Chapter 23

 

        Ever since that day, the questions that Sean found himself with lingered in his mind for the next few weeks. He always tried to tell himself that his father was lying about all of that and that he would've never changed if he went back. No matter how much he told himself this though, the questions still nagged at him from the back of his head.

        The words “we need you” kept ringing in Sean's head too. Was his father really serious about this? Did they really need him back at the house? Sean always tried to push these questions away like all the other ones. As he did so though, he couldn't help but to feel a little guilty, as if he was maybe doing something wrong by doing something like this. He thought Aunt Kathy was right about his father lying just to keep himself from going to court, but even this didn't really help ease his mind.

        It was now late afternoon on a Saturday. Sean was sitting at the lake, a somewhat contemplative expression plastered on his face as he stared out at the calm waters. His hands fidgeted with the sleeves of the solid black sweatshirt he was wearing as he reflected on what happened earlier today.

        “Hey,” Alex greeted as he sat down beside him.

        Sean snapped out of his thoughts now. He looked towards Alex and returned the greeting with one of his own before looking back out at the lake.

        “How'd the trial go?” the brown-haired boy asked.

        “Good,” Sean replied. “I'm free from my dad now.”

        “That's great,” said Alex.

        “Yeah.”

        Alex looked at Sean, who was wearing an apathetic look on his face.

        “Thought you'd be happier,” Alex said before giving a small chuckle.

        Sean didn't say anything right away. A light sigh left his parted lips as he stared out at the lake, thinking a little.

        “I should be, shouldn't I?” he said. “I can't help but to feel as though this is all wrong though.”

        Alex looked at Sean like he was crazy. Sean told him about what happened that one day when his father stopped by to persuade him to go back home. When Sean finished, there was a couple seconds of silence.

        “Just don't worry about,” Alex told the shorter boy. “Your aunt's probably right. He was just doing that to save himself the trouble of going to court. If he hasn't cared about you before, why would he start now?”

        “Yeah,” was the only thing Sean could say.

        Neither of them said anything else about the matter. They both looked down towards the ground a little. Alex looked towards Sean a few seconds later before lightly smiling and placing an arm around his shoulder. A small smile curved onto Sean's lips before he slowly leaned towards the boy so he could rest his head on his shoulder. Alex kissed the younger boy on the head before lightly resting his head on Sean's.

        They remained in that position as they looked out at the lake. Sean started to feel a little better as he sat there with the other male. Both him and Aunt Kathy were probably right. If his father had never cared about him before, then he probably wouldn't start now. His father probably would've started to beat him again if he would've decided to go back. Maybe his father was just trying to make him feel guilty about this so he would've went back home? His father having this kind of mental power never really seemed likely to Sean though, partly because the only side he had seen of the old man was the enraged drunken side. This did seem pretty likely to Sean though as he thought about this a little more. It couldn't have been truthful like he thought it was.

        “Halloween's in two weeks,” Alex stated. “We should watch scary movies that night. What do you think?”

        Alex lifted his head off of Sean's and looked down at him.

        “Sure,” Sean replied after removing his head from Alex's shoulder so he could look back at him.

        “Good,” Alex said with a smile.

        Sean smiled himself. Alex leaned forward and kissed Sean on the lips, who kissed back. They remained there at the lake, talking about what movies they should maybe watch on Halloween. When that got old, they went onto other topics. After a while Alex told Sean that he had to go home and do some work on an English paper. The two stood up and left the lake. When they reached the road, they kissed one last time before parting ways.

Reviews

[Amy]

Good chapter, I really like where this is going.
Keep up the good work!!