Ivy

(xii) late july

twelve hours later

          IT WAS THREE in the morning, and the deathly silence lit by street lamps only made Aaron Montclair all the more aware of every little sound he let slip, as he crossed the road to the Bennett residence.

This is crazy, he thought, as he bent down to lift a loose stone tile, revealing a spare key. Then again, he'd done a lot of crazy things over the past few months, and Ivy had never called him back. 

It also occurred to him that he probably wasn't thinking straight because he was panicking, and panic did that to you. The thing was, if he didn't work things out with his best friend, there was a chance he'd change his mind by the time the sun rose, which scared him more than what he was about to do. With a grimace displaying shame and conviction in equal parts, he slowly unlocked the front door.

Aaron stepped through and instinctively slowed his every movement, yet his heart sped up, practically thrumming against his ribcage. He hoped, irrationally, that no one heard it. The trek up the stairs was painful, but he knew to skip the fifth step, which creaked, and then he was outside Ivy's door.

He let himself in. Her curtains were wide open, allowing dim light to stream in and down towards her. His gaze shifted from the window down to the unmoving girl below. God, that face. He wasn't sure he'd see it again. She was so quintessentially Ivy, in this moment. Unperturbed, calm, dreaming and on the verge of something that couldn't be put into words. Beautiful, above all else - not just in the memorably pretty way. And he didn't think this out of bias or because he was in love with her or something; no, it was just a fact as clear as day. Gently striking.

Rendered with fear that she might shout at the first glance of an intruder in her bedroom, Aaron approached her, oh so slowly, before gently cupping his hand over her mouth.

Ivy stirred. Suddenly, before her eyes had even fully opened, she grabbed Aaron's wrist and tried to pry it away with a force that only pure terror could give a person. The beginnings of a scream rumbled its way up her chest, before Aaron barely managed to stifle it down with his other hand.

"Ivy. Ivy, it's me. It's okay."

Staring up at him with wild brown eyes, it took her a moment to steady her breathing. Only then did tears start to fall down her temples. That caught him off guard; he assumed he'd hurt her somehow, so removed his hand from her face. Ivy still shoved him away, almost violently. She looked as though she'd seen something otherworldly, something deadly.

"Where were you?" Strained voice, half-whisper. "Where the fuck were you?" Not why are you here.

Aaron fumbled for his thoughts. "I know, I'm so sorry, life's been hell for me lately, but I realised I'd been making a mistake all this time by not talking to or seeing you." He searched for any perceptible change in her expression, but saw none. He swallowed and continued. "I got involved in some unbelievably stupid, scary shit, but I got out of it now because I was so done with it all."

"I have no idea what you're on about."

Aaron sighed. "I missed you, Ivy."

Unbeknownst to the boy in her room, those last words only cut deeper into an already-existent wound, somewhere in Ivy's body. 

"Bullshit."

He blinked. "What?"

She threw the covers off her and sat up. "No. You don't get to say another word, do you understand?" Her eyes began to sting; she wished they wouldn't. "I saw you. I saw you at Caleb Nielsen's party last month. And your life didn't look half bad, not from where I was standing. So if that's your hell, I'll gladly swap mine with yours." A venom bled through her words. 

"That party? I wasn't there to have fun, I was -" Aaron couldn't understand her hostility. "Look, I didn't get what I did that was so wrong, 'cause it's not as if you tried to talk to me these past months either. You didn't even call me back yesterday."

I never got any calls from you. She looked down. "I - I needed you. Do you know why?"

He said nothing. She would have to spell it out to him.

"Do you know?"

At this, his eyes snapped up to hers. The cat was out. "No." 

Disbelief was etched into his face. The telephone call with Mr Bennett. The dream with the piano. Isaac, gone.

"No, no, no. He was - he was just -" Aaron dropