Archive of Our Own ^beta

Aubrey Belrose's day was going perfectly fine until she saw Kelsey Desoto. She could recognize his shoulder-length brown hair, dark brown eyes, and that stupid smile anywhere, but she hoped he didn’t see her, and if he did, he didn’t recognize her since she recently dyed her dark brown hair with purple and pink streaks, and she took out her blue contact lenses and wore glasses over her dark brown eyes. It shouldn’t have surprised her to see him due to how small Faraway Town was, but it was. Kel didn’t acknowledge her if he did see her, so that was good. Otherwise, it would have been more awkward than it should’ve. It already was, anyway.

Aubrey and Kel were not friends. They haven’t been for two years. Sometimes, she added another four years to make it six; they weren’t friends for four years before they tried again two years ago. She didn’t do it often, though, as two was less than six, and most of the time, she preferred having two years separating her friendship with Kel instead of six.

It wasn’t only Kel that she was no longer friends with. She wasn’t friends with his older brother, Henry “Hero” Desoto, either. She technically wasn’t friends with Basil Fey either, and neither was she friends with Basil’s best friend, Sunny Suzuki. The same could be said for Sunny’s older sister, Mari Suzuki, as well. She hadn’t spoken to Mari in six years.

After all, it was impossible to speak to the dead.

Mari died six years ago. She, Aubrey, Kel, Hero, Basil, and Sunny were all friends when she did. To this day, Aubrey wasn’t sure why she killed herself, but she did know one thing: Aubrey broke her promise to Kel twice.

Aubrey couldn't stop crying.

Mari just killed herself. Why would she do that? She was going to play a recital with Sunny on the same day she killed herself. Why would she hang herself in the tree in her backyard?

Mari’s body was found a few days ago by Sunny and Basil. Even though today was her funeral, Aubrey still kept crying. The church was too small, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe—but was it from crying or the amount of people? All she could think about was getting out, so she did. She couldn’t make it farther than the front steps of the church before she had to sit down and continue crying.

“Aubrey?”

Aubrey’s knees were up to her chest with her face hidden, but she recognized Kel’s voice fast. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk, but she also wasn’t sure if she wanted him to go, either.

“Are you okay...?” Even without looking at him, she could see the awkwardness in his stance, trying to find a way to comfort her. They both knew their friendship didn’t involve much emotion, each of them showing they cared through jabs and pointless arguments. Because of that, she would say she was fine. But she wasn’t. And it’d be pointless to lie to him now.

She felt his hand on her shoulder. It reminded her of when they first met. Her, sitting on the sidewalk and crying, and him, trying to get a stranger to cheer up even though she wouldn’t tell him what was wrong.

That only made her cry more.

Kel didn’t move his hand. Eventually, Aubrey started to calm down. She was breathing heavily, but she could wipe her eyes and not have more tears coming out. He was oddly silent, and she wasn’t sure she liked that.

She decided to break the silence and ask, “What’s going to happen to us...?”

He wouldn’t respond and wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Aubrey had nothing left in her to cry, so she kept her eyes on the ground in front of her. She would have to deal with their silence.

After what seemed like hours, Kel finally said, “Tell you what, Aubrey... How about we promise to stay friends even after Mari dies? Hero and Sunny are taking this hard...and I don’t know about Basil...but I’ll be your friend. Even if it’s only me, we’ll stay friends! Pinky promise because everyone knows you can’t break a pinky-promise!” He stuck out his pinky finger and said, “I, Kelsey Desoto, will stay Aubrey Belrose’s friend after all of this!”

Kel was acting like his usual self, but it was calming, in a way. Aubrey straightened herself and wrapped her pinky finger around his. “I, Aubrey Belrose, will stay Kelsey Desoto’s friend after all of this.”

Kel smiled at her. For the first time since Mari died, Aubrey found herself smiling as well.

After Mari's funeral, Kel started moving on by making friends and going back to living a regular life. Aubrey saw it as him not caring about Mari and leaving her behind. She thought he broke their promise first.

Aubrey did by pushing him away.

She was stupid and decided he was a heartless person. She made new friends, and while she liked them, she had pushed away the person she promised she would stay friends with. Even after making a pinky promise with him, she still pushed him away.

What made it worse was that she didn’t realize she was in the wrong until four years later, when Sunny finally decided to come out of his house three days before he was moving away.

Aubrey had hated the pure sight of Sunny. He, too, was someone who had abandoned her too, in her eyes, after he couldn’t find the motivation to leave his house for four years. She was angry at him, but realized after she almost killed Basil by irrationally pushing him into a lake when he couldn’t swim that she was in the wrong. She was lucky Sunny, Kel, and Hero gave her another chance. What was worse was Basil’s grandmother had died the day after she almost killed him, and her apology to him was most likely unwanted, though she couldn’t tell if he heard her in the first place as it was through his bedroom door.

