Unwritten Pages

Because I don't know where exactly he is, I decided to tell Desiree the next day about my findings. During the rest of the day alone, all I can think about is how stupid I am. Why hadn't I checked the information paper that Winter had written? I'm sure she even had a picture of him there. In fact, I'm sure that Aiden's picture is pasted all over the city. It's just that I'm too...self-centred to even notice. All I've been thinking about is Winter's note to us—me in particular. I should have been paying attention to helping find her...stalker.

When I get up in the morning I can see the sun shining brightly through the window. I check the time. It's afternoon already.

After changing from boxers to shorts and a t-shirt, I head on out. Like usual, my parents are working. But I can do whatever I want now. It's not like I need my parent's consent. In fact...I don't even think I need to write notes for them when I'm leaving anymore. Hopefully, they'll trust that I know what I'm doing and where I'm going.

I'm not exactly sure where my friends would be. The best guess is at Desiree's house. I don't know if they're still having some pity party.

Pity party. Now I feel slightly bad for even thinking that about them.

I'm only a few steps from the door when I see the bus begin to pull closer to my bus stop. I swear under my breath. I'm not sure if I can catch it or not so I run full-speed towards the stop (all while crossing some red lights but I always do that when I'm going to mess the bus). Luckily, I'm fast so I make it there just as the bus slows to a stop. I'm about to get in when I see Desiree followed by Arianna leave the bus. Confused, I stare at them and the bus pulls away.

“What are you—”

“Doing here?” Arianna finishes for me. “Desiree had a vision and she wanted to tell you something.”

I look at Desiree. Her eyes are wide and she opens her mouth and closes it as if waiting for the best time to admit something.

“I know who Aiden is,” Desiree says breathlessly. “You're the only other person who saw him. You know that guy—”

“Wanna talk at his house?” Arianna asks. “I mean, sure we can stand around here and stuff but seriously—”

“Yeah, sure,” I say, waving Arianna off. “Come on. And Desiree, I think I figured the same thing as you did. I wanted to tell you today.”

As we're walking, Desiree continues talking. “I wasn't sure if it was possible or not, but I seriously thought about it last night and everything fell together.”

“Like a puzzle piece,” Arianna says. When we don't laugh, she says, “What? Don't find that funny?”

“This is serious, Ari,” I tell her. She sighs and kicks a pebble on the sidewalk as if we're getting too annoying for her to take.

“Alright, I understand,” Arianna says, “but we shouldn't...just...dwell on things like this.”

“We're not 'dwelling' on things. This is happening right now.”

Chris is on his yard again. I don't know how long he spends on his yard, attempting to seduce girls passing by but I assume it takes up almost half his day.

“Hey there!” he calls. Just as he speaks, I remember the last time I heard him speak had been when he had been asking about Aiden. Could he be...?

I look sharply in his direction. He doesn't look anything like what Aiden is described as. He doesn't have black hair or blue eyes. In fact, that description is pretty much describing me...

“What do you want?” I snap. I have no time for any of his stupid games.

He opens his mouth to say something. Then he closes it. Before I can snap something else at him, he speaks. “Are you looking for...Aiden?”

“Well it's not like this whole city is,” Arianna mutters. “I mean, it's not like his picture is posted everywhere.”

Desiree rolls her eyes at him and we ignore him. We head inside and close the door on him. He doesn't bother to approach the door or ring the bell. How...odd. He's usually so pertinacious. But never mind that.

“Alright,” Desiree says as soon as the door is closed. “Andrew, you know that boy who came over a few weeks ago—”

“Said his name was Alan, stuttered, and went to Winter's grave?”

“How did you know I was going to say that?” Desiree asks me, almost seeming befuddled.

“I was going to tell you the same thing today but you arrived here first,” I tell her. “But the thing is—we don't know where in hell to find this 'Alan' guy. I know he's Aiden. I can feel it.”

“Oh-kay,” Arianna says, eyeing us. “What exactly are you saying here?”

“We know who Aiden is,” I tell her.

She rolls her eyes. “No duh.”

I find a way to reword it. “I mean, we've met him. We've talked to him. He asked us to take us to Winter's grave and we thought that he was one of her friends.”

“She doesn't have that many friends that we don't know,” Arianna counters. I shrug.

“Okay, but at least we told each other...” Desiree trails off. “So...”

“But how do we find him?” Arianna asks us. “Seriously. All you did was meet him. That doesn't help.”

I wonder if Liane can help but I doubt she knows. She's too self-centred to even care about what happens to other people...unless it's her fault. But I don't think that she knows where Aiden/Alan is.

The doorbell rings and I groan. Of course. He is obstinate. But couldn't he just have one day off?

I'm about to tell Arianna and Desiree not to open the door and let him stand there but then he starts pounding on the door so hard that I think it may fall off if he continues.

I open the door before he can knock anymore. Chris is standing in front of me with his hand posed to give another big knock. He quickly puts his hand back by his side.

“What do you want?” I ask, exasperated.

“You're looking for a dude named Aiden, right?” Chris asks me.

“Aiden, Alan. Whatever.”

“Well...” Chris trails off. He scratches the back of his head, looking unsure of what to do. “I don't know if I should tell you this.”

“Tell us and get it over with,” I say. Desiree gives me a look as if telling me to be more patient and understanding.

“Well I didn't promise...but...” Chris takes a deep breath. “I know him. Aiden.”

