Chapter 15

6 years ago

3 weeks before

"Josh, talk to me," Carter said as he followed Josh down the hill. They had barely spoken to each other ever since Carter had brought the news of him moving away, and now Josh even sat next to someone else in the school bus. He couldn't take it anymore. Despite moving away in less than a month, he didn't want to lose his best friend. "Josh!" Carter said and grabbed Josh's arm.

Josh didn't turn to him but stopped in his tracks, his arm limp as it was being held by Carter's hand. "What's the use?" he said eventually. "You're moving away, and we won't see each other again."

Josh's words hurt. They made Carter want to cry all over again when he had finally stopped. "...So? Just because we don't get to see each other again for a long time, doesn't mean that our friendship will end. You'll always be my best friend, Josh. Always. No matter how far away you are."

"You're saying that right now, but in a few years, when you're all settled in there, you're going to forget all about me. So there's no use, alright? We might as well get used to being without each other," Josh spoke, and Carter could hear the sadness in his voice.

Carter looked down, his grip around the other's arm loosening. He wasn't sure what to say to him. He wanted to tell him that he was wrong, and that they'd never stop being friends, but knew that saying something like that would sound unrealistic and silly. He let go of Josh's arm and looked at the back of his head which was facing him. "I'm really sorry, Josh. I don't want to move away. I want to stay with you. I don't even think you realize how special you are to me," Carter said softly.

Josh didn't respond right away and remained with his back facing the other. "Whatever. I'm going home."

Carter didn't like seeing Josh like that at all. He wanted him to be happy, and to spend their last moments here together, carelessly and cheerfully. As Josh walked away to his home, Carter chewed the inside of his cheek and also decided to just head to his own home. The school year was practically over, which concluded Carter's last year of school at Hayland.

He walked towards his home, passing a few stores along the way. Absent mindedly, he looked at the windows of the stores. They were mostly convenience stores and every now and then a clothing store. Though when he passed a store where they sold glass art, his eye caught the attention of a small, glass butterfly displayed in the window on a shelf. It was a beautiful, small butterfly with beautiful blue and purple colors in the wings. Carter looked at it for a moment before he walked inside the store. If words couldn't prove his friendship to Josh, then he had to find something that did. He was glad that the butterfly wasn't expensive and rushed towards Josh's house when he had bought it. It was secured in a small box in a paper bag as he hurried towards his friend.

Once arrived, he rang the doorbell and not long after, Josh opened the door. He looked surprised to see Carter at his doorstep and he gave him a small smile.

"Hey," he said, and held out the paper bag. "I got you something."

Josh gave a quick glance inside his house, presumably at his father, before walking out to sit on the porch. "You got me something?" he asked. "Why?"

Carter went to sit next to Josh and handed him the bag. "As prove of our friendship, to put it simply. I saw it and it reminded me of you."

Josh got the small box out of the bag before opening it, revealing the small, glass butterfly which sparkled in the sunlight, making it even more beautiful than it was in the store window.

"It's... beautiful," Josh breathed, holding the butterfly up. "It's really beautiful." The way Josh looked at the small, glass figurine, Carter thought that he was beautiful as well, though he wasn't going to say that out loud.

"I guess I just want to say, that wherever I am, and wherever you are, you will never stop being my best friend. If you feel lonely, you can look at that butterfly and think of me, and I'll think of you."

Josh smiled at Carter's words and looked at him, his blue eyes sparkling almost just as bright as the figurine in the sunlight. "That's really corny. But I like corny," he said before hugging Carter, keeping his head onto his shoulder. "Thank you."

Now

The next day, Josh didn't come to class, nor did he show up during the breaks. Carter also hadn't seen or spoken to Alyssa ever since their argument, though she gave a glance at him during the lunch break when she sat with Melanie and a few other girls he didn't know a few tables away.

He listened to Chris and Paxton chattering about something funny that had happened during one of their classes while eating his lunch. His thoughts kept drifting back to the previous night, and the conversation he had with his parents. His father had, to Carter's great happiness, reacted just as positively as his mother when he came out to him. Even though he had talked with him about girlfriends a few months ago, he didn't seem to be disappointed in him at all.

Should he be in a high right now? He wasn't sure. The only thing he was sure of, was that he now felt a lot happier and more relaxed, knowing that his parents accepted him.

