When William’s released, it’s kind of miserable. You all hug him, say you’re sad and subdued good byes, but you wonder if he’s really cured. Sure, he doesn’t hear that voice anymore, but who’s to say it won’t come back when he returns to his lonely lifestyle?

Jon’s being on his best behaviour -trying harder than you’ve ever known him to- to get out and join William again. As much as you believe Jon’s worried about William being alone, you know that Jon feels just as lonely without him, and his new found effort into bettering himself comes from that. You think it’s pretty sweet.

Ryan, well, Ryan’s been acting slightly weird. You ignore him every time he tries to talk to you about the ‘I love you’ thing, either feigning deafness or bringing up a new subject. You have to admit, sex with him is pretty amazing, because it’s strong, intense, and it’s like nothing stays still for even a moment, but you it’s not like you’re experienced or anything.   

***

The two of you are curled up in Ryan’s bunk, and it’s cold tonight, the two of you wrapped up in the small blankets in the even smaller bunk.

“I never want to go back home,” you say, quiet, “not even when I leave here,”

You can’t forgive your parents, as much as you really want to, you can’t. You love your parents, but some things you just can’t forget, because that’s just what you’re like. Most of your siblings are too young to understand anyway, and the older ones have moved out, so home isn’t exactly a promising place.

“Since dad died, I have the house to myself,” Ryan tells you, monotone, “I don’t want to have to go back to it alone,”

You feel his breath near your eyebrow, as he speaks again.

“Come live with me, yeah?” it’s raw and surprisingly vulnerable as he says it, and you nod, slowly, “I love you, you know,” he mutters against your ear.

You swallow the spit building in your throat.

“I love you too,” you say, and you’re waiting for all hell to break loose, or for a bomb to go off. But it never happens. Instead, you feel a large grin spread over Ryan’s face.  

Your hands ghost over his wrists and it’s weird not to feel the bandages anymore. Instead, in their place is a clear square tape, just covering the two healing cuts.

***

Your release date is being set, which basically means they think you’re ready to be discharged, and you’ve managed to hack into the database to make your release date the same as Ryan’s. 

Your parents come to visit, to organise you coming back home, and you tell them you’re moving in with a friend, and not coming back with them. They don’t know what to say, that’s obvious. They argue and compromise and reason, but it doesn’t change your mind.  

***

Jon leaves and he and Ryan hug for a full five minutes.

***

The apartment’s nice. The bags are heavy on your shoulders as Ryan kicks open the door, throwing his duffle bag onto the ground.

All the windows are open and small plants of flowers that the neighbours must have placed are scattered around the room.

“You grew up here, eh?” you say, looking around.

“Yeah, use to be a shitload worse,” Ryan grins, “but we fixed it up since dad died,”

“It’s excellent,” you say.

“It’s home,” Ryan shrugs.

***

School’s different now that you’ve moved out of the institution. Ryan drives now, so you ride with him, and even Lauren has managed to convince you two to pick her up. Life seems, in a word, better.

You aren’t angry anymore. You don’t have that lumpy blockage in your throat anymore that made you feel like word vomiting, and this year you’re graduating. It’s better than you imagined it would be.

Now, instead of sitting on your laptop at nights, you and Ryan will mess around in the apartment, cleaning in old clothes or watching a movie together. Sometimes Lauren drags you out on a double date with her and the pretty girl she met at the movies. 

It’s nice, you think.

***

“The picture’s crooked,” Ryan tells you, and you roll your eyes and re-adjust it.

“Better?” you say, leaning against the apartment wall.

“It’s even more crooked now,” Lauren says, frowning.

You roll your eyes again, looking at the photo of you all at graduation. Lauren, Jon, William, Ryan and you, all bunched together and yelling something stupid on your happy high. 

It feels odd that you guys aren’t in high school anymore. So much has happened and it would be pointless to try and get it all down into writing.  You could try and explain about the way Ryan’s wrists have two, thin white lines on them, or the way Jon could have screwed up his liver, or the way William has a paralysing fear of loneliness. Or, you could talk about how Ryan vows never to go that way again, or how Jon gave up his addictions, because he’s not trying to disappear anymore, or the way William’s never lonely when Jon’s around.

The fact is, this is your story. The story of your biggest fuck-up that turned and twisted your life, until it managed to restart itself. Your biggest fuck-up created the life you know now, and that’s just how it goes. Everything is connected, everyone is related, everything happens for a reason.  

Everything in this story, this story of what you are, it can all be explained away, reasoned out with human traits and instincts and reactions, it can be deconstructed and figured out, but the fact is, it hasn’t been.  You don’t want to figure it out, you don’t want to understand; you don’t want to lose the magic of living. You don’t want predictability, you want impulsiveness and opportunities.

You don’t want to live by set guidelines that tell you how you’re going to react, how you’re going to fail or succeed. Right now, right this very moment, you just want to live.

Ryan wraps his arms around your waist from behind and Lauren slings an arm around your shoulder as you all look at the crooked photo. You all aren’t perfect, but you still fit. Ryan got what he always wanted; to find a place he belonged in this world.

Yeah, it fits.

***