Even Without Words

Kellin 42

I woke up the next morning cuddled against Vic. He was already awake and running his fingers soothingly through my hair. I still didn’t feel all that great so I stretched lazily before giving Vic instructions.

“Vicky, can you go get the box from my top drawer?” I asked and he looked confused. “It’s your present.”

“Ooo!” He said and jumped over me to go look for it. I propped myself up on my elbows as he came back and sat on the bed with the silver wrapped box.

“Open it,” I giggled as he just stared at it for a minute. “I know it’s not a lot but I thought you would like it.”

Vic opened the box carefully and pulled off the top to show the little deck of cards that was held together by two bull rings. I literally made a deck of cards into a book full of the pictures I’d taken of us over the last little while with the camera he’d given me at Christmas. Vic smiled widely and threw his arms around me.

“Kellin!” He shouted and tackle hugged me. “This is the best present I’ve ever gotten! I love you so much.”

“I love you too Vicky,” I said and kissed him sweetly. “Can we just skip class today?”

“I’m pretty sure they’d come and get us,” He frowned a little. “They do know where we live and all.”

“Fine,” I sighed and got up with only a little pain.

I got dressed and Vic and I went to breakfast. We were all on the same page really, having had the whole weekend with our significant others. Gabe and I were both practically asleep on the table and whining to our boyfriends. When Tony and Jaime showed up, Tony joined our little party. Mike however was nowhere to be found.

“He was with some girl,” Jesse answered easily. “Justin had someone too.”

“I think I know who you mean,” Vic grinned widely and I laughed quietly. Beau looked pretty fucking tired when he decided to show up.

“Hey man, what’s with you?” Jaime asked.

Vic’s POV

“Late night,” Beau said. “Let’s just say I made the mistake of taking a phone call I shouldn’t have.”

Beau looked over at me with sad eyes and I knew what it was about. Images of Kellin and Eric came flooding back to me and I had to take Kellin’s hand under the table just to keep myself from breaking down. I managed to make myself forget about the fact that we’d have to go to court eventually because of that bastard. Luckily Kellin didn’t notice but Jaime, Jesse and Beau all did. The rest of breakfast was quiet, only Kellin still living in his own happy world. I walked Kellin to his first period class quietly and he finally noticed.

“What’s wrong Vic?” he asked me.

“It’s nothing that can’t wait,” I brushed him off. “I’ll tell you after school okay?”

“I don’t like it, but okay,” Kellin sighed quietly, trying to not let anyone else hear him since he still didn’t talk in class.

“Hey, I love you,” I told him. “We’ll always be okay in the end. I want you to remember that.”

“I love you too Vicky,” He replied with the tiniest smile and walked into his class. I went back to my own class with my three best friends. I sat down and Mike really did look like hell. We harassed him for a few minutes until the teacher made us all shut up.

I mindlessly doodled until the fire alarm went off. This happened every once and a while so we all just figured it was a drill again. Even our teacher thought it was a drill. Jaime, Tony, Mike and I sat on the grass outside and away from the school a bit so the principal wouldn’t yell at us. A couple minutes later, we realized it wasn’t a drill because smoke started pouring from the east side of the school. I shot up, worried about Kellin and ran through the crowd of frightened kids, looking to see if he got out. I went through everyone twice before the fire trucks showed up and got to work. I stood, watching like it was all a bad dream for a while. The fire fighters were dousing the flames and dragging kids out of the building. This couldn’t be happening, not when things were going so right with us. They were pulling out kid after kid as I fell to my knees, praying that Kellin would be the next one out. Minute after minute passed and I felt a few people around me but nobody dared to do anything and frankly, if they had I would’ve snapped out of it and ran in for him. After what seemed like forever, they pulled my precious Kellin out of the building but until the others who could mostly walk on their own, Kellin was carried out unconscious.

“NO!” I screamed at the top of my lungs and then some before running forwards. Mike and the guys didn’t even have time to try and grab me while I ran to where Kellin was being loaded onto a stretcher and into an ambulance. By this point, I was crying so hard I couldn’t even see while I was running but it didn’t matter. I knew where I was going. “KELLIN!”

“Sir, how do you know him?” The technician asked me.

“He’s his boyfriend, it’s the only thing Kellin’s really got,” I heard Jaime say behind me. He was a little out of breath from his sprint over here. The paramedics stepped aside for the most part and let me into the ambulance.

“Don’t you dare die on me Kells,” I cried as they hooked him up to things. Slowly he stirred and squeezed my hand that I didn’t realise was linked with his. He just looked at me with his impossibly beautiful eyes before passing out again and I could relax somewhat knowing he was alright for now.