Even Without Words

Vic

I had to carry Kellin back to the room. I would bet all the money I had stashed away in the room that he hadn’t really slept well even while he was asleep. I was a little worried about leaving him to sleep alone in the room, I didn’t really want him to have any nightmares while I wasn’t there. As I walked with Jesse down to the yard, I couldn’t help but think about when I was carrying him. He was so light and it just felt so right, but I don’t have a chance.
“Vic!” I heard Jesse call my name and snapped back into reality. “Stop thinking about how perfect Kellin is and get your mind into soccer mode.” I smacked him.
“I was NOT thinking about how perfect Kellin is,” I replied, not wanting him to know.
“Oh give it up, it’s practically written all over your face,” Jesse laughed. “You can drool over him all you want when you go out to the beach tonight but we have more important things than your little crush right now.”
“God Jess,” I pushed him, laughing. “Do you have to see everything?”
It was kind of a rule that Tony, Jaime, Mike and I weren’t allowed to play together. Four Mexicans against four white boys really wasn’t fair. So we broke into our usual teams, Me and Tony with Jack and Justin versus Jesse, Mike, Jaime and Gabe. At least it was a little more fair this way. Jesse was the only one of the others that could really play soccer like my brother and I.
The game was pretty intense today, Jaime and I were constantly blocking each other, effectively making both of us useless to our teams. Mike was smoking already and Tony and Justin were trying to stop Jesse. Jack was waiting for them to get the ball away from him so he could make a break for it. Tony took out Jesse’s knees and Justin kicked the ball to Jack who made it easily passed Mike and kicked the ball at Gabe, who was the goalie. Instead of wherever he was trying to kick, Jack managed to get Gabe square in the head.
“Oh my god!” Jack said when Gabe was holding his head on the ground. “Baby, I’m so sorry!”
Needless to say the game was over after that little incident. Jack felt horrible but Gabe kept on saying he was fine although we all made him go see the nurse since it was a pretty hard hit. I decided now would be a good time to go check on Kellin who was still upstairs.
“Hey guys, I’ll be in my room,” I said. “You know, I have an essay due tomorrow and I haven’t even started yet.” That wasn’t a total lie… I did have an essay due tomorrow, but I’d done it already. Jesse winked at me so I flipped him off before going back inside to see Kellin come down the stairs.
“Hey man, our game just finished,” I told him and suddenly realised how awful I must look. I was all sweaty and my hair was sticking to my face. And I probably smelled too. Jesus Christ I’m a mess.
I just came down to watch… He wrote.
“Well we can always go to the beach or something?” I suggested. Kellin just kind of shrugged and nodded and followed me out the back. We went down the little path that was growing over a bit and soon enough we were on the beach. I ditched my shoes in favor of bare feet because I loved the sand. Kellin did the same and we ended up going on a walk. I didn’t realise where we were going until we were almost there and I decided I would trust Kellin with my most secret of hiding places. Not even Mike had ever found me here.
“Come here, I want to show you something,” I said and grabbed his wrist to drag him to where the rocks started and the grass grew high. I pushed aside some of the giant reeds to show him the little cave like thing that was in the rocks. It was decently big and easily fit both of us sitting down. There were little pockets kind of like more hiding spots in the cave. They were a lot smaller though… Most of them hid my snacks. “I like to hide here when I’m having a bad day. Nobody knows about it.”
Why are you showing me? He asked, looking at me with his big, crystal eyes.
“Because you seem like you might get some use out of it too,” I told him honestly. “It’s nice to have some place where no one can find you and you can just be by yourself.”
Thank you for trusting me so much Vic. Kellin wrote. For the first time, I noticed how nice his handwriting actually was. It was a little feminine but that just meant it matched the rest of him. I hugged him a little and we sat there in a comfortable silence.
We actually ended up talking about random things and I found out we had a lot in common. We listened to all the same music and played adventure video games. I was never one for the shooting, where’s the fun in that? You shoot someone, they’re dead, you shoot them again. I like the plot lines better. I also found out his favorite color is red, he likes cats and his favorite movie is the Nightmare Before Christmas.
“You’re… different,” I told Kellin. He started to look worried.
Is that bad? He asked me.
“No, no,” I reassured him. “It just means you’re special. And a whole hell of a lot less boring than half the other dumbasses who go here.” I saw him smile a little but soon enough it was too dark to read what he was writing so we went back to the campus and got dinner.
Like usual, Kellin only ate a little but I was glad he at least ate. Everyone was already eating so that meant Kellin and I were late.
“There they are!” Mike said loudly as we sat down with our food. I was glad nobody really asked any questions. Dinner went by in a sea of laughs, even a few from Kellin and before we knew it we were all back in the common room. This time Jack realised he should probably start his homework and Gabe had to go up and help him, even though we all know that they wouldn’t get much done. Mike, Jaime and Tony went up too to start working on a group project they had for Spanish class and Jesse dragged Justin upstairs claiming he needed help with something. The sly little bastard.