sparks

38 - until the end

- Dream

His things pack into a suitcase and a backpack. I can hardly believe that his life here over the past eight months can fit into just a suitcase and backpack.

The halls are empty now, most of the boys already left earlier this morning. Quackity and Sapnap have to get going soon after George, too. The grounds feel cold, and empty, and so deserted.

He kisses me, long and hard in his empty dorm room before we head downstairs to where his car is waiting. His hands feel my hair, my arms, my hips, my face, before finally and reluctantly, he pulls away. His hands remain cupping my face.

"I'll miss you" he says, his thumb stroking my cheek, before he leans in to kiss me again, once and quickly this time.

"Not as much as I'll miss you" I answer smartly, earning a small, sad laugh before he finally lets me go like this for the last time.

He leans out to pick up his backpack, but I beat him to it, slinging the backpack over my shoulder and taking his suitcase handle in my other palm. We don't speak as we head downstairs, the company of each other says everything that we know our words can't.

It's a warm afternoon, the sun high and hot in the sky. There's a breeze, but it's a warm breeze, meaning the only thing we can feel is the hot pampering of the suns rays. The trees just beyond the gates to the school sway, each time the soft wind comes.

Sapnap and Quackity wait for him outside of reception, out by where the car is. It was their way of giving us a last moment, our last bit of privacy. Upon our arrival outside, a chauffeur steps from the long black car, clearly waiting for George to come to him.

Waiting to take him away from me.

I step down instead, with his bags, giving George a moment to say his goodbyes to Quackity and Sapnap. The man driving the car gives me a smile, and takes the suitcase from me, settling it in the trunk of the car. I leave his backpack in the back seat.

When he hadn't been paying any attention last night, I had taken my copy of 'little women' and stuck it in the bottom of his backpack.

I also left him my golden bracelet, which in some ways, lead to the beginning of our relationship that day we finally spoke to each other civilly in the library. He is also currently wearing one of my jumpers.

When it can be avoided no longer, I step back up to where my fate awaits me. He hovers, until he steps forward for what feels like the last time, and embraces me.

I hold him, I hold him dearly, I inhale deeply, trying to remember his smell, I hold him. One of his hands tightens slyly around mine, behind my back. I grasp him and suddenly, the thought of letting him go is unbearable.

I tighten my fingers around his thumb.

It ends too soon, but he realizes he must let go. I'm glad he does, because I don't think I can. His thumb falls from my grip. He looks me in the eye, flashing me that same smile I've looked at and loved for what seems like too little time.

Stay, I want to say, though I know how selfish that would be. We can run, stay and run and we can go wherever it is you want to go to in this life. I'd follow you across the earth, twice over, a million times over, anything for you.

"I'll find you" he tells me quietly, still smiling his beautiful, beautiful smile. "If it's the last thing I ever do, I promise I'll find you."

I nod, resisting the overwhelming urge to hold him once more, to brush the hair from his eyes, to kiss him. I don't know how much longer I can hold. Find me, I think.

"I love you" I say, because if I have to say much more, then I'll break into thousands of tiny pieces right in front of him. He shakes his head, almost laughing.

"Not as much as I love you" he answers, referring to our conversation just minutes ago in the dorm.

I smile at him, reaching out to touch his shoulder before he takes the step I've been dreading him taking ever since I realized one day, he would have to go. He climbs into the car, with one final smile in our direction and then the car door shuts and he is gone.

As I watch the car depart, I feel the most I've ever felt, and the least. I can feel him being dragged, torn and ripped away from me. I can feel his touch diminish from my skin. I start to realize I will probably never hold him again, if we are going to be realistic.

The realization settles that what I had been anticipating, that what I have been waiting for has finally arrived, and he is gone. He has left, he is gone, and that is it. There is no more of him after this, and when the car turns the corner, I realize the last I may ever see of him has disappeared. He has left me, and there is nothing I can do about it now.

And oh, I feel so selfish. He is walking into a life of hell, a life full of things I know he doesn't want, a life full of things that are being forced upon him, a life where he can't be himself, where he can't be who he is. A life of lies.

But I am walking into a life without him, and somehow, that feels a million times worse, it makes my heart pull and stretch and feel as though it is being ripped up and stomped on. It makes my stomach hurl.

I turn away from sapnap, unable to look at him, but he knows. He always knows, he understands and I would be lost without him. He turns me back around, and takes me in his arms quietly while the tears silently run down my face. There is so much, I now realize, that I never told him.

I'll never forget you. I'll never forget the sound of your voice. I'll always remember your touch, wherever I go, I'll always see your face. I love your laugh, I love when you forget everything outside of the world we've built together and you are happy, truly happy.

I love you, I love you, I love you. I am too heartbroken to even make any noise. I am afraid to speak now that he can't hear me, I am afraid of everything I'm now going to do that he wont be here to see, to listen of.
I am afraid of what life will become without him, here, with me.

"You love him" Sapnap says, still holding me tightly in his arms. He says this as though it is a realization he has just come to. He says this as though watching us have to leave each other has made him realize how much we need each other. He says this as though he has just realized how much I need the boy who I will not see again for god knows how long.

I cannot answer him still, I think if I even attempt to speak, then the world will fall apart, and nothing will ever be the same.

'With every bone in my body,' I think to myself, feeling lightheaded. 'I'll love him until the end of this world as we know it, and if there is life after this, I will find him there, and I will love him all over again.'

The dust the car had left behind settles back where it had been before. Quackity stands behind sapnap and I, still silently staring off to where the car had left minutes before, unmoving. My chest hurts, my head hurts, all of it hurts, it pains me to even think, it kills me to remember.

He is home, he is my home, he is where I feel okay. He is my home and he is where I feel safe and warm and happy and loved.

A soft breeze moves through the air. The evening, summer sun has now begun to set, and at last, after months of such bright days, of such beautiful days and of such noisy and fun days, at last, everything, everything, everything- is quiet.

- music
clocks by coldplay