They say that when you fall in love, you'll know it. Usually that's in the context of meeting your soulmate. You'll remember the exact moment you knew you'd last forever. I have learned that that doesn't always happen with soulmates, but can it happen to those who aren't? I've only seen it happen with my mom, but they didn't last. My mom said he cut ties with her when he found his soulmate. Non-soulmate relationships don't last, and I don't even have to try to remember it. That fact is always at the forefront of my mind.
George could barely make out what he was writing as a gust of wind flipped his hood over his head. He didn't understand why Clay always had to park as far away from the streetlights as possible into an abandoned parking lot with less life than a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but he did so almost every night, and George had decided to depend on the dim light of the moon instead. Sitting on the roof of the car presented him a better view as well as a strange feeling of being on top of the world despite only being a couple feet up. He could see across the entire parking lot and the many closed stores surrounding them.
A car door below him slammed, and George glanced down as Clay pushed himself onto the hood of the car and climbed to the roof.
"Whatcha writing?" He asked, sitting criss-cross next to George as he quickly flipped the page of his notebook to a brand new blank page. "What are you hiding?"
"Nothing," He mumbled, and Clay laughed. "It's just about soulmates."
"Soulmates? That's pretty broad," He said, pointing George's phone light at the older boy and causing him to squint. "Do you think you'll meet yours soon?"
"I kind of don't want to."
Clay cocked his head. "You don't? Look, George, not all soulmates are like the ones you've seen. Those are just messed up cases, and you're not messed up."
"That's not why." He clicked his pen against the empty page. He avoided Clay's eye, though he could feel the daggers of his stare pierce into his skin. His stomach did the curl it always did when he knew he was too close.
"Then what is it?"
He shrugged. "I don't feel like I need to anymore."
"Oh." Clay glanced around the empty parking lot. "I have a question."
"Hm?" Mumbled George as he began doodling fire and stickmen around the page, finally able to clearly see what he was doing. He started with a building and escalated it into a city with fire lining the streets. Stickmen and their stick families fled the streets. After realizing how dark of a concept it was, he scribbled the doodle out and restarted with fireworks instead.
"Do you think we'll still be friends when you leave?" His eyes trailed up George, and everywhere he looked made George's nerves in those spots tingle.
"Why wouldn't we?"
"Because what if you're only tolerating me because you have to? That's why everyone else were friends with me. They were all Sapnap's friends, and the moment I broke up with him, they all left."
George tapped Clay's hand with his pen. "I won't leave you. Well, emotionally."
"Everyone told me that, George." He took the pen from George's light grip and fidgeted around with it; he clicked it and rolled it around his fingers. "I enjoy your company. You're funny and chill and— I don't know. I think I understand why everyone likes you now."
"Why is that?"
"Because you have a way of making the people around you feel safe and comfortable."
George smiled. He had heard many different variations of the same thing. People have told him that he was a great listener and that he wasn't judgmental. Hearing it in a new way from Clay, however, seemed to set his chest on fire, and his stomach acted similar to a fire department with the way it jolted to ease the flames. His face burnt a bright shade of pink as he began to laugh. "Thanks, Clay. You don't just like me because I'm giving you free validation, right?"
The younger boy's face split into a grin. "'Course not, Blue. If all I wanted was free validation, I'd stick with my cat Patches."
"What do you want then?"
"You. Well—" His face fell as he fumbled over his words. "Okay— no. I mean— um. I just—"
"Take a deep breath."
Clay listened, stopping himself to take a deep breath. "I feel like I can just exist with you, you know? Not like my friends where I have to act like I've got my shit together and I have to be all sappy and gross with Sapnap or with my family where I can't do anything right. Like, I've felt more like myself in the few days we've been on the road than I have since... I don't even know."
"I like you better when you act like yourself."
The younger boy snickered and rolled his eyes. "That's so fucking cheesy."
"Well, you're not whining about something insignificant every two seconds and you're not mean to me. If I knew you were— if you acted more like yourself earlier, we would've gotten along months ago."
"Aha! Wait, finish your sentence!" Clay grinned and cupped his ear. "I'm so what, George? You can't start a sentence and not finish it!"
"Annoying," George quickly finished.
"No, that can't be it. What was it? Come on, flatter me. Stroke my ego. Give me more free validation." He pouted.
He couldn't stop smiling even though he wanted to. "You act the way I'd want my soulmate to act."
Clay dropped his pout and his ears flared red beneath his mess of hair. "What? A walking disaster?"
"You're not a walking disaster. If anything, you're a walking oxymoron. I mean, you tell me your grades are slipping when you've taught me hundreds of things throughout this trip, you say happy things in sad ways and sad things in happy ways, you can make mature decisions, yet you execute them so immaturely, and you tell me you don't have feelings for Sapnap even though you talk about him all the time."
"Okay, for the last point, I don't have feelings for him. But I've known him my whole life and he was my best friend, so obviously a lot of things remind me of him," Clay corrected. "As for everything else... yeah, I guess." He laughed even if it sounded a bit forced.
"It's my favorite thing about you, honestly," George said. "I like the unpredictability."
Clay's eyes lit up as they always did when George complimented him, and it caused him to snicker slightly.
