Even Without Words

Vic

I couldn’t handle seeing Eric again. I might not love him anymore but all the things he said to me never left my head. Gabe walked me back and told me he was going to go grab something from his room. I didn’t feel like being around any more people right now, even my friends so I took the opportunity to run out the back door and to my cave. I just sat there and cried for probably a good ten minutes until I heard Mike and Jesse calling for me. I tried to keep quiet until they went back inside and then broke down again. I didn’t notice anyone had found me until I felt two skinny arms wrap around me. I knew who it was, I just didn’t believe it. I looked up to see Kellin looking down at me in the dying light with a worried look on his face. His arms tightened when I started crying again.

“Why’d you come find me?” I asked shakily after another five minutes. I forgot that it was already too dark for Kellin to write anything so I was surprised when he just hugged me tighter and laid his head on top of mine. I felt like he actually cared and I just hung onto him as my life depended on it. His fingers trailed up and down my arm and it was so comforting.

I decided to tell Kellin what had happened with Eric and started crying again. I felt Kellin’s lips on my hair and heard him humming so quietly I could barely hear but I clung onto the sound. He had a beautiful voice and I can’t believe he didn’t use it. I wondered if that’s why it was so quiet, he never used his voice so it might be weak. I smiled on the inside at the fact that he cared enough to try. We sat there until it was almost completely dark so I finally spoke again.

“We should get back so we don’t scare the guys,” I said and Kellin nodded. We both got up and crawled out of the cave and started back to school. I noticed Kellin wasn’t wearing a sweater and was shivering so I gave him mine. He tried to refuse it until I wrapped it around his shoulders for him. He pulled his arms into the sleeves but he was still cold and I was still sad so I wrapped my arms around him tightly and smiled the tiniest bit when his arms wound around me too. We both came back in and all of our friends were sitting on one of the groups of couches around a tv.

“JESUS VIC,” Mike said. “DON’T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!”

“Where’d you find him Kellin?” Gabe asked. In usual Kellin fashion, he didn’t say anything but he walked to the stairs, dragging me with him. We both went up to our room and Kellin handed me my sweater back. I put on my pajama pants and sat on my bed, feeling kind of numb. Kellin came out of the bathroom in pajamas too and sat on his bed opposite me, looking through his phone.

“Kellin?” I asked quietly and watched his head snap up. “Thank you for coming to find me.” Kellin scribbled in his notebook, tore out the page and walked over to me. With a small smile, he handed me the paper and gave me one huge hug.

Anytime Vic. I smiled and hugged him back. When we let go, it was late and we both went to sleep.

I was woken up the next morning by Kellin hyperventilating again and I knew he was having another panic attack. His head was buried in his knees and so I went up to him carefully.

“Kellin,” I said quietly. “Kells, look at me.” His head slowly came up and there were tears streaming down his face. I didn’t say anything, I just crawled onto his bed and held him while he cried. At least it wasn’t four in the morning this time. I sang to him again until he calmed down and eventually he was good enough to go to breakfast. We joined our friends and I knew we probably both looked like hell. No one really talked considering how touchy Kellin and I would probably be if anyone did open their mouths. Even Jaime managed to keep quiet.

I walked Kellin to class again and we stood outside the door to the art room.

“Can I see your phone for a second?” I asked him and he handed it to me. I punched my number into the contacts. “There, text me if you need me.”

Kellin just smiled a little at me before walking into the art room and sitting with Jesse and Gabe. I walked to Spanish quickly, not wanting to be late and sat behind my brother again.

“How are you feeling?” Tony asked me, turning in his seat.

“Better,” I replied. “But I never want to see that bastard again.”

“You should’ve gotten security or something,” Jaime said.

“It was already too late, it wouldn’t have mattered,” I sighed and rubbed my face.

“At least Kellin found you, we had no idea where you’d gone,” Mike told me with a scowl.

“Sorry, it’s kind of our hiding spot,” I said. “I’m amazed he managed to find it in the dark.”

“Well at least he got you,” Tony said. “It was probably best that it was him and not us.”

“Yeah,” I laughed a little. “I wouldn’t want to cuddle with you guys like I did with Kellin.”

My day dragged on and I didn’t see Kellin at lunch. He was probably up in our room or something considering he had third period free. He could go get food whenever he wanted. Or maybe he just didn’t eat since he seemed to eat so little anyways. I had to force myself to focus on my work until fourth rolled around.

Finally I was sitting in my spot at the back of the creative writing class and Kellin slid into his seat beside me. I was writing more of my story and stopped to say hi to Kellin. Just before I opened my mouth the teacher came back and snatched up my story.

“Let’s see what my prized student is working on,” She said with an evil grin. She could be a mean lady. After reading through it, she wrote in one of the margins in red pen and handed it back to me.

“Well then, I look forward to reading the end,” she said with a grin before walking back up to the front.