(Backdated to July 25, 2016)
Word Count: 1151


Somehow, Kavinsky manages to avoid his best friend long enough for his eighteenth birthday to pass.

It’s a quiet affair, with the russian boy dodging Ellis with excuses of work and school and other nonsensical things that aren’t quite true but not quite false either. In truth, he spends most of it packing up his dorm because he’s only got a few weeks before they dump what’s left of his belongings and bar him from the premises.

How he’s managed to keep Ellis to finding out about his expulsion he’s not sure, but he’s managing. Or course, Kavinsky is pretty sure his best friend knows something is up but -

He’d rather feign ignorance than face the music that’s crescendoing.

Kavinsky does spend some time at the garage, enough that if Ellis were to show up and inquire about him then he wouldn’t be lying about working on his birthday. It’s only a few hours, to make enough to offset the expense of all the crap he needs to buy in order to pack his stuff up and the other mechanics give him a card with a bit of cash in it as a birthday gift. Despite himself, Kavinsky’s touched by this display of affection.

Since Baba died, no one has cared about whether it's his birthday or not except Ellis.

He takes it with a gruff, “thanks” and leaves before whatever is creeping up his throat gets the better of him.



Packing up his dorm is harder than he expects, probably because it’s full of half finished things. Half-written essays, half-assed dioramas, half-assembled projects that were discarded the moment he stopped understanding how the pieces worked, and more. It’s disheartening really, to see all these things that he could have finished or done well only to be discarded and abandoned because in the end, Kavinsky isn’t good at finishing stuff that’s for him.

Maybe it’s the lingering feelings of failure, abandonment that he’s harbored since the day people started whispering poor little pietro and his madman father.

Baba always finished his projects, even if they took weeks or months. Kavinsky finishes work that he’s paid to do but if it’s for himself? Then it gets added to the pile of unfinished projects and abandoned things.

(He wonders sometimes, if that’s a testimony to how he views himself. )



In the end, he ends up throwing away more things than what he keeps. Every unfinished thing he was working on is discarded, thrown into the dumpster just outside the dorms. Toasters that have been torn apart and almost reassembled properly, discarded radio pieces that were part of a larger project, bits of a blown engine that he’d tinkered with because he wanted to know why it exploded, etc.

After that, there’s not much left of personal belongings because Hilworth tried to squash any ounce of individuality the boys had.

He’s got a few pictures of him and his dad, from when he was young, and a few good pictures of him and Ellis. He has his tools, his father’s death certificate and the only picture he has of his mother, when she was pregnant with his unborn sibling.

It’s all very surreal when Kavnisky realizes that all of his belongings fit neatly into two boxes. One full of clothes and shoes and the other full of things are are mostly pieces of memories. (He doesn’t think about the handmade bear who’s stitching is coming undone and is missing an eye sitting on the top of all those other memories.)

But he takes those two boxes, balances one careful atop the other, and carries it out of his dorm with the key sitting neatly on the supplied desk. One of the faculty members will collect it in the morning, or his dormmate, who’s tactfully not around, will turn it in. Probably.

It doesn’t matter, his time at Hillworth has come to an end.

(Abruptly, like everything else in his life.)



Kavinsky ends up in a park, sitting on one of two swings whose chains creak beneath his weight as he rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet. His belongings rest against one of the supporting polls, collecting wood chips along the tape that’s not pressed down firmly enough, and his fingers are wrapped tightly around the cold metal until his knuckles turn white. He’s wearing the same outfit he always is when he wasn’t in the school issued uniform; worn, washed out gray jeans, a white v-neck, and the jean jacket Ellis had given to him on his sixteenth birthday. The beanie is missing, buried somewhere in that box of clothing because he hadn’t thought twice about it when he tossed it in and now -

It doesn’t matter. It’s just a hat and today is just another day.

So what if it’s his birthday? That’s never stopped terrible things from happening to him before.

Eventually, he’s been sitting so long that his calves are sore from the way he’s positioned his toes and he’s got this feeling of emptiness curling in his chest because how is he going to face Ellis?

And then, like clockwork, the cheap flip phone of his buzzes with a text from the man himself.

[Text From Ellis: I know it’s late, but happy birthday Pie. Come over when you can? ]

But Kavinsky doesn’t respond, just tucks the phone back into his jacket pocket and peels himself off the uncomfortable seat. Then, he picks up his boxes and makes his way towards the only place that’s ever felt like home since his baba died.

It’s hard not to grimace when he knocks on the door, balancing his boxes against the door frame and his hip to do so, and he tries perhaps desperately to maintain his composure when Ellis opens the door with a baffled, but immediately concerned look on his face.

“Pie?” The redhead says slowly, brow immediately crinkling and knitting together in that way of his that always makes Kavinsky feel guilty. “What’s going -- ?”

“So - “ Kavinsky cuts him off, swallowing down the lump in his throat that threatens to strangle his words. “I need a place to live.” The russian boy can’t help the bitter laugh that bubbles out his mouth when his head tips back because, well, it’s ridiculous. It has to be some horrible, awful joke that he’s showing up at his best friend’s door with all of his belongings in two boxes because he’s been kicked out of school and he’s aged out of the system, finally.

Ellis doesn’t bother to say anything, just sighs and steps back, fingers gripping the door like it’s the only thing holding him up.

And Kavinsky tries to keep the bitterness out of his voice but fails when he mutters, “happy ******** birthday to me,” and steps inside.