decisions (n.)
a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration.
CHECKMATE #4
"world-changing decisions are hard to make, but learning you have to sacrifice is even harder."
Life has gone back to normal in the Adelaide Woods five years after t...
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track #01 in laine johanna whitlock
twice // missing u
THEY SAY a good friend is never truly gone – and that's exactly what I feel as I sit by Aiden's side, smiling, as he wipes his hair of the rain.
I understood what it was like to lose a friend, but not how it was like to lose a lover. I didn't understand the attraction Aiden and Anson felt for each other – but I did understand that they truly treasured each other a lot, solely from our conversations that were highly centred around the topic. I was like the middleman for both of them. All I did for years was listen to them talk about how the other was so beautiful both inside and out. My heart hurt for both of them, so intensely, that I didn't even know pain anymore.
I'd always believed that Anson and Aiden belonged together – even if they came from different worlds. Aiden was the jock a lot of people liked, who enjoyed football and other sports; Anson was the quiet but popular one who'd play the violin and do choir. I only met Aiden because we were in the same classes for a year, and also since I was in the sports electives. I met Anson in orchestra and also through the weekly violin classes we'd take together.
At seven years old, Anson had already become my best friend, and I was pretty close to Aiden too – but I didn't feel anything when Aiden texted me the news that she was gone. I guess it never really sunk in because I never saw the person put the gun to her head, never witnessed the life draining from her eyes as he described to me with so much detail, never actually heard the heart monitor beep in futile attempt to save her.
Something people didn't know about Anson was that her parents were divorced. Beneath that popular, smiley shell, she was a fragile, small soul. Her dad had long since left the Adelaide Woods before she was born – her mother used to be my favourite whenever I'd go over to her house because I loved her cookies, but four years ago she'd changed for the worse. She was running a relationship with Anson's new stepdad and stepsister. They also had a little boy on the way.
Anson's stepdad was probably someone I'd despise for the rest of my life. He changed Anson's mom – she became more withdrawn, began displaying constant PDA, and no longer had the time to talk to Anson like she used to be able to. My cheery, bubbly friend was no longer like stated above; she had become sunken and was close to anxiety and depression.
I'd forever appreciate and look up to Aiden for taking Anson under his wing when her parents weren't able to do so. He still loved her – and vice versa – like the infatuated puppy he was a few years back; only now he was able to take action. He stood up to her mom and stepdad, and rejected her desperate stepsister. He had eyes for her and only her.
I knew that Aiden needed space right after the traumatizing event – and I knew that I had promised him space to mourn, but space wasn't something we could easily get in the lamp-lit parks of the Adelaide Woods which had recently been wrecked by Alistair James. "Come on," I say, tugging on his arm like when we used to be kids and I had to practically drag him away from staring at my pretty best friend because we were going to be late for class.
