𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 ;; 𝒶𝓊𝒷𝓇𝑒𝓎 𝓍 𝓀𝑒𝓁 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓉𝓈

↳ 𝕞𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕪𝕠𝕦 ・❥・: ̗̀➛

ɢᴏᴏᴅ/ᴛʀᴜᴇ ᴇɴᴅɪɴɢ ꜱᴘᴏɪʟᴇʀꜱ

𝒶𝓉 𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊'𝓇𝑒 𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒.

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ᴋᴇʟ ᴛᴇɴᴅᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ confuse Aubrey. Growing up with him made her deduce it was because of his lack of a brain. Because he couldn't think, he always acted. He made stupid decisions that anyone with half a brain cell wouldn't do, and he just expected her and everyone else to be okay with them. She had no clue how she survived this long with someone like him in her life, but he always found a way to come back.

He didn't leave her even when she wanted him to. That was what she thought was the decision he made recently that she just didn't understand.

Sunny told them how Mari actually died. It was...something. Aubrey preferred not to talk or even think about it, but she also knew she had to. Because it was necessary for her to come up with some sort of answer, she wanted time to think about it, to understand it and come up with a decision she was happy with. But her thoughts always jumbled together into a mess she couldn't understand, and she hated it. She was probably taking too much time to figure out what to do. She had to pick something, but she either didn't like what she thought of or couldn't think of anything at all.

Most of the time, Kel was there where she went through these thoughts. He either tried to talk about something unrelated to the incident or would stay surprisingly quiet, for someone like him. She didn't know how to say it, but she appreciated it. She might not get why he was doing it, but she liked it. It helped a lot.

Aubrey was going through those jumbled thoughts today. It had been a month and a half since Sunny told them the truth, and she still hadn't thought of an answer. What was she supposed to do? She felt like she should forgive him. She was like Sunny. A few days before he told them about Mari, she almost killed Basil by pushing him into the lake in their secret hangout spot when he couldn't swim. Just a few things needed to go differently for her to would be in the same situation as Sunny. That meant she should forgive him, right? But why was it so hard to?

As usual, Kel was there. They were sitting on the dock in their secret hangout spot. The air was starting to get colder as fall started to come around, and the wind pushing the changing leaves off their trees made small ripples in the lake. She usually liked this time of year when everything looked so pretty, but she couldn't focus on it today. Or for the entirety of last week. It was pathetic.

She wanted to talk to someone about this. About the incident. She didn't want to tell the Hooligans something so...intimate that they probably wouldn't understand it, and she wasn't sure how Hero was taking it. Sunny and Basil were automatically out of the question, and none of the surrounding adults would want to listen to her. That left Kel. He was already here anyway.

"Kel," Aubrey started, "do you think I'd be a hypocrite if I don't forgive Sunny and Basil?"

"Why would you be a hypocrite?" Kel asked.

"I almost killed Basil." She saw how the remembrance slowly dawned on his face. "If I don't forgive Sunny and Basil, I'm basically saying that what I did is okay, but what they did isn't."

"You didn't kill Basil, though."

"I almost did." The water below her reflected her face. Her face was filled with uneasiness, but the water itself was calm and peaceful. How could something like that be so deadly? "You know...you could also say I almost killed Sunny. He jumped into the water after I pushed Basil in. If Hero—"

"Stop talking," Kel instructed. "Stop thinking. You're just going to make yourself feel guiltier and guiltier for no reason. You didn't kill them, so stop thinking about what-if's."