Letters to the Lost Aru Shah AU

Aru

ARU

I don't think you know what agony is yourself. Otherwise you wouldn't have interfered with mine.

Ever think that my words weren't for you to read?

I stared at the words written on the paper.

"Aru?"

I looked it up, it was Brynne. The cafeteria was almost empty. Brynne was looking at me expectantly, with her hands on her hips and her eyebrow raised.

"You okay?" she asked. "The bell rang a few minutes ago and you were supposed to meet me at my locker."

I folded the tattered paper back up that I found this morning, and shove it into the front pocket of my backpack. I didn't know when he had written the letter, but it must have been last week. You can tell because it looks like it was out in the rain, and then it got dry again. PLus we haven't had any rain since Saturday.

It was the first weekend I didn't go to the cemetery. Part of me was irritated that this letter sat outside for so long.

I'm glad I went this morning. They mow on Tuesday nights so it would have been thrown away. 

"What were you looking at?"

"A letter."

Brynne doesn't ask me more. She thinks it was a letter to my mother. It wasn't.

I really don't need anyone right now to think I'm any crazier than I already am.

The late bell rings. If I get another tardy, I'll get detention. Again. That thought alone tells my legs to move faster.

I can't get detention. I can't sit in a room filled with silence for a hour. Too much time to think. 

Brynne is right beside me. She's probably there to escort me, and sweet talk the teachers into not giveing me a tardy. Teachers love her. She doesn't need to worry about tardies or detention. Brynne sits in the front of the classroom and hangs onto every word a teacher spits out. Brynne is one of those girls who you love to hate; really pretty, has something good about to say for just about everyone, and a straight A average. Ooh and she's pretty strong. She'd probably be more popular if she wasn't so perfect, I tell her that all the time.

She'd also be more if she wasn't friends with the senior class "train-wreck".

When I found the letter this morning, I expected to read it and start bawling my eyes out. Instead I want to find this dude and give him a nice punch. And no I don't have a Sucker Punch, sadly.

Ever think that my words weren't for you to read?

The fury helps cover up the little part of me that wonders if he's right.

The hallways are empty, which is strange. Where are the other slackers? Why am I always the one that's late.

Besides it isn't like I wasn't here. I'm physically in the building. But it's not like I'll turn into a model student if my teachers start doing the Macarena, or kissing pigs like that one time my art teacher from middle school did.

By the time we're in the language arts wing, we're running and skidding through hallways. I grab the corner of the wall to propel myself down the hall.

I feel the hot burn before I feel the collusion. Burning hot liquid sears my skin, and I cry out. Coffee splatters against the front of my shirt. I then slam into something solid. Someone solid. And then I'm skidding, slipping and last but not least falling. On my face. Yay!!! Note the sarcasm.