All We Know Is Falling.

Chapter Five - How She Died - Brydan.

Two Weeks Later.

Late November.

Brydan George Wallace was in love with Eryn Rivers. It wasn't the first time he'd thought this loudly in his head, he had done so many times before, yet it had never truly sunk in. It still didn't, as he watched her gaze out of his bedroom window. She had come straight over to his small, crammed family house after her English Literature class, unnanounced, and hadn't said much. She stared out the window more than anything, Brydan thought, which he didn't mind in the slightest, if she told him why. Usually, six people lived in the Wallace household on Bassett Street, though there was only one of them in the house at the moment, and only four of them would come home tonight, that being his mother, his stepdad, his baby half-sister, Alesha, and his younger brother, Oscar. His older step brother Lewis was at boarding school, which was funded by his biological mother. The Wallace's could never afford to send any of their children to boarding school, even for a term. Brydan's sister Tessa was missing, just like yesterday, the day before, and many days before that. Every day since the night of the Farral Park Incident, they had had no word from Tessa Wallace. She was nearly twenty, so there wasn't much fuss about her from the police or civilians of Ashensea. But Brydan knew she was alive, he knew his sister far too well to feel any different.

"Eryn..what's up?" He said, trying to say it nonchalantly, trying to hide the caution in his voice. He always found it hard restraining from letting his feelings taking over when he was speaking to her, she was better off with Luke anyway. Luke, his best friend, the son of the mayor, the six top university places.

Muffled raindrops twisted down the window, splattering against the glass outside in the late evening darkness.

"My mother died five years today," she said hollowly, and she slowly turned around from the window to him, her eyes red and her cheeks tear stained. Brydan didn't know what to say or do, but he knew for sure he wanted to stop her tears with everything he had. "And...it just seemed..somehow right to come to you, Bry. I'm sorry," she shook her head, ashamed of herself.

"Don't be sorry," he said slowly, trying to smile at her as it seemed the right thing to do, "Eryn, that's the last thing you should be." For a small glimmer of a moment, his eyes met hers and Brydan thought, just for a microsecond, she'd seen his love for her. These thoughts were soon gone as she closed her eyes for a moment, in deep thought, and quietly, "And I don't think it was because..."

"That we've both lost a parent," Brydan smiled smally at her, and she looked relieved and smiled back, the sadness and grief not successfully escaping from her face as she did so, and he continued, "No, I don't think so either." Eryn sat down next to him on his bed, and Brydan's heart leapt at seeing her this close. Her smooth, almost flawless skin, her silky, free, mousey blonde, slightly ginger hair, the cherry blossom coloured lips he forever wanted to make smile, to hear her light, musical laugh.. and her eyes. Eryn's beautiful, misty blue, dazzling eyes. To see tears slowly slipping out of them, it made his gut feel twisted in anguish. Because she meant more than everything to him.

Her eyes fell on the bottles of medication on his bedside, and he groaned inwardly.

"Lithium Carbonate..." she said, "Jordan, Noah, Kristina and me used to make fireworks, and we used that stuff sometimes," she sniffed, "You know, Kristina's brothers? I've never come across it as a drug, though. But then I did get that C in Chemistry, do you remember?" She smiled, and he grinned, "Yes," he said, as Eryn laughed, remembering, "I spent all that time trying to tutor you, three months, wasn't it? And you spent the whole time-"

"Practicing the footwork for my Grade Eight exam under the table," he laughed, "And you used to think I was just fidgety, so we used to go on those runs over the dunes on the beach-"