The Way Back (Book 1): The Way Back
Page 26
Luke was about to just keep moving, to God knew where, until who knew when. This was bad, and that was all Nolan could grasp at this point. He tried his best to think of some kind of way to fix it, but he was coming up with nothing, and fast.
“Luke stop!” Nolan yelled, walking, almost storming over to face him, who would not…could not turn on his own. Nolan stared at him, right into his eyes, and yet still, his vision was lost; gazing at something that wasn’t there. “God damn it Luke, don’t!” Nolan shouted through gritted teeth.
Nothing.
“Don’t make me do this…” Nolan choked out. An order, and yet a weakly uttered plea at the same time. “Don’t…Don’t make me tell the others they were right… Don’t put this on me…” he tried to joke out, giving it his absolute all to give a chuckle; it was one of the hardest things that he had had to do since this entire shitshow of a new life had begun.
Nothing.
Nolan was losing ideas, as well as what few levels of hope remained. Everything they had gone through: this entire god damn journey home, and here they were? Here? Like this? He could hardly wrap his head around the concept.
They had lost so much, gained so little; they almost changed into entirely different people than the ones they had started as before they left the house back in Maine. They weren’t kids anymore. Far god damn from it. And in the midst of all this change, he could not lose his friend, his best friend. Not him too. Nolan could feel it all coming up again, the tears he had long been holding back these past few hours he and Luke had spent in the snow.
“Luke…” he shakily muttered. “Please…”.
Nothing.
Luke stood still. He stared forward, but through Nolan entirely. Through everything entirely. Nolan stared back at Luke, and wanted to give him every second chance in the world, every second he could stand breathing to believe that Luke was going to pull through this any moment now. But nothing changed, nothing happened. Eventually, the remains of Nolan’s hope crumbled, and his eyes, as well as his heart, sunk.
“Don’t make me do this…” he whispered, tears welling up in his eyes, now staring at the ground. His warm tears pierced through the cold shell the snow laid on the earth. He paused, and then gazed back up at Luke, deep into his eyes. He searched for anything. Any last remaining speck of humanity in there. Any speck of a speck of a speck of his oldest friend. Of his brother.
Nothing.
Nolan frowned, more than he had probably ever frowned in his life, including recently. He tried to hold his face from breaking, and yet sobbed uncontrollably. He moved forward, slowly at first, and then quickly wrapped his arms around Luke.
He hugged him. Something they had never done, in all their years of knowing each other. Something that had never seemed to even cross their minds. But now, Nolan gripped onto Luke as hard as he could, and curled his fingers up painfully into fists, pressed up against Luke’s back, scrunching up his shirt. Nolan sniffled, his nose running, and breath horribly shaking, piercing through the dark air of the night sky. His body jumped up and down sporadically. Luke still didn’t move.
His eyes were clenched shut for what felt like an eternity. When he finally opened them, he and Luke still hadn’t moved, and Nolan slowly looked up into the sky.
Through a break in the now-parting clouds, he saw the stars, and just how many of them shone out into the night. They lit up the now clearing sky like an open doorway. An unreachable entrance to a whole other world.
He had never felt so jealous of whatever was out there, not knowing of or caring about this problem whatsoever. He had never hated something he didn’t even know so much before in his life.
He grabbed for the pistol– Luke’s pistol– having loaded it back at the van, and pulled it gently out of his back pocket. He cocked it, never fully breaking his embrace with Luke. He slowly raised it up to his best friend’s head, and he just kept staring out at the stars. Then, Nolan stopped.
“There’s a lot of them out tonight, huh?” Nolan whispered through stuttered breath and sniffled breaks. “Has to be… h-hundreds, maybe thousands. They’re… They’re beautiful…”
Nothing.
Nolan closed his eyes again, tighter than he had before, once more tightening his grip on his best friend. He gave one last attempt at praying, wishing, doing something to stop this, but nothing happened. Nothing changed. He pressed the gun a bit firmer to the side of Luke’s head, and took a long, deep breath.
“Goodbye, Luke,” he said, speaking softly to his friend for the last time.
Then, for a moment, Nolan thought he had felt something. It was almost too sudden for him to react. Too unexpected for him to fully grasp what it even was that may have happened.
It was as though for a moment, just a moment, Nolan had felt Luke move. Almost like… he looked up.
"Some Time Later"
It wouldn’t be mentioned for years down the road. Not what happened there, when the group got to Foxtale. Not when they fought one another. Not what happened to Luke, and the trip afterward. In fact, the whole way from Maine to California, as well as it’s following events, would not be discussed amongst the group for some time.
None of them knew, really, if it was worth it at the end of the day. Many would question for a long time whether or not they should have just stayed back at the Maine house to begin with. Things certainly would have gone more smoothly for them, they were sure enough in that.
One thing that they often found themselves going back to, time and time again, was when they all met, when times were so much simpler. How Nolan met Luke at soccer practice, and how just a few sessions in they met Adam, who moved into their neighborhood just days later. From there how they met Chris and Derrick– who had been family friends since birth– in school just a year or so later, and thereon they’d find Cody and Jeremy in middle school, quickly attaching to one another at a lunch where they knew no one else and, by some stroke of luck, happened to all sit together. How that was the beginning of what ultimately lead them to the end.
Some of them would question if that was a mistake, if it really did cause this downfall. They’d wonder if things would have gone differently, had they not been together; maybe they all would have died a long time ago. Maybe that would have been better than what they had.
Few of them found much, if any solace in what they had done, where they had gone, who they had lost. But one thing they never did– regardless of what, or when, or who, or why– was blame one another. It must have been Luke’s request to be better, they imagined, that inevitably kicked in; to be good again. To be the friends they used to be.
One of them would forever question if he had done the right thing. Made the right call at the right moment, or if it was a mistake. Things were never the same afterward, he knew that much, but maybe it was the only thing he could do, right or wrong. Maybe it was the best thing for everyone, whether they, or even he, believed it or not. Either way, he often would find himself looking out at the stars at night, for quite some time on his own. No matter where they were at that time, he’d just stare at them, contemplating everything. Just, thinking.
All of them knew one thing for sure; they would talk about it whenever the time would arise. Whether he meant to or not, Luke had them go on this entire journey, both physically and mentally, and in time, he made them all find the way back. Back to their homes. Back to what made them them. Maybe he didn’t insight it, but he kept them going, day after day, moment after moment. Were it not for that– for him– they believed none of them would have made it where they had, or gotten wherever they were when they thought such things; become who they became, and find peace, in some form or another, in a world ravaged by pain.
Down the road, everyone began to go outside, and gaze out at the stars together. Even when they couldn’t see each other much else than that, they almost always found the time. None of them would say a word, yet they all knew they shared the same thought, no matter where they were, or what was going on around them
. A thought that almost all of them couldn’t help but marvel at, despite, or in fact because of their time spent together:
God, it’s good to be with my family again.