In Her Shoes

Chapter 31: The Fake meets The Real

Aid and I drove around to nowhere in particular. I wasn't really looking or paying attention to where he was driving. I was just enjoying the wind in my hair and the roar of the motor blocking my thought train. I barely even noticed when we stopped. I kept my arms around him, too lost in my own mind to let go.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, and I was probably squeezing him too tight, but I wasn't ready to let go. After a few minutes and a few deep breaths I was finally able to slowly loosen my grip.

"You uh...you okay?"

"Shh."

"Oh. Alright well...I could wait till you're ready..."

We were silent again and I could hear the uncomfortableness in his voice. Finally after a while I let go of him completely.

"You okay?" he asked over his shoulder.

I sighed, asking myself the same thing. "No," I finally whispered climbing off. I started walking not waiting for him, but I heard his footsteps running to catch up behind me.

"Hey....Hey Jess, what's up? You 'kay? Talk to me tell me how you fe"-

"Like shit Aid, I feel like shit! Is that what you wanna hear?!" I yelled as I turned on him.

He threw his hands up defensively. "Jesse...calm down it's gonna be okay, okay? We just gotta"-

"No!" I screamed pushing him. "No Aiden everything will not be okay! I know you love to look at the positive side of things all the time but every now and then you need to acknowledge the negative side, too! Yes the sun is shining, but there are still clouds in the sky! Yes your heart is beating, but it might as well not be because it's breaking! Yes I'm still alive after that stupid accident, but I might as well be dead because I'm not the person I want to be!!" I turned away from him quickly, and somewhere a tiny voice in the back of my head told me to stop using Aiden as my personal verbal punching bag, but I shut it down quickly.

After a while of screaming silence I heard him sigh heavily. "Jess...?" he asked hesitantly after a while. "Jesse...listen man, I know you think I'm too optimistic but....and maybe I am but...you and I both know how quickly life could be snatched away."

I sighed, knowing exactly what he meant. "You mean mom?" I asked sarcastically.

"Listen Jesse, she was your mother but she was my Aunt, too. You and your father have only ever acknowledged the negative side since she left us!"

"Died, Aiden say the word; she died. There's no point in trying to sugar coat what you cant change. My mother is dead and gone so stop bringing her like she's still here 'cause she will never come back!! though I started out calmly, by the end of that statement my own words had slapped me in the faced and I found myself screaming.

Aiden was silent behind me. And after a while I heard him breath out a big stress filled breath.

"You're wrong," he said quietly. I scoffed at him, wrapping my arms around myself and rolling my eyes. "I'm serious, man...you're wrong..."

"So what she's gonna back as a zombie? Way to make me feel better."

"Don't be stupid. She's dead, yes, but she's not gone"-

"Yes she"-

"Let me finish. All because someone's dead does not mean that they're gone. They're only gone if you forget about them. But if they live on in your memories, in your heart, they still live. I wish you would see the positive things more often, Jess...because you will not be like this forever. And I'm not sugar coating I'm stating facts."