anyone lives here until you get upstairs !" Clay continued. "So that's why we're going out today."

This snapped George and Nick back into attention. They were going out ? Going out where ?

"Um, Clay, are you okay ?" George asked. "You're acting a little strange."

"Strange ?!" Clay gasped. "The hell do you mean strange ? I have a completely valid point in that this house is abandoned ! We need to go out to IKEA or something to get things to put life into the foundation of this house."

Nick shrugged. It actually was a good idea to get things for the house for the coming holidays. He hadn't really thought about it, since when he lived with his parents his mom would handle holiday planning. But now that Clay mentioned it, Nick realized that no, they didn't really have anything for the house.

"Sounds like a good idea, actually," Nick said, standing up and motioning for George to do the same. George rose from the bed as well and grabbed his wallet off the bedside table. Clay beamed with pride when he realized that his idea was being received and respected, and that we're going out to get things for our house !!!

Nick drove, since when it came down to it, he really was the safest driver out of the three. George still wasn't used to the orientation of the car, and Clay was just all around angry at every other driver on the road, so by process of elimination, Nick was the first choice.