Fallen

Chapter Fifty Nine

I shuffled downstairs late in the morning to the sound of Fleetwood Mac's Dreams coming from the living room. Blaine, Carter and Jason were lounging on the sofas in their pyjamas with photo albums laying open across their laps, the coffee table and floor. They were all smiling and pointing at old photos when I perched on the arm of the sofa beside Blaine.

"Here it is!" Jason cried, pulling a picture out of its plastic wallet of the photobook and holding it up. A small blonde boy was grinning at the camera with his mouth and chin covered in what looked like sauce. Blaine pulled me down into his lap and grinned at the picture.

"I knew we had that photo somewhere," he said. "It was my eighth birthday when we had that that huge bouncy castle in my garden."

"Oh yeah," Jason said. "Kieran was left alone at the food table and pretty much ate all the pasta salad face first."

Carter grinned. "His dad was so cool about it."

"Oh yeah. Didn't he smear his mouth with sauce too to make us all laugh?" Jason added.

Blaine nodded. "I loved Mr Newman."

"Didn't your dad hire that creepy clown that made Carter cry?" Jason teased.

"It did not," Carter insisted. "I had bad hay fever that day."

Blaine grinned. "But you've never had hay fever since."

Carter punched Blaine in the arm. "Fuck off, yes I have."

"We haven't got all day to argue," Jason said, his hands in the air. "We've got guests round in a few hours."

Both Blaine and Carter turned to their friend pointedly. "The party doesn't start 'til eight, Jase," Blaine said. Carter grinned and shook his head.

"I know that. I just want to make sure we're ready for it."

"He's always been like this," Blaine murmured to me. "Likes to be ready hours before the event."

"And what's wrong with that?"

"It's weird," Carter said. "Isn't it, Anna?"

All three of the boys turned to me to hear my response. I suddenly felt very sheepish. "To be honest, I think it's great when someone is super organised."

"See?" Jason was smugly grinning from ear to ear.

Cater and Blaine started arguing back and I soon realised we were going round in a circle. "Anyway," I interrupted. "What are you guys doing?"

"We do this every year on Kieran's birthday," Jason explained. "We like to get out some of our photos and look through them. Blaine was wondering if we had the one of Kieran with the food on his face."

"I remember it well," Blaine said. "He always loved his food."

The two other boys smiled. "I remember one year, we must have been about four or five, he convinced me to sit with him on my kitchen floor and share a block of cheese he'd stolen from the fridge," Jason laughed. "He offered me the last piece of cheese. He was always so kind."

"He lost himself when his dad died," Blaine murmured. "At the funeral, he was just so...numb. Like a zombie shuffling around."

"Could you blame him?" Carter asked. "We were all orphaned that day, but Kieran had been through the grief before. He spent so long wondering what his life could have been like with a mum and then he had to go through it all again with his dad."

"We tried to be there for him and at times it worked, but we couldn't replace his parents, just like no one could replace ours." Carter's voice was quiet. "He found it hard to grow up the way that we did. He had a caring nature. He just wanted to be loved."