The Rain - Josh Wheeler

The room smelt like cinnamon, candles were dotted around the usually bare room. Rose petals were scattered on the floor leading to a Cinnabon tray full of goods sat on the table. More rose petals lead up to a box on the couch, a red note was stuck tightly to the top of the box. I turned to him with a thankful look in my eyes, I hugged him tightly as he gently placed a kiss on my forehead.
"Go to the box first." He prompted me, pushing me towards the box. I cautiously read the note, it said:
Cade, I went back to your home and gathered anything that was remotely in tact, I could access more than you could when you last visited so I hope at least one of these things holds value to you :))
"Uh that's where I was this morning, finding things for you with Wesley." He added.
"Josh, I, thank you. I'll look through it later." I nodded.
The bedroom door opened and a familiar voice called. "Can we look through it together Cade?" I turned to see my brother, standing there with open arms, Josh grinned heavily from ear to ear as I froze in shock and amazement.
I shook off the ice and ran towards my brother, we embraced tightly. We rocked around in our tight embrace and separated, I looked into his tired and pained eyes. I clasped his face in my hands. "I thought you were dead." I admitted, tears brimming my eyes.
"I know, I was at the airport when the bombs went off, I thought you were dead too until I saw this guy snooping through our stuff and he explained to me that he was gathering things for a girl that he liked and that that was her home." He pointed to Josh who was now staring shyly at the floor. "I've missed you." We embraced again.
"I've missed you too, I can't believe you're alive" I laughed in amazement.
"Anyways you two are on a date so I'm gonna go scope the mall out, despite it being well into the night." He laughed. "Goodbye you two, I'll be sleeping in the furniture store." He kissed my cheek and gave Josh one of those bro handshakes before slightly jogging out of the room.
We were now left alone, Josh turned to me and grinned. "So how's your night going?"
"Really fucking good." I replied, walking towards the boy, clasping his hand into mine.
"Well I'm really glad then. Let's eat, shall we?" He asked, pointing to the table full of food.
"Yeah, I'd like that" I said as I sat down at the table, I scrambled through the assortment of food and picked out a bowl of fries and lathered them in ketchup. I grabbed one and ate it almost instantly. "Thank you for everything."
"No need to thank me, I'm glad we could just spend some time together in a special way." He ran his hands through his hair before picking a slice of pizza up and chomping down on it.
"Yeah, and you've met my brother, what do you think of him?" I eagerly waited for a reply.
"He's... well he's just amazing." Josh replied, taking one of the fried from my bowl. "He's super cool, he likes skating so I feel inclined to be his friend." He laughed.
"I'm really glad you like him, I never thought you'd be able to meet him so I'm so glad that you have." I looked at him, our eyes locked as we sat in a short bout of silence.
"So uh, we should do this again sometime eh?" He looked hopefully at me.
"Eh indeed." I laughed, mocking his true spirit of Canada.
"Oh shut up." He joked taking another fry and then a bite of his pizza slice.
We sat for at least another hour, talking about how fast things go when you're living in an apocalypse. My heart raced at the thought of living and growing with this boy who I had only met a few days ago, but it was something that felt right, something I had a burning desire to complete.
We had finished our food, Josh said he had gotten tired but wanted me to sleep comfortably tonight so he carried my new, much larger memory box into the bedroom and told me to stay sitting at the table until he called my name again.
I occupied myself by singing the lyrics to 'Crush' by Tessa Violet in my head. I got so lost in the lyrics I hadn't realised that Josh had come out and had been standing by me for the last two verses.
"Cade." He called, this one shook me from my trance, I looked up at him to see him now wearing his usual clothes again. "Come into the bedroom." He laughed at my confused expression as I stood up wearily. We walked towards the door together, I opened it as quickly as I could to reveal he had completely changed the room around. Instead of the usual double bed there was now a double bunk bed where the bottom bunk was a double and the top was a single. The room was decorated with familiar items of clothing that were up until now, figments of my memory. I saw things that I had completely forgotten about and had gotten teary eyed, the bed sheets were ones from home that smelt like my old room, a shockwave of nostalgia hit me hard.
"Thank you so much for everything." I smiled, turning around to Josh and hugging him tightly. "Bugsy the double bunk." I laughed, running and jumping onto the bed.
"Darnit." He joked before climbing into his bed above mine, his head poked out through the side and looked down at me. "Goodnight, sleep well Cadence." His head slid back into the bed.
"How did you know that my real name was Jae-Cadence?" I asked worryingly.
"Your brother is still alive, remember." He sarcastically replied.
"Ah yes. Fine, goodnight Joshua Wheeler." I retorted. Soon after, I fell asleep.