"By the way, did you guys hear? Alyssa and Josh broke up last night," Paxton said, which shot Carter out of his thoughts.

"Wait, what? Really?" Chris asked. He sounded rather surprised.

"Melanie told me," Paxton added. "Apparently they had a pretty bad fight last night. Poor guy is probably heartbroken, seeing as he didn't show up at school today."

"Heartbroken? Are you sure? I never thought Josh looked that in love with her, to be honest," Chris shrugged, taking a bite of his sandwich. "Plus, they only went out for like, a month or two."

Carter looked up at Chris' comment, wondering what a person "in love" should look like.

"Still, breaking up with someone sucks. Especially if it's with someone as hot as Alyssa," Paxton said, leaning back against his chair.

"Wait, did you just say something nice about Alyssa? Am I hearing this correctly?" Chris said in surprise, causing Carter to chuckle softly.

"What? Just because I can't stand her every now and then, doesn't mean that I can't appreciate her aesthetic," Paxton shrugged. Carter stared at his lunch, wondering how Josh was doing, and where he was. He assumed in his boat, but he could be somewhere else in order to avoid anyone who might be looking for him.

"...Alyssa came to me after her fight with Josh," Carter said, thinking that he should talk about it with his friends. Maybe they could help him in a situation like this. He didn't like fighting with his friends, and he did not want to lose Alyssa either. Despite the drama with Josh and her, she was still one of his best friends, and she couldn't help it that she fell for Josh. "I... sort of defended Josh and she got mad at me. I feel bad about what I said, but I wasn't wrong."

"As expected," Paxton said. "With things like these, she wants everyone to be on her side, because she's afraid of being the wrong one, and she's far too proud to admit that she's wrong. So she get angry at anyone who doesn't pick her side."

"But I wasn't picking sides," Carter spoke. "I just... understood Josh's situation, and I tried to explain it to her."

"Same thing. From Alyssa's perspective, you're either with her, or against her. To put it dramatically," Paxton said with a soft huff before taking a sip of his drink.

Carter chewed on the inside of his cheek, thinking about the entire situation. He was, needless to say, confused. Even though Alyssa was upset when she yelled at him, what she said was true in some sense. He had been away for five years, which is a really long time. He doesn't know what happened in those five years, so he understood that she got angry at him for telling her things about Josh which was knowledge from over those five years ago. But when he was with Josh, he didn't seem wrong about what he had told her.

"Hey, guys? Can I ask you something?" Carter asked, drawing the attention of both his friends. "What exactly happened when I was away? With Josh. He's changed so much and Alyssa told me that it had to do with his father."

Both Chris and Paxton shifted up in their seats a little, appearing to not know how to exactly answer the question.

"We actually don't know much about it," Chris said. "Not even Alyssa. After you left, Josh became sort of... depressed, I think. He tried to appear happy, but it was obvious that a lot was off. Alyssa told us that it was known in their neighborhood that his father was struggling with drinking problems. That he was an alcoholic. She told us that some nights things got out of hand and the police showed up, but it was never anything really serious," he spoke. "One time, Josh started crying right here at school during Biology class. I was there. I had to take him to the infirmary and he explained to me that there was a chance he couldn't live with his father anymore, and that he'd have to go to a foster family, because the situation with his father was getting unstable again and the only family he had left besides him was his senile grandmother who couldn't take care of him."

Carter listened closely to Chris, trying his best to take everything in order to understand the situation a little better.

"Though that eventually wasn't necessary and it actually started to get better after a while," Paxton added. "He said his father had gone to rehab and that he was doing better. Though a few months ago, I think about two or three before you came back, Alyssa told us that his father had fallen back to drinking, and that things were going down hill again. But that's all we know."

Even after hearing this, Carter was still left with questions. It didn't explain why Josh was so hell bent in hiding who he really was, and denying what he had told Carter before he moved away. But at least he knew more now.

The bell rang, announcing the end of the lunch break and Paxton and Chris started gather their backpacks, though Carter was, as usual, slower than his friends as he was still lost in thought.

If Josh wasn't going to show up at school tomorrow again, he decided he'd look for him to talk to him. Though he before he did that, he figured he first had to make up with Alyssa, knowing that that would be quite the task.