One Shots

He was sprawled on the bright green grass, his arms outstretched, his brown hair covering half of his face.

She let out a giggle and tiptoed next to him, sitting down on the grass next to him.

"Aiden," she whispered in his ear, laughing.

No response.

She rolled her eyes. She hated when he did this, acted dead just to get a rise out of her. Well, she wasn't going to fall for it this time.

"Aiiiiiiiden," she sang. She spread herself out next to him, lifting his arm and sliding under it, cuddling up to him.

He still didn't move.

She rolled her eyes again.

She took her fingers and brushed a few strands of hair away from his face.

She kissed a corner of his eye, her breath hot on his face. "Wake up, Aiden."

She pulled back when he said nothing.

And started to scream when she saw the red blood starting to trickle out of the corner of his mouth.

__________________

That was seven months ago, and she still had nightmares about it.

Every night, actually.

It was always the same field, the same Aiden - the same horrible memory, replaying itself in her mind.

She didn't wake up in the middle of the night anymore, her eyes leaking tears.

Now she had grown accustomed to crying in her sleep.

She had attended the funeral, her brown eyes blank, the tie of her black trenchoat tied so tightly around her waist she could scarcely breathe.

His whole family blamed her for his death - she saw it in their eyes, the way they upturned their chins whenever she came near, the way they icily informed her that she would need to take her belongings from his room.

They didn't understand that she loved him.

She took the mug of coffee and put it to her lips, downing the whole cup and ignoring the bitter, unsweetened liquid as it burned the inside of her throat.

She was used to pain by now.

17 years old, and already a train wreck.

She wasn't sure where she had heard that before, but it applied to her.

Her dad had committed suicide when she was six; her mother had followed shortly after.

That's why it had hurt so much, still hurt, when she thought about Aiden's suicide.

He had been the one who had saved her from her old, abusive boyfriend.

Really, he was the one who had saved her from it all.

______________________

She walked into English class, her head ducked, a curtain of light brown hair falling in front of her face.

She hoped it disguised the purple-blue bruise that makeup couldn't conceal that had spread across her cheek.

She hoped, she hoped.

Aiden and her were partners.

"Hey," he said quietly.

She looked up, very quickly, just to give him a smile. "Hey."

But he saw.

"What's that?"

"It's nothing."

"Look at me again, Riley."

Tears began to seep out of her eyes.

He took things into his own hands and placed his fingers under her chin, slowly tilting her face upward.

"Oh my God."

She started to cry harder. "It's nothing."

"Oh my God."

"Just forget about it, Aiden," she whispered, moving his hand away, her voice trembling. "It's nothing."

"Who did this?"

"No one."

"Did he do this?"

"No one did anything."

"Oh my God, Riley."

The next day, Aiden wasn't at school.

He had been suspended for four days, for taking a few punches to Riley's boyfriend's face.

"Do you see what your little faggot friend did?" he screamed at her.

She looked up at him, stood up to him, for the first time. "Yeah."

"What do you think of it?"

She took a breath. "I think you finally got what you deserved."

______________________

She placed the coffee mug in the sink.

The landlord was coming today, to evict her, she was sure.

She had already started to pack stuff up, but there was still a lot more.

She adjusted her blue camisole and black shorts, ignoring the fact that it was only 50 degrees in her apartment.

Riley didn't really feel the cold anymore; actually, she didn't feel a lot of things.

She started on her closet first, on the one box that was stashed in the back.

She knew what the box was.

It was full of some of Aiden's things; things she knew his family would have discarded.

Riley opened the box.

Some of his CD's were the first thing.

She ran her fingers over the plastic, watching her tears splatter the surface.

She remembered sitting on his bed, listening to the music, Aiden softly singing the words into her ear, his breath giving her goosebumps.

Below the CD, there was a Saosin jacket.

Riley instantly buried her face in it.

When the tears started to come, she put the jacket on herself - she didn't want to ruin it with her worthless tears.

There were some more odd things: a keychain, a My Chemical Romance concert ticket, a Linkin Park beanie, an empty bottle of silly string.

And then, at the bottom, his notebook.

He was always doing something in that damn thing. Writing, scribbling, doodling, drawing.

"What's in it?" she had asked. "Let me see."

"No," he had replied, hugging the dark green notebook to his chest. "You will, someday. I promise."

She sucked in a breath.

Opened the notebook.

She read every single poem in there, every single story, every single drawing.

Every single one brought tears to her eyes.

Because they were all about her.

She got to the end, her lips quivering, her hands shaking.

Something fell out. An envelope.

Riley couldn't breathe - her heart was pounding, her pulse was accelerating, she was shaking.

Riley.

That's all it said on the envelope - in his writing. The writing she'd know anywhere.

Oddly, the tears stopped coming as she picked up the envelope and slowly, ever so slowly, opened it.

Riley-
If you're reading this, I'm gone. I'm not sure how long gone I am by now - a day, a week, a month, a year? But you'll find this. I know you will.
I guess you could call this my suicide note, even though there won't be a lot about me in it. Well, scratch that.
I've thought about this for a while now. A year, even. I was going to do it sooner, but then I met you. You came into my life, and I swear to God, the moment you said hi to me, the world stopped turning.
I swear.
You were so damaged and yet you were so put-together. It amazed me. You had gone through all of this shit, and yet there you were, seemingly perfect.
You have no idea how shocked I was when I learned that your parents committed suicide, that you lived on your own in an apartment downtown.
I got to know you, and the more I got to know you, the more I fell in love with you.
You have no clue how pissed off I was when I found out that that bastard of an ex boyfriend was hitting you - I still get mad over it. That day, when I fucked his face up, for lack of better words, that was when I really realized how much I loved you.
How much I wanted to be with you for the rest of my life.
You've got to understand, Riley, I'm not leaving because of you.
It's because of them - the others in my life who made it so difficult.
I'm a coward for giving up, especially when I've got you, but I couldn't take it.
But don't think, Riley, that I gave up because I didn't love you.
My God, I loved you with all my being. All my soul. Everything I did, I did for you. When I woke up, it was for you. When I went to school, it was for you.
I will never stop loving you, even in death.
And I hate to admit this, but I hope you never find another man to love in life. I'm sorry, but the thought of another guy touching you or even kissing you makes me want to go after him.
I'll see you again, Riley. Don't doubt that. Fate will bring us together once again. FATE will. I know it.
Because, see, Fate wouldn't let us stay apart - not when we're meant for eachother.
I hear you coming up the steps now. I'm going to shove this into my notebook, and tomorrow, I'm going to do it.
I'm going to die.
But my last thoughts are going to be of you.
I love you with everything I've got,
Aiden.

Riley clutched the letter to her chest, her thoughts coming in crazy streams.

She was so, so confused - he hadn't left because of her.

For once, it wasn't her fault.

She let a smile grace her face, and then got up slowly.

She went into the kitchen and got a Sharpie from the drawer.

______________________

When the landlord came later in the afternoon, there was no answer.

He rolled his eyes and used the master key to unlock the door.

"Hello? Miss Riley?"

There were no boxes packed, he noticed. Obviously the stupid girl wasn't ready to face reality.

He walked into the living room and caught his breath.

There she was, dressed in shorts and a big jacket, lying on the carpet.

He rushed to her side.

Her lips were tinted blue, and her eyes were glazed over.

There was a piece of paper, a letter, he saw, that was positioned over her heart.

Her left palm lay facing upward.

On it, she had written, in black Sharpie:

This is Fate.