Arianna throws her hands up in the air as a sign of exasperation. “No duh! How many people know him now? Is that really going to help?”

But I have a feeling that Chris is going to tell us something important. I wave my hand at her, telling her to be quiet. “You do know that he raped my friend and drove her to insanity,” I tell him quietly. Chris offers me a sheepish smile. But seeing my expression, the smile drops from his face.

“Yeah,” he says, “I've heard. Winterlyn or something, right? That girl.”

“Anything you tell us will be important,” I tell Chris. “But you have to tell this to the police too. We can't possibly be able to arrest him. He's...insane, as Winter says.”

There's silence around us for a moment and for a second, I'm afraid that Chris doesn't want to tell us anymore. I'm about to demand that he tells us until he speaks:

“I'm his brother.”

We all stare at him. He looks up to meet our eyes and then he takes a deep breath and carries on.

“My family is...er, messed up. My parents divorced when I was younger and my father took Aiden. My father was...a good man. But over the years, I heard that he had some crazy drunken rage and would constantly beat Aiden.

“Aiden was a good guy too. He's my older brother, if you hadn't figured out. But...something changed him. After all the years of being beaten by my father, there was a change inside of him. He was more secretive. Kinda freaky, even.” Chris gives a short laugh that holds no humour in it. “At times...I thought he...was a sociopath.”

Sociopath. It would fit him. “So all the years...he created some fantasy world when your father beat him so he thought he was doing no wrong,” Arianna says. When we all give her looks, she shrugs and says, “What? I like researching on crazy people.”

“So then he thought he was doing no wrong when it came to real life,” Desiree says slowly, as if trying to figure it out. “So Aiden—”

“He's on a flight to the States tomorrow,” Chris cuts in. “As much as you seem to think me a bad guy—” Chris gives me a look here. But who can blame him? “—I'd rather that Aiden doesn't go and...destroy more lives.”

“Of course we want to stop him,” Arianna says. “Thanks for giving us a time limit before we all lose. We need the location of him now! We don't need you to share your Aiden stories as psychotic and cool they may me. We need to know where he is now—”

“I do know where he is,” Chris says simply. “Get the police on the line. I know exactly where he is.”



He had been staring at Chris in a dejected way for a long time. Almost like a puppy that's been kicked around too many times. Almost like...plotting for revenge.

“You handed me over,” he says quietly. It feels slightly weird not to hear him stutter.

Chris actually looks uncomfortable explaining his actions for once. He shifts in his seat and takes an interest in the piece of lint on his shirt.

“You handed me over,” Aiden repeats, louder this time. His look burns on Chris. Then he turns and glares at Desiree and I. Desiree flinches and shifts closer to me.

“I thought you would stand by my side forever,” Aiden says to Chris. “You're my little brother. You said you would. But you didn't. You turned me in.”

“Well I—” Chris is cut off by Aiden.

“No!” Aiden yells, slamming his cuffed hands on the table. “You liar! You liar! You're lying! You lied about everything like the two-faced bastard you are.”

I would have said 'well said' if it hadn't been Aiden screaming this at him. The only one who isn't as creeped out by him is Arianna. Arianna is studying him with interest like he's one of her human subjects.

“I'm sorry,” Chris says, wincing at the hateful glare Aiden has sent him. “But you shouldn't be going around and doing all these hurtful things. Wow, that seems girly, coming from me.” Chris gives a laugh but it's nervous. “Aiden, there's just...it's just not right...”

“Who's to tell me what's right or wrong?” Aiden says, much calmer now. “Who's to say anything about it, huh? What do you think I am? I'm not doing anything wrong. She was begging for it. The stars spelt it out. It was her fate.”

“You can't possibly tell me that fate drove you to rape someone?” I ask quietly.

Aiden fixes his gaze on me. “Of course,” he says simply like it's a concept that I just don't understand. “Fate tells us everything. It was my mission. I'm not done yet. I'm not done!” He starts to scream warbled words that we don't even understand.

Looking at him now, I feel absolutely disgusted. From Winter's journal, Aiden seemed like such an honourable person. When he had arrived at my house and said that he was 'Alan' he had seemed like a completely different person than he is now. He seemed nothing like the psycho he really is. I don't even know what Winter had seen in him. I'm glad we stopped him.

But Winter is still dead. It's still his fault. We had managed to get him locked up but it doesn't help bring back Winter. She's still lying in her deep grave in the cemetery full of flowers. I don't want Winter's story to end like that but she had made the choice long ago.

As Aiden keeps screaming obscenities about his mission, the officers let us leave. Chris looks especially depressed when he leaves, keeping his head down. I've never seen Chris look so...unhappy. That expression almost seems foreign on his face.

It's because I don't know him. That's why. I only see him as the crazy neighbour. I didn't see him for what kind of person he really is until now. Chris turned in his own brother because he thought it was right. If someone had told me that long ago, I would have laughed and told them that Chris didn't know the difference between right and wrong.

But now I know. The only person here who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong is Aiden.

As we leave, one of the officers hand me a familiar green notebook. “Take it,” he tells me.

I frown. Why is he giving it to me? Isn't it supporting evidence for the rape? The officer sees my confused expression and he says, “We already got the important pages. We decided to return it to you.”

I finally realize what he's saying.

It's the only piece of her that you have left.

I want to say something but I don't because I don't know what to say. I flip open the book and see all the unwritten pages at the end. It's over. Winter's life is over. There are no more pages for her to write in.