It's A Shame I'm A Dream

The next day. Morning.

To know it would never be morning for Taylor again. Or did she see the sun, wherever she'd rested for the night?

Aiden shook his head violently against his pillow. God, he was going morbid, that couldn't be useful for anything. He grabbed his phone from the table beside his bed and lit up the display. 11:00 - crap, he'd slept in. Where was his mother anyway? Where was Brad?

Well, duh, his eighth-grade brother was already at school.

He sat up and groggily rubbed his eyes. Sunlight was poking eagerly through his blinds, painting golden bars on his walls. If he got ready and drove to school soon, he'd make it by lunch or so. Still to face fifth period and Taylor's empty seat.

Twenty minutes later, he was parked in the lot and slipped past the attendance office into the quad. Maybe he could pass off today's tardy for grievances.

Everyone seemed to be in a darker mood. There was music playing, but no one was dancing in the middle of the quad. They huddled and whispered, their faces grim. As Aiden passed the pack in the quad that led pep rallies and football game cheers, he read nothing but reservation.

He met up with Brandon Michaels heading to algebra two, patting his pockets.

“Lose something?” Aiden asked, falling into step with him. Brandon looked up and half-smiled.

“I’m not sure.” He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “Oh, never mind, I found it.”

“What’s that for?”

“I’m going after school to buy new jeans.” Brandon gestured towards his legs. His current pair was tearing apart at the knees and he flicked his leg irritably.

“It’s going to cost more than twenty dollars,” said Aiden.

Brandon shoved the bill into his back pocket and said, “Whatever. I just need a new pair, not designer ones like chicks get.”

Wordlessly, this somehow reverted them back to the topic of Taylor Weiss. Neither spoke for a while until Aiden said, “This is horrible.”

“Yeah,” murmured Brandon, squinting ahead toward the sun. With his face screwed up, Aiden couldn’t tell what he was feeling. “Kind of sad, if you ask me.” As they took their seats in class, Brandon said, “Oh – just to let you know, I heard they’ve been calling kids to the office. Some kind of investigation going on or something.”

Aiden swallowed. “Thanks.” He faced the whiteboard and busied himself with rummaging for his notebook in his backpack. An investigation. So they were making sure it really was suicide, although that wasn’t quite better than homicide.

Mrs. Williams reentered the room, presumably from a bathroom break, and Aiden uncomfortably shifted his gaze away from her puffy red eyes. She sniffed, coughed, and tried, “I’ll be passing out review packets for you to work on this period.” Her voice came out scratchy; she counted out the packets and retreated to her seat, where she stared aimlessly into her computer monitor.

Aiden bent over his paper and wrote out every letter in his name articulately, like he was taught in elementary school. He studied his handiwork. He twiddled his pen. He did everything he could think of that required him to concentrate on his movements, anything that kept his eyes from straying two desks –

The door creaked open and he was gratefully thankful for the distraction. A senior handed off a slip of paper to Mrs. Williams, who hastily wiped her nose and waved Aiden over somewhat impatiently.

“To the office,” she said shortly, resuming her pointless wall-gazing. “Take your things.” Brandon, whose seat was right in front of Mrs. Williams’s corner, gave Aiden a wide-eyed What did I tell you? look and mouthed, “Good luck.”

For what? Aiden wondered, but swallowed his question and piled everything into his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder as we left. At least he’d be putting some distance between himself and that void that kept drawing his attention, not that going to talk about said void was going to be any improvement.

The office was crawling with people. Men in blue suits, women in white blouses, students in tearstains lumbered around, not quite knowing what to do with their hands. The secretary directed him to a small room off the main lobby, where he neglected to remove his backpack and sat face-to-face with a scruffy police officer.

“Hello, Mr. Walker,” said the officer conversationally, as if they were about to discuss the perks of the weather. He shuffled around a mound of papers in an open manila folder. “How are you?”

“Fine,” said Aiden stiffly.

“Yes, well, that wasn’t a very fair question,” said the officer apologetically, “not with what’s been going on…as a matter of fact, do you know why I’ve called you here today?”

The stack of papers adorned with thin scrawls was suddenly the point of Aiden’s interest. “Not really.”

“We’re holding a little investigation about the death of Ms. Weiss and I’m hoping you can help us. I’m Officer Dunham, and I’ll just be asking you a few questions.”

Why me? Aiden was a bit puzzled, since there was an obvious two years between him and Taylor, and they only shared one class and after schools. He was quiet.

Dunham didn’t seem to notice. “So, how do you know Ms. Weiss?”

“She was in my math class,” Aiden said flatly, “and we hung out sometimes.”

“Did you date?”

“No….”

“Was Ms. Weiss attached to you in any way?”

“Not really.”

“Do you think her cause of death might’ve been related to something you’ve done, knowingly or otherwise?” Dunham waited expectantly.

Aiden gaped at him. He felt as though an ice cube had slipped down his throat whole. His stomach turned to ice. “What kind of a question is that?” At the same time, his mind gear shifted subconsciously and replayed their times together, searching for anything he might’ve done.

Dunham was unfazed. “Sorry,” he said smoothly, “but we’re looking into anything possible. However…” He nudged the corner of the paper at the top of the pile with his thumb. “You say you were not close to Ms. Weiss?”

“Not that I know of. She was just a friend.” Aiden drummed his fingers on the wooden tabletop, whether or not nervously he wasn’t sure.

The officer frowned, to himself, it seemed. “Then why…oh, why…”

“What?”

“Well…” Dunham shifted in his chair resignedly. “It seems as though Ms. Weiss has left something behind in her death.”

“And?” Well obviously, she’d already left behind everything she owned. You don’t take your possessions with you to heaven, or wherever you went.

“And it goes to you.” Dunham’s expression became unreadable as he gently pushed the manila folder across the table. Aiden’s fingers froze as they contacted the rigid material.

“M-me?” he stuttered, whipping back his hand. All of a sudden, he found that he wanted the papers as far away from him as possible. Handwritten by her, he realized, scanning the first page quickly. He felt sick. “Why would she leave something for me?”

“That seems to be the question of the day,” responded the officer dryly. “But since you deny any close relationship to her, you could give it back. We’d just put it away as evidence for our non-existent case.” His face clouded over and he scoffed.

Aiden bit his lip. To take the papers seemed wrong, somehow, but to hand it back to the police seemed worse. He ran his fingertips lightly over the slight bumps in the paper, over the inked words and pieces of thoughts. He imagined her bent over a desk, ballpoint pen in hand scratching out misspellings and black tip flying over pre-drawn lines. Looking closer, underneath, some papers appeared not to be full pages at all, but rather scraps or perhaps other materials. Why would Taylor leave behind her writing and thoughts for him? He was scared, scared of taking something that belonged to her when she wasn’t alive.

The bell rang, signaling the end of fifth period. The officer made a move as though to retrieve the papers.

“I’ll take it,” said Aiden, and clutched the folder against his chest as he walked out.