The Hijinks War

53. Goodbye

"Cole?"

Kellen probably hadn't expected me to be there after his last check of the blinds, making sure no one or thing was missed. I should have departed with Brian and the last group, but I couldn't leave without Kellen.

"I think this is it." He sat by me, his words echoing the feeling that rolled inside me like a bowling ball. "I don't think we'll be back at the Academy anytime soon. Not if things went down the way Sergeant Egers said."

"No." The sad desperation I'd been trying to put off was beginning to form a lump in my throat. "Probably not."

"I'm going to miss you, Cole."

I didn't attempt to stop the tears that were swelling past my lashes and leaking slowly onto my face; I would miss him and too many of my friends so terribly. The void was already noticeable and beginning to ache. I took his hand, fiddling with it before lacing our fingers.

"Promise me something, Kels."

"What is it, Babe?"

"Okay, promise me two things. One, you'll stop calling me Babe, and two... You'll fix things with Katia. It won't be easy, because you guys have been hard on each other for a long time now, but, promise me you'll try."

A tiny lopsided smile graced his face. "I'll try, I promise... Babe." He let me smack him once, but hugged me as I attempted it again. "God! I'm going to miss you, Cole! Who else is going to keep me in line?"

"I'm sure Jess can do it."

"Nah! I don't think Jacks would be okay with me getting that close to her―he has enough trouble with you and me."

"As if Jacks has any control over that! Besides, I'm sure Katia will be more than happy to do it... if you fix things with her."

"Oy! You two!" Sergeant Egers called, "Let's go!"

Kellen climbed into the helicopter that waited on us without a problem, but I had to be boosted in. We laughed as he caught me around the waist and we toppled to the floor. "Way to catch me, dweeb!"

"I could have sworn the one we airlifted was your boyfriend." Sergeant Egers said as he watched us. What? I froze as I struggled with my harness.

"Mark? Gross! He's like my little brother!" I shuddered as the Sergeant did up my harness for me.

"Ah. This makes more sense now." He gestured from Kellen to me. I might have said something to him, but he left us to talk to the pilot. Good thing too, because I realized that saying something would have made the situation more awkward.

The bowling ball in my stomach was joined by a single fluttering butterfly. I looked out the window instead of at Kellen. Sergeant Egers wasn't wrong in seeing what he did; none of them were, really. I'd been trying to ignore it for a while, but with the finality of goodbye looming over us, it was hard. Kellen had become more to me than I realized. A friend, a comfort, and somehow a home for my heart when I'd been free falling. 

The pesky single butterfly flapping wildly in my belly, that stupid fluttery thing, made me wonder if he possibly felt the same. Katia had implied as much, but I didn't put much stock in her words. Back at the Dell, he'd said... What in the name of flying roundhouse kicks was I doing? The thoughts of butterflies and fuzziness left me as the Academy came into sight and I grabbed his hand instinctively.

"Ho-ly!"

While parts of Waterbridge looked no different than normal, other parts looked like the setting of a half-assed post-apocalyptic movie. Scorch marks adorned the teacher's wing, from where fire had billowed out the windows, the lawns were torn up, and the fields were a campground for helicopters. Kellen and I exchanged a look as Sergeant Egers pointed out the city of tents we needed to report to immediately on landing, in front of the Academy. It was where we'd find our families. My eyes welled with tears as we landed on the now destroyed soccer pitch.