These Days

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HOPE WATERMAN NEVER USED TO GET DRUNK IN FRONT OF HER PARENTS. Instead, she would crash at the McAdams household where Ciara and Artie would always look after her.

She was infamous for her hysterical crying that would shake her entire body if she'd gone just the one drink too far. Ciara likens Aaron Charter to that now.

He is a mess.

So much of a mess that the girl in the wheelchair has turned around to blatantly stare and the woman reading the paper is glaring at her, half out of her seat, left eye twitching slightly.

"Shh," Ciara hisses frantically. "Come on, Aaron - it can't be that bad, can it?"

"Did you really not read it?" he sobs in return.

Ciara shakes her head. "I thought I owed you at least a small piece of sorry."

"I didn't make any of it up."

"No, you didn't." Ciara's eyes dart around, snatching at the FOOTBALL TEAM BEATS FOOTBALL TEAM newspaper headline and at the unwinding threads of embroidered sofa arm and at the worn down left tyre of the wheelchair. She notices how ungodly quiet it is in here: she can hear her own shallow breathing as though it is pounding against her ears.

"I think you should go." His voice doesn't match the water pooling from his eyes. It sounds harsh and certain. His face does not.

"Uh - okay," Ciara agrees standing up quickly. She struggles to stand sturdy, brushing her knuckles against the sofa arm to keep her from tilting just a little too far. "Should I back some time?"

Aaron shrugs. "Don't ask me that right now."

Ciara can tell that he's trying to hold back, that he's trying his utmost to not collapse into a stream of ugly crying. His brows are furrowed and his forehead looks a bit like beach sand after the tide has run away and Ciara knows better than to press any more of his tender buttons. So she just nods and turns away, inhaling deeply as she pauses at the doorway.

"Aaron?" she asks quietly.

"What?"

"What - what did it say?"

Because she has to know now, she absolutely Goddamn has to know what it said even if it's the only thing in the entire world that she knows because what the fuck could make a stranger cry so hard and what the fuck could Hope have written that could reduce someone like Aaron Charter into the blubbering, snivelling mess that Ciara knows he will become the moment she leaves the room?

Aaron bites his lip. "It said that she didn't do it, Ciara," he says quietly. "It says that she didn't mean to die."

And then Ciara's crying, too, because it wasn't a suicide note and oh God, Hope wasn't a selfish bastard and she didn't do it on purpose, it was as accidental as if she'd died from pneumonia or cancer. Hope was ill and one day that illness struck out and then Hope became no more.

She nods, not turning to look at him. She can already hear his helpless sobs and a part of her wonders if the woman is still reading her paper and if so, why she hasn't moved yet, why she is heartless enough to watch the entire world come crashing down on their shoulders and not lift a finger to help shift the rubble.

And then she walks away.

Aaron watches her awkward shuffle, fully aware of how little confidence remains in comparison to the bold swagger she'd used when he'd first met her. It's funny, he thinks, how in a single instant someone's façade can come crumbling right down.

He keeps thinking this as she disappears, as the walls blur into the muddy waters that the tears in his eyes create, as his head starts spinning and spinning and spinning.