[ dedicated to the lovely foreversmilin who is incredibly kind and talented ]
FORD O'CONNELL HAS NO CLUE why the death of a girl he never even knew affects him so deeply. He and Kira were never friends - not even acquaintances - but then again, you didn't have to be friends with Kira to hear all about her.
She moved to Ford's suburban neighborhood sophomore year, straight from the city. This one seemingly unimportant detail catalyzed her rise to popularity.
People from the city were special. They were the point guards, quarterbacks, student body presidents. In the high school social hierarchy, they always, indisputably sat at the top.
So, naturally, when Kira arrived, everyone waited for something, but all they got was a girl who was a walking contradiction.
They said Kira was aesthetically pleasing, but never beautiful. They said she had this way about her that was both calming and chaotic, like the calm before the storm and the storm itself. They said that she walked the earth with her head on straight, but her heart all crooked.
They said a lot of things about her - some of which made sense, while others strayed so far from reality that Ford began to question them all - until the day she died, then they just stopped talking altogether.
"She loved once," Adalia said in this hushed whisper as Ford drove her home the very same night. "She loved only once, but she loved this one person so much that if she never loved again, it would've been enough.
But then she blinked and it all fell apart. After that, she swore she'd never love again, and true to her word, she hasn't."
Adalia finished her tale with a cheeky grin and left him to concentrate on the road. She didn't notice that Ford's hands grew cold and sweaty nor did she notice that the whole time she spoke he was as stiff as a board.
She simply smiled to the sky, kicked her feet onto the dashboard of Ford's beloved car, and fell asleep.
How she could sleep soundly after relishing in the destruction of another girl's heart he knew not, but as she swayed her hips and gave him a fruity goodbye, he did know that he'd spend a lot less time with her.
People often said Adalia was too pretty to be smart, but Ford disagreed. She might not have made the best grades or have the highest GPA (if he remembered correctly, hers was a 2.95), but he had seen her use her sharp tongue to spin a dark web around whomever she pleased. He had seen her trick a middle-aged bouncer into letting her into a nightclub, talk - and sob - her way out of three tickets, and would soon hear of her role in the death of one Kira Nakata.
He didn't know why exactly he began seeing her. She was too loud when he wanted silence, too interested in anything remotely physical when he just wanted to talk. But perhaps that was the appeal of Adalia Barco, she was everything unexpected.
Ford shook his head, something he found himself frequently doing when he drifted too far back in time.
It had been two weeks, two whole weeks, and everyone seemed fine. It was almost blissfully ironic how fine they were. Kira's friends had dropped to their knees, wailed like the world was coming to an end at her funeral, and now a mere fourteen days later, they lived as though she had never existed.
Conversations avoided her name like the plague. Teachers removed that one extra desk from their rooms, and her locker was sealed back up.
He doesn't know why this troubles him so deeply, why Kira (who, again, he barely knew) troubles him so deeply, but he can't shake off the feeling.
