Be Somewhere

It took them a fair amount of time, but the others finally managed to pull Lily and Ricky apart from their embrace.  The pair attempted, in vain, to hold in their lopsided grins as one of each of their friends dragged them out into the few remaining rays of that day's sunlight.  For a while, the tension that had built up in Danny's house was left there to fester in it's own sin.  If Danny didn't know Ricky better, he would have said that he had forgotten it.  Unfortunately, he did know him better.

Even if the boy seemed to be filled to the brim with joy, Danny could see that the misery was hidden just beneath the surface.  Just because he had put his shirt back on, didn't necessarily mean that the scars had disappeared; it only meant that they were hidden that much deeper.  The eyes said more than anyone would ever care to know. Until that boy wore them in the shade of proud jade he had inherited from his mother, he wasn't happy.  Until then, the smile was just a lie.

"So what do you guys want to do?"  Lily asked.  Everyone could tell that she wasn't asking the group, but rather, Ricky.  She hadn't taken her eyes off of him since they had abandoned Danny's house.  Not even twenty seconds had passed before Ricky answered:

"I don't know.  What do you feel like doing?"  Brad just sighed as he started to glare at the blushing pair.  As cute as they were, they were already irritating him to no end.  His patience started to evaporate a bit faster as Lily just giggled in reply.  Danny could see that his boyfriend was about to lose his quickly fading temper and rushed over to him to intervene before he caused a scene.

"I know!  Let's go down to the tracks!" Danny shouted as he grabbed Brad's hand.  He laced their fingers together before starting to swing their intertwined hands obnoxiously.  A couple of simultaneous groans could be heard from Tucker and Morgan, but they were drowned out by the cheer of approval from Ricky.  Lily didn't say a word, only smiled sadly and nodded.
 
 It didn't take them very long to reach the tracks.  They were a just a rusty set of faded steel that had lost it's shine long before any of the kids had been born there.  Ricky smiled and kicked some of the gravel dust up.  They stood just on the outskirts of town, but this place seemed deserted.  The group might as well be standing in a ghost town for all the signs of life there were.  A hint of musty staleness clung in the air and made it dry; difficult to suck into your lungs. 

A long whistle gave hint that the train was coming.  The boys had caught it just in time.  Lily, Tucker, and Morgan all took their customary place on the sideline and Brad opted to join them.  Danny placed a quick peck on his cheek before he ran off to join Ricky in the center of the track.  The light could be seen flickering a couple miles away and the boys whooped with excitement while Lily and Brad cringed.

"I really don't get why they love this so much..."  Lily mumbled to no one in particular.

“You don't quite understand what we are, do you?” Brad said to Lily as Ricky and Danny stood in front of the oncoming train. “We aren't scared to die. We aren't afraid; there isn't anything left to kill us. We are the closest that a human can come to being invincible... mostly 'cause we just don't give a fuck anymore.”

The train whooshed by, and just like the first time Lily had witnessed their game, the boys didn't blink when they jumped out of the way in the nick of time. They got to their feet; laughing and joking all the while. Lily couldn't understand. She knew they had been through a lot, she had witnessed much of it in the past week and a half, but she couldn't bring herself to agree with their willingness to let go of life.

“But why? I've seen what you guys have been through, I just... I don't get it.”

“That's because you're still alive.”

“What?”

“We've numbed ourselves too much. It was too much of a constant. Imagine what you've seen... now imagine it every day of your life for fourteen years. We died on the inside... So now all we have left is an empty shell... and we're just waiting for it to fall to pieces like the other parts of us.”

"I can't accept that," Lily whispered as she watched Ricky brush the dust off of his jeans. "I will not accept that he is a lost cause."  Her eyes filled with tears and Brad winced in sympathy when he saw the pain written on her face.  She wasn't going to understand why they were how they were, and he couldn't hope to explain it to her.

The pair of survivors made their way over to the group that was shaking their heads on the sidelines. Ricky grinned deviously; more little boy devil than anything else. Pure ecstasy and was painted across Danny's face with a lavish smile and sparkling eyes.

Lily could practically feel their excitement rolling off of them in waves and she cherished the look of them at that particular moment. In her gut, she knew that their happiness was temporary, and that it would soon be replaced by the feelings of hopelessness that Brad had so carefully described, but at that moment, they were, and Lily found it impossible to believe that they were dead on the inside. They may not have had very much, but they had this; these moments.

This was what they lived for.