Even Without Words

Kellin

I can’t believe Vic was writing a story about two guys. I can’t believe he’s gay, or bi at least. I can’t believe I have a shot! It almost made me want to jump up and run around screaming but then I realised that I probably shouldn’t so I hid in my hair and smiled to myself while writing my story. I kinda stole Vic for the guy and turned myself into the girl. No one is gonna know so who cares.

I couldn’t help but keep looking over at Vic until class was over and he was already a decent ways in. We both walked back to our room together and dumped our crap before heading off to dinner. For the first time in the three days I’ve been here, Vic and I were the first to get to the table so we sat across from each other. I was a little more hungry than usual so I got some garlic sticks with dipping sauce. We were eating in silence until Gabe and Jack walked up with their food, Gabe sitting beside me.

“Hey guys,” Jack said before shoveling food in his mouth. I just nodded a little and went back to nibbling on my bread. It was actually really good.

“I see you got all the paint off,” Gabe said with a huge grin. I scrawled in my notebook and pushed it towards him.

Yeah, but you missed some.

I started laughing as he tried to find it. Jack laughed at his boyfriend and Vic was trying hard not to laugh too. No one bothered to tell him I was lying, we just let him worry about it. Eventually he gave up and we finished our dinner.

Where is everyone else? I asked Vic.

“They stole food from the cooking class,” He told me after swallowing a huge mouthful of potatoes.

“Mike told me that they were all going to go sleep off the food hangover.” I grinned a little.

After dinner the four of us were walking back to the dorm when I saw two guys walking towards us and Vic tensed up. One of them was super tall with longer dark hair, kind of like mine and the other was shorter with red hair.

“What on earth are you doing here Eric?” Jack asked forcefully. He was almost scary at the moment.

“Am I not allowed to visit my friend?” The red head who I assumed was Eric replied. He talked in a way that let me know he was truly a jerk.

“Come on bro, don’t go starting any fights,” The tall boy said to Eric.

“No, it’s fine Beau,” Eric replied. “I just want to talk to Vicky over here.”

“I think you should leave,” Jack said and crossed his arms.

“Why are you really here Eric?” Vic whispered. Something wasn’t right but didn’t want to get into the middle of this… whatever it was.

“Fine, you want the truth Vicky,” Eric started. “I wanted to come see you.”

I looked over at Vic whose eyes were starting to water. I wanted to hug him so badly but I think that might make things worse…

“After everything you’ve done to me,” Vic started talking again. “You have the nerve to come back here, just to hurt me again?”

“Come on, we’re leaving,” Gabe said calmly and pulled Vic forwards with him. That only left Jack and I.

“Eric, I swear to God,” Jack started and Eric still stood his ground. “If I see you around Vic again, I’ll smash your face in and you’ll be even uglier than you were before. Come on Kellin.”

I followed Jack without a noise and he still looked pissed. Gabe and Vic were already out of sight and Jack was slowly calming down. I didn’t want to ask him who the hell Eric was or what he’d done to Vic but we both walked back into the common room to see Gabe freaking out with Mike and Jesse.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked and walked over to his boyfriend.

“I left Vic for ONE SECOND to go get a movie from my room and he ran off and we can’t find him!” Gabe said frantically. I never would’ve thought he would lose his head in a situation like this. I thought it would’ve been Jack.

“Jesse and I looked in all his usual hiding spots but we couldn’t find him,” Mike said. “And you’d think I could find my own brother.”

I knew where he was so I just calmly tried to walk towards the back door but sadly I wasn’t as unseen as I was five minutes ago.

“Kellin, where are you going?” Jesse asked me. I scribbled quickly in my notebook and tore out the page and gave it to him.

I’m going to go get Vic. Everybody STAY HERE. I mean it.

Nobody bothered to follow me as I walked into the kitchen and out the back door. I just prayed I could actually find where I was going since I’d only been there once. I walked down the beach a ways until the rocks started and I pulled the tall grass back. I found it on my second try and crawled in beside a now crying Vic. I didn’t say anything, mainly because I couldn’t and it was already too dark to read whatever I wrote. So I just hugged Vic and he looked up at me with his big brown eyes. I just hugged him a little tighter as he started to cry again.

“Why’d you come find me?” He asked. I didn’t know how I was going to answer him. I just hugged him even tighter and leaned my head lightly on top of his, hoping he would know it was because I cared. Vic just clung onto me as I ran my hand up and down his arms, trying to comfort him.

“Eric is my ex-boyfriend,” Vic told me after he’d stopped crying. “I broke up with him because he was verbally abusive. He cheated on me too but I loved him too much.” Vic broke down again and I didn’t know what to do. He was the one who was good at this so I just kissed his head and hummed as loudly as my unused voice would let me.