Yet, as she watched him leave Spencer’s house, just moments earlier, those weekly trips to the cemetary had become something else. She knew now that he had wept for her as he had wept for himself, unable to express what his chest was bursting to explain, so lost amongst the fields of green grass and marble headstones. If she had looked closer, torn her eyes away from the words that she had to say, to both her parents, the words she could never utter while they were alive, she would have encountered not an erect, solid column, but a weakening, brittle tree, his trunk rotting from the inside, the knot holes forming by the second, bits and pieces of Aiden’s soul seeping through the shallow passageways.

Ashley had never asked; never pulled him to her, grabbing his face with her hands, tearing those blinders from his eyes, and making him see her in the light.

It was at this moment, on the flower pattern couch, in Spencer’s parent’s living room, that the truth was at the surface. This was neither the place nor the time she expected this to happen. That truth that we all avoid, push deep down within ourselves, as we hold our breaths, had risen up, like a ping-pong ball held underwater.

Aiden was fading away, day by day, moment by moment. He was a patsy, to the women in his life, unable to articulate what he wanted or who he was. He was in love with her and Ashley knew this. In fact, quite a deal of her was in love with him. Yet, the pieces were all jumbled, out of sequence, the timeline was fragmented. Somewhere in time, on another plane of existence, somewhere, there was Ashley and Aiden, soul mates forever, finishing each other’s thoughts, speaking without words, each a part of the purpose of each other’s lives. But that time was not here, not now, not then, and it would never be.

He had always been there for her, up until a year prior, when he seemed to completely fade, his essence blending with Spencer’s, two fucked up souls meshing together. Everything he was, the chubby best friend who walked home with a shiner after defending her honor in the cafeteria, all those feelings of inadequacy and disillusionment had only grown, increased in size, as Aiden fought desperately in his search for purpose.