"So you want your soulmate to be an indecipherable, broken mess who drags you into all their problems?"
"I want my soulmate to know what he wants and to go after it while simultaneously pulling me out of my dull routine." He gave the boy a reassuring smile, and he laughed.
"So you promise we'll still be friends after this roadtrip?"
"I promise."
With an endearing smile, he held out the pen. "Enjoy your writing, Blue." George's eyes flickered. They were so close, their knees practically touching. As soon as George took the pen, the former slipped off the roof and left him alone. The car door opened and shut below him, and he flipped the page back to the entry he was writing to see the last few sentences he wrote:
Non-soulmate relationships don't last, and I don't even have to try to remember it. That fact is always at the forefront of my mind.
***
The sun hung brightly in the sky. The clouds stretched out like cotton candy across the baby blue sky. It was unfortunate that Clay said that once they reached their final destination, they'd be subjected to a rather heavy rainfall. For now, however, George enjoyed the sunlight. There wasn't a hint of a bad day written within the clouds.
According to Clay, it was the last day of their roadtrip before they turned around and went home. In an way, George didn't want to go back. As much as he disliked sitting in a car all day, he enjoyed the company he had with him. It was the escape he came to America for. Just him and his friend driving through the east coast with no interruption. No authority hovering over them, no drama within their friends, no soulmates. By going back, he'd have to succumb to a normal life once again with everything he fled from.
Clay hummed along to the song on the radio. It was the first song they had listened to together, though this time he smiled while he sang out the chorus. He tapped on the steering wheel and sang the instrumental as well. It was as if he was in his own world and George simply watched. He'd air-drum along with the song and would laugh when he accidentally fumbled over the words.
"I fucking love that song," He said when the song ended. He glanced over to George. "How are you, Blue? You're being quiet."
"I have nothing to say."
"Are you excited to go back home?"
"Yeah. Hopefully we make it back in time for Drista's game. She didn't do too well last game."
"She didn't?" Clay frowned. "I bet you it happened after they switched goals. That part always messes her up, especially if the goalies look alike."
"She didn't tell me what happened."
"She's an incredible soccer player, she just needs the confidence. She gets flustered easily. Happens every game."
"I didn't think you went to her games," George said. "She never mentions you."
Clay snickered. "You really think she's going to want her dickhead older brother to go to her games? I don't go, but sometimes I'll be taking a walk around the town and just so happen to see the game from a distance. And when that happens, I'll take my post against one of the trees and watch. I try to catch all of her home games, but I've missed a few. Her last game was St. Francis, right?"
George nodded, and Clay laughed, saying, "St. Francis is notorious for rigging the game. They do that with their football team, too. Quackity's in marching band and Karl is on the varsity soccer team, so they've both seen it first hand."
"You should start actually going to her games, Clay. I'm sure she'd love to see you there."
"Eh, I doubt it. She's always been independent. She does better with fewer eyes on her. Besides, mom and dad are there to support her anyway." He gave George a fleeting glance before locking his eyes back on the car in front of them. It had a clutter of bumper stickers and a North Carolina license plate despite them being far from the state and well into Pennsylvania. "I wonder if they miss us."
"You were talking to your mom just yesterday before you threw your phone out the window."
"Yeah, but she didn't really mention it." He leaned back and allowed his hands to slip from the ten-and-two position he had been instructed to use.
"Do you miss them?"
His green eyes flickered, and for a minute he did not speak. The song they listened to ended and a new one began. It had an old sound to it with a lighthearted guitar. "I miss Sapnap and Karl, and even Quackity after the way he kicked me out of the group."
"What about your family?"
He smiled gently with disheartened eyes. "I always miss them, even before this roadtrip. Sometimes I miss when Drista and I were younger and she didn't roll her eyes whenever she saw me. Or how my mom used to take me out to get ice cream whenever I got an A on my tests and my dad used to let me skip school if I had straight A's. I don't know why all those things had to come to an end." He lowered his eyes as he tapped the steering wheel. Before George could think of what to say, he cleared his throat. "That's just how growing up goes, I guess. It's like you said before. Nothing lasts forever."
George didn't know what to say. For the first time, he didn't know how to relate to the boy beside him. How was he to comfort him over something he never experienced? He couldn't understand the utter heartbreak of losing traditions so close to one's heart that he still thought about them to this day, for George never held those traditions in the first place. In a twisted way, he envied him. He would have rather had all the sweet family traditions in the world and lose them all than to have never experienced them at all.
"You can make new ones," He told him.
"We do have new ones. I don't really like them, though. They all consist of tired looks and disappointed undertones. I bet they're glad I'm gone."
"I doubt that, Clay."
The younger boy replied with merely a hum before turning up the music. George took that as a hint and gazed out the window as they entered a small stop surrounded by gas stations and small fast food restaurants. Every so often, he'd glance back at Clay, and he'd wonder to himself what he thought about. And he wondered if he truly wanted to know.
==========
Nice filler chapter pog B)
I'm SO excited for the upcoming chapters. They're like my favorite ones in the book LOL You guys will know why starting tmrw ;)
Reminder that it gets better <3