Then, Kel convinced Basil’s caretaker, Polly, to let them have a sleepover. He made another promise with Aubrey. Everything was going well until they woke up in the middle of the night and heard Polly scream.

Basil had stabbed himself in his bedroom. The next day, Sunny had also stabbed himself in his own bedroom.

Aubrey had now seen a dead body three times. Once when Mari hung herself four years ago, another time when Basil killed himself yesterday, and now when Sunny stabbed himself. He was taken to the hospital via ambulance, but she knew that it was too late for him.

Aubrey sat on the sidewalk outside Sunny’s childhood home, her knees to her chest. Hero was trying to comfort Sunny’s mother who was near hysterics after having now both of her children dead, and she wasn’t sure where Kel was. She wasn’t sure if she wasn’t in a dream, but if she was, she wanted to wake up now. She didn’t want Basil or Sunny to die, not before and definitely not after it seemed like they would become friends again and everything would be okay.

In the distance, she heard Sunny’s mother crying. She should be crying too, shouldn’t she? When Mari died, she couldn’t stop crying for days. How heartless was she that she couldn’t find anything in her to cry about Sunny’s suicide? Did she spend all of her tears last night on Basil’s?

It took her a second to realize Kel was now sitting next to her. She vaguely remembered him sitting next to her during Mari’s funeral. How sad it was that both of the Suzuki children had killed themselves. Suicidal thoughts must be a problem in the family.

“Hey,” Kel said.

After a second, Aubrey replied tonelessly, “Hi.”

“I’d ask if you’re okay,” he said after a moment of hesitation, “but no one is.”

Life had already taken away three of her childhood friends before they reached adulthood. Losing some pride would be nothing compared to that. “What did you and Hero do wrong?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You and Hero...you two were always there for Mari, Basil, and Sunny. You never let them feel like they’re alone. Mari, Basil, and Sunny always had you two. What did you do wrong...to make them still want to kill themselves?”

“Why are you only asking me...?”

“I know what I did. I bullied Basil, I almost killed Basil, I got into a physical fight with Sunny the moment he came outside, I yelled at Sunny after not seeing him for years... They don’t deserve to die...but I don’t deserve them in my life either. You and Hero do, but life still took them away. What did you do wrong?”

Kel stayed silent.

Aubrey sighed and rested her head on her knees. Mari, Basil, Sunny... They all deserved more than her. She didn’t know why they thought she was good enough to be in their lives, but it was too late to ask them why now.

“We’re going to get through this,” Kel eventually said, but his voice lacked the confidence it probably should have. It slowly got more as he said, “We’re not going to let this stop our lives. We’ll always remember Sunny and Basil, and we’ll never forget them, but we’ll get through this. I know we will. I know you will. You’re strong, Aubrey. You’re able to get through this, so don’t think this is the end of the world. It’s not, and you will get through it!”

Despite everything that happened, Aubrey found herself smiling at his words. She felt like she shouldn’t be smiling, and she should be crying over the two recent suicides, but the smile wouldn’t go away.

“I know what we should do.” Kel waited until she looked at him before he smiled and said, “We should stay friends even after all this! I know you’re really sad right now, and you probably want to be alone for a while, but I promise you’re not, and I won’t let you! You will be my friend, and you will not get rid of me!”

Aubrey remembered how she and Kel made a pinky promise that they would stay friends after Mari’s suicide, and she broke it. She decided to say, “I promise we will,” and trusted it would be different this time.

It was not different.

Aubrey hated that she didn’t know when they stopped being friends. It was clear when they stopped being friends after Mari died, but she had no idea when they stopped now. She simply woke up one day, saw Kel outside their favourite childhood store, and couldn’t find it in her to talk to him. It was just like after Mari committed suicide, and she knew they weren’t friends anymore—and she wasn’t friends with Hero anymore either.

She didn’t know how to fix it, either. Hero was away for college, and she knew he was going to move away from Faraway Town to work at a hospital in Nearby City. Kel was a year older than her, and with June nearing, he was going to graduate soon—which meant she wasn’t sure she would ever see him again.

Perhaps it was her sign to fix her friendship with Kel. The problem was, she didn’t know how to. Aubrey had her own friends, and it was easy to stay in touch with them. How was she supposed to fix her friendship with Kel if she wasn’t sure how to even start a conversation with him? They didn’t see each other at school, they didn’t see each other often outside of school... It would be awkward if she started talking to him out of nowhere.

For now, Aubrey would continue to try to avoid Kel. Maybe she should push herself to talk to him, but it was so much easier to not—even though it hurt to let their friendship go once more.