The Chaotic Interim (boyxboy)

Chapter 17

The next morning the two of them packed up their things, ate a quick breakfast of peach oatmeal and toast, and then set off in Josiah's new black car.

They left at about seven and they got to campus a little over an hour later. It was an eerie kind of familiarity for both of the boys as they returned to their school. Neither had been back since the night everything changed for them. Carson was nervous at first, but he told himself he would never go back to the football practice fields again. He knew for sure that if he ever saw that spot again, he would have a full-on meltdown.

Josiah did a decent job at keeping them both smiling as they walked around campus that morning. They parked the car at Josiah’s apartment and went inside briefly so he could collect his backpack and laptop for class. Carson kept close to Josiah as they made their way to his dorm in the center of campus to retrieve his own things.

He tried not to think of how Ayden was blatantly missing from their entourage. Josiah even had a few of his own thoughts like that but he pushed them aside quickly. He put his attention into making sure Carson was doing alright. Josiah found it easier to cope with things if he had someone else to worry about, which was the major reason why he didn’t mind putting so much effort into keeping Carson happy. If his friend was doing well, then Josiah felt a hundred times better about everything.

Carson somewhat sensed that, which was why he didn’t feel smothered by the older boy. Then add in the fact that they genuinely enjoyed and loved being in each other’s company, and there weren’t many problems. Well, as long as Josiah didn’t try to pawn him off on therapists and whatnot, then they wouldn’t have many issues.

In actuality, Josiah didn’t have class until eleven on Mondays, but Carson had one at both ten and eleven. So Josiah pretty much just camped outside of the younger boy’s lecture hall and waited until the fifty minute class was over so he could walk him to the next one.

Carson was actually doing fine for his first day back at college. People didn’t look at him any differently; nobody besides his professors even knew he was the guy who had been on the news reports a couple weeks ago before the story had fizzled out. And his love for philosophy and his classes made him momentarily forget that anything had gone wrong in the first place.

Or that was until he got out of class and he saw Josiah sitting against the wall waiting for him. With no Ayden in sight. It was like a punch to the gut and he almost couldn’t believe he had allowed himself to get sucked back into normalcy for one lousy hour.

Josiah was relieved that their eleven o’clock classes were only down the hall from each other’s, but that didn’t stop the older boy from letting his mind wander over to Carson. He knew that there was no chance that Gabriel of Jeremiah could do anything to his friend--they were in jail right now and expelled from the university. However, that little bit of truth didn’t completely subside his nerves. Josiah just felt like he could never be fully sure that nothing was going to happen to his best friend.

As the academic part of the day wound to an end by two in the afternoon, the boys stopped by Carson’s--and previously Ayden’s--shared dorm room. It hadn’t taken long for the brunet to voice his uncomfortability with staying there now that his roommate and best friend no longer was. And there was no way Josiah was going to let his friend stay somewhere alone.

So they spent about twenty minutes of their afternoon gathering a bunch of Carson’s essentials so he could go back and crash at Josiah’s apartment until further notice.

They tried to keep the night light and casual. They stayed away from tough topics of conversations, and spent a lot of the evening working on the giant heap of homework they had both accumulated in their classes. Josiah even got Carson to help him with cleaning out his refrigerator. That chore was actually quite amusing for the both of them.