Never Fall For The Sad Boy (bxb)

9. Friends

TWs: underage drinking, implied child abuse, vomit, mentions of parent death

Over the next few weeks, Kian and I grow closer and closer. Halloween is the first time we get drunk together, at a party Grace's friend Molly is throwing.

At one point in the party, I get so drunk I go and find Kian and we leave the house. He's just as plastered as me, maybe even more, so we decide to walk. It takes a long time to get out of town and onto a large hill in the middle of the field outside Wayhild. Fortunately, Molly lives on the edges of town so the only reason it takes a long time is because neither of us can walk straight. I point this out while we're climbing up the hill.

"It's– it's because I'm gay!" Kian slurs, giggling as he sways where he's standing. I blink at him for a second, before grabbing his arm so he doesn't fall.

"Okay!" I say simply, before heaving him into my back and carrying him the rest of the way up, Kian whooping and laughing.

Once we're up, we lay down next to eachother, arms touching on the grass. It's getting notably colder, especially at night, but I feel warm. Probably the alcohol.

"You're gay?" I ask after we've looked at the stars for a while.

"Yeah. Isn't it obvious?"

"No. I don't know. I'm bad at that shit. Didn't even know Simon was queer."

"You didn't?" Kian sounds amused, so I frown.

"No. He hid it really well."

Kian snorts and we spend the rest of the night stargazing until we've sobered up and the sunrise glints across the horizon.

A few weeks later, as the days get longer and colder, Kian shows up to school with a bruise on his left cheek and acts as if nothing happened.

"You get into a fight?" I ask during first period. He glances at me out of the corner of his eye.

"No," he says, looking back down on the assignment. I frown at the blue mark staring back at me.

"Then what happened?"

"I walked into a wall."

"Did the wall look like a fist?"

Kian doesn't answer, he only gives me the sidelong look again.

"Seriously, are you alright?" I whisper, starting to get really worried. If he won't tell me what it's about, then it must be bad.

"I'm fine. I was tired and went to the bathroom and stumbled into a wall, that's all."

The way he says it tells me that something is seriously wrong, but I decide to let the subject drop for now.

Over the next few periods, I do some thinking. It's so gross, so fucked up. But it feels like it could be right. At lunch, I drag Kian aside.

"What the hell, Elis?"

"Was it your dad?" I demand, not willing to waste any time. I'm holding him by the arms, staring into his eyes with sincere concern.

"What? No," are the words coming out of Kian's pretty mouth, but I know him better than that, and I can see it, in the way his eyes avoid connecting with mine while saying the last word, the way his shoulders slump over, and how his fingers start fidgeting with each other at his sides. He's lying.

"Fuck, Kian. You need to tell me, okay? If you need help, just tell me, alright? Please, man."

Suddenly, Kian rips his arms from my grip and shoves me back as he stands up straighter.

"Stop it. I don't need any fucking help, go mind your own goddamn business."

I let him walk away, and I will regret that decision for a long time.

—

Kian doesn't come to school the next day. Grace asks me if I know anything right before I can ask her the same thing, and nobody has heard anything from him. I call him, with no response.

It's only a few days before Thanksgiving, and I want to see him before that.

He doesn't come on the day after either, nor the third day. The fourth day is Saturday, and there's still no word from Kian. Monday is Thanksgiving. I call Grace on Sunday, telling her we should go to his house to see if he's even there.

"And who the hell are you?" Kian's dad says when he opens the door to see me and Grace standing on his doorstep.

"I'm Grace, and this is Elis. We're friends of Kian's."

"The kid's not here. Don't know where he's run off to, now get off of my property."

Grace and I share a look before backing away. I want to punch Mr. Browne, but something tells me that wouldn't be a good idea. Before we leave, I get behind the house to see if he's out there. He isn't.

"But where the fuck is he?" Grace blurts out when we get into my car. I feel like crying, but my eyes are dry and I can feel an anger building up.

"I don't–"

Then suddenly, I remember something Kian said to me a couple weeks ago. We were drunk again, and laying on the sidewalk outside a bar. We always seem to find ourselves laying on the ground when we're drunk.

"Oakfolk Cemetery. That's where my mom was buried," he'd said after we had calmed from a fit of giggles.z

"Of course," I mutter now, pulling my car off the driveway and onto the road.

"What, where are we going?"

"Oakfolk Cemetery."

It's a twenty minute drive to get there, and we take it in silence. The cemetery is huge, it's the only one in the whole area and it's where every person from Wayhild, Oakfolk and Cancord are buried. I realize that I have no idea where Kian's mother is buried, so I go up to the reception.

"Who do you want to visit?" asks the lady upfront, looking over the bridge of her glasses. She has a lazy-eye that kind of freaks me out.

"Uhm. Ab– Abigail Browne?"

"Abigail Samantha Browne? Maiden name Harold?"

"Ah... sure."

The lady brings out a folded map of the cemetery and puts it on the counter, opening it up. She then takes a pen from behind her ear and circles a grave place on the map.

"Here she and her son Liam Browne are. Take the map."

I don't bother asking who Liam Browne is, even though I'm really fucking curious.

It's a ten minute walk to get to Abigail's grave, and when we see it, we stop multiple feet away. By the light grey marble stone lies a black clad figure, looking freezing in the cold November air.

Me and Grace share one look before bolting forward, stopping when we reach him. He's laying on his side facing the grave, a pool of vomit in front of him.

"Kian! Kian, goddamnit, wake up," I'm shaking his shoulders, willing him to stir. Something falls to the ground when I heave him up into my arms. I'm sitting at his side. My head is spinning. I think Grace is saying something to me, but I can't hear it around the ululation in my ears.

Grace pushes me away eventually. She's on the phone, and monologuing everything she does. Checking his breathing; he is breathing, but it's shallow. Checking his pulse; it's slow. His breath; alcohol.

I don't know how long it takes for the ambulance to come, but it feels too long. Grace and I ride in the ambulance with him while they put tubes and needles into his skin and an oxygen mask over his face.

By the time we arrive at the hospital, Kian is stable.