The Ties That Bind

Chapter 12

   The last month of school was especially grueling for Kasden. Finals were coming up and he'd been studying day and night. Every free minute, he had one of his textbooks open along with his notes from the year, poring over every detail. Anybody watching would assume that was all he ever did.

     He'd been awarded the scholarship that he'd worked so hard for, but there was always the chance that if he didn't do well on the finals that the scholarship might be pulled. Even though he'd been assured that was unlikely, he wasn't going to take any chances. His determination to pass his finals with top scores was clear.  

     "Kasden, are you ever going to turn out the lights and go to bed?" Simon asked, he was irritated with his roommate's late-night schedule.
     "I would have finished this earlier except work ran late tonight. I'll be done in a few minutes." Kasden insisted. He'd already said 'a few minutes' three or four times already.

     "You can finish it tomorrow." Simon complained. "I'm tired and I can't sleep because the lights are keeping me awake."

     Kasden heaved a deep sigh, looked at what was left, realizing that Simon was right. He wasn't going to finish it tonight, at least not 'in a few minutes'. He placed a paper in his book to mark the page and closed it. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his tired eyes; he was exhausted and the longer he kept at it, the slower he went.

     "You're right, I'll go to bed and finish it in the morning." He got out of his work clothes and put on a pair of pajamas before turning off the light and dropping onto his bed. He barely had time to pull the sheet over himself before he was asleep.

     It was the same the next night, and then the next. Kasden studied until Simon complained, then he would finally call it a night; it was habitual. Both boys accepted the routine as fact, knowing that in just a few short weeks, it would be over, and things would get back to normal.

     The truth was, though, that the future 'normal' was going to be quite different from the current normal. Normal, at present, was the two of them sharing a room, hanging out together, eating meals together and, when Kasden could convince him to do it, studying together.

     Once finals were over, and graduation came, Kasden would be moving out of the orphanage. Simon's normal wouldn't include Kasden, and Kasden's wouldn't include Simon. That was how it always worked when one of the kids aged out of the system.

     In the two boy's case, they were going to miss one another a great deal because, not only were they great friends, but they also considered themselves to be brothers. Not seeing one another every day was going to be hard to endure, though they both knew that there wasn't a choice.

  The separation was only for a year, until Simon himself also aged out and had to leave St. Jerome's. They'd discussed it already and they would be sharing an apartment at university; Kasden, Luke and Simon. It was already agreed upon.

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     Kasden completed his last final, put his pencil down, stretched his aching shoulders, and then trudged up to lay the exam on the growing pile on edge of the teacher's desk. He'd done well on them, as expected, but he was still glad that he'd taken the extra time with his studies. Being prepared was one thing that Kasden was more than a little anal about. He hated going into anything unprepared, and exams were one thing he refused to let slide.

     Luke and the girls said they felt confident in their results as well, but Davy, as expected, wasn't sure. The boy's devil-may-care attitude was going to bite him in the butt one of these days. It wasn't that he hadn't studied, he just hadn't studied very much.