this love ☼ dreamnotfound

{ 43 }

clay was crying the whole drive back to his house. there were moments where he genuinely couldn't see because his vision was so blocked by tears, and he considered pulling over so he wouldn't crash his car. he didn't though, he just kept driving and somehow made it home safely.

his mom, who presumably had a long day at work as she had been working a lot recently, was definitely asleep when clay got home. caylee was at a sleepover with her friends, which made clay oddly jealous. his fifteen-year-old little sister had a better social life than him right now. he couldn't be upset, though. he was glad that she was happy.

he nearly dropped his keys as he fumbled with them to open the front door. his hands were shaking, his head was pounding, and he was absolutely terrified.

had he just lost george?

no- he refused to believe that. he didn't even want to think about it right now, but he really couldn't shake the thoughts from his head. did george mean what he said?

everything that george said was undeniable. clay had made mistakes, but george had too. they were both in the wrong here, and deep down clay knew that, but he couldn't help but feel like he had single-handedly ruined everything.

george knew that clay lied about how he found out about jace and locklyn, and clay felt awful. he wanted to tell george the truth without mentioning brodie, but depending on how much george wanted to know he might not end up having a choice. he would rather upset brodie a bit than risk losing george over a lie, and he was sure brodie would understand if clay had to mention him.

once clay was in his bedroom, he took the time to actually think about what had just happened. george had a tendency to lose his temper and say things he didn't mean, but usually he would start profusely apologizing as soon as he realized what he had said. this time, though, he didn't. it seemed like he had meant every word. george forgave clay for everything, and he made that very clear, but tonight it seemed like everything changed. suddenly george didn't understand why clay did the things that he did and how his mind worked.

god, clay didn't even know how his own mind worked.

clay felt awful about the things that he said too, but he didn't know what else to do. he couldn't just stand there and take what george was saying without defending himself. this was a mess, an absolute mess. clay was exhausted.

he struggled with his shoelaces for a few moments before he was able to kick his shoes off. he got to his bed and sat down before taking his sweatshirt off and lying down. he was sweating despite his ceiling fan being on and his windows being cracked open. he just laid there for at least an hour, thinking and thinking and thinking. he was so, so tired, but he just couldn't fall asleep- not after what had just happened.

he had no idea how much time had passed when he heard a car pull into his driveway. maybe it was his sister coming home from her sleepover because something went wrong; some of her friends had their driver's licenses already, which kind of freaked clay out. hopelessly, he kept trying to sleep. he could hear an engine turn off, a car door slam shut, and footsteps in the grass.

then, he heard a small, almost inaudible bang. he couldn't tell what it was or where it was coming from, so he just tried to ignore it. he heard it again, this time a little louder. then, it was noise after noise. it was like a tap on his window.

his window.

clay pulled himself out of bed, walking over towards the window that he was hearing the noises from. to his surprise, george was standing in the grass below with a handful of pebbles.

he opened the window all the way, expressing his confusion, "george? what are you doing here?"

"what do you think i'm doing here?" george questioned in response. he told, "i have a lot to
apologize for."