remember when she left

AIDEN JACKSON

IT WAS a rather warn night, comparing to those before that one. Aiden Jackson sighed and sat on the grass of the graveyard. Fortunately, the twins' house was near the cemetery.

He looked at the grave in front of him a put a hand on it. "Happy birthday," he sighed.

Her grave was decorated with primroses and peony flowers, thanks to Frigg, since The Hunger Games and The Lunar Chronicles were Vivian's favorite books. He always found it quite funny. Frigg loved old classics like Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Emily Brontë, Harper Lee, George Orwell, Victor Hugo... and Vivian was more of a modern book-reader with Marissa Meyer, VE Schwab, Holly Black, Suzanne Collins, Shannon Messenger, Rick Riordan...

"I never thought there could be life without you. Apparently, there was at least 1095 days."

"1096. You forgot the leap year, Birdbrain," a voice he knew too well commented. He didn't bother to look at her as Frigg sat down at a respectable distance next to him.

He observed her as she took something from her pocket. A charm. She leaned in and took the bracelet she'd attached in one flowers and slowly put it there. Aiden always thought no one understood what he'd lost. But seeing her face as she gave her present to Vivian, he wasn't so sure. He realized that he'd always been wrong when he thought he was alone. That there always was someone actually. She'd always been there. Always understood.

"I don't know," he told her. "I don't know what to do anymore."

She nodded. "It's hard, isn't it? Not knowing how to keep living when she's not there."

Slowly, he put his hand on hers. He didn't know why nor how. It just happened. "And not knowing if to keep living is the right thing to do," he added.

"The hardest was to realise she actually wasn't here. I woke up one morning, wanting to talk to her but suddenly I couldn't. Suddenly, I wasn't ever going to be able to. I woke up one morning and learned that she was gone. That the last time I saw her was the last time I'd ever get to see her." Frigg rested her head on her knees. "Do you know what she told me before- Before it happened? 'See you.' She didn't know. She didn't know that was a lie. That I'd never see her again. Or maybe she did, maybe she did and she just chose to lie. I thought we told each other everything."

Suddenly, Aiden couldn't hold it anymore. He'd spent years keeping it for himself. Years letting his father making him more guilty.

"It was my fault," he admitted, tears falling on his cheeks even though he'd promised to himself he'd never cry more. "I killed her." Frigg's hand turned under his and she intervened them so she could squeeze his hand.

She looked at him and her eyes seemed to invite him to continue. So he did. "She came to me, a few days before it happened. She told me- she told me she wasn't feeling well. That she wasn't okay-" He stopped to breath. Talking and crying weren't exactly easy to do at the same time. "I told her she was probably just tired, and that everyone felt sad, that it was normal. And then- then the next morning, everyone was yelling and crying. And then they told me she killed herself." When I should've died. She was the best one of us. She deserved to live.

Frigg didn't reply. She didn't accuse him of killing her best friend, she only wrapped her arms around him and let him cry more on her shoulder, so he cried. And when he was done, he stayed in her arms and looked at the moon as it illuminated the grave. They sat there in silence, only the wind blowing sweetly.

"You loved her," she said.

"I loved her," he repeated.

"And you didn't kill her."

He didn't repeat those words.

She started to sway gently, taking him with her, humming some familiar song. "Do you know what you need now?" She asked him. "You need my gift."

"Sorry what?" He asked, looking at her, making sure she wasn't joking around.

"Trust me."

And as weird as it sounded. He did trust her. He trusted the girl who made him inhale a helium balloon right before playing the main role in the school play when they were seven.

He followed her as she guided him first out of the cemetery, then to a building in town. She took a key and opened the door, pushing him in a dark room. What the fuck was that gift? She turned the light on and he found himself face to face with a picture on the wall.

It seemed familiar. He looked back at Frigg to make sure. To make sure it really was what he was thinking about. She just nodded.

Aiden stared. He stared at his sister's picture. And the next one. He stared at her work, out of the closet for the first time, out of the closet when he thought they were stuck, imprisoned forever.  He had to be dreaming. "You really did that," he blurted out. It was supposed to be a question but turned out more as a statement.

She looked nervous, her fingers playing with one on the curls of her hair. "Are you... upset? Happy? Maybe I should've asked first if it was alright, but-"

He laughed. Laughed. Today was one of the last day he thought he'd manage to laugh yet he did. And it wasn't a fake laugh. It wasn't a forced one. It was a genuine laugh. For some reason, he couldn't stop laughing. Because somehow he was happy.

"Does that mean I did well or did you just lose it?" Frigg asked, looking unsure.

He turned to her and stopped laughing. "Thank you, Freya."

Something in her eyes turned bright and she smiled. Not the sharp or polite smile she always gave people. A real smile. For him. It made her look stunning. Captivating. His fucking idiot of a heart fluttered and he looked away.

His eyes stopped on the picture of Vivian she'd put after the exposition. "Wait a second, I recognise that one."

"I think Annie took it," Frigg told him. "A few months before it happened. It's one of the rare pictures of her, since she was always behind the camera..."

"We really did a good job," a voice exclaimed from behind them. Aiden jumped and looked at Bellary as she walked in.

"You helped?" He asked.

The brunette laughed a little. "Of course. Ms Evans here is was too short to do all of it herself."

"Hey!" Frigg protested. "I'm average!"

"Good try, oompa-loompa," Aiden smirked.

They talked more but Aiden didn't care to listen. He stared at Frigg, looking at her as she drily said something to her friends. He watched her eyes shine in intelligence and amusement, looking at Roy and Annie arguing. He remembered how she smiled and compared that smile to the one she had now. It wasn't the same. Aiden decided he was making her smile that way again.

Reece bumped him from the side as he stared at the picture of Vivian's with a small smile. He then turned to his friend, observing him for a second. "I was wrong," he finally said.

"About what?" Aiden asked.

"About you having a crush on her."

Aiden frowned. "I don't?"

"You don't," Reece agreed. "You're in love with her."

And for once, Aiden didn't find a good reason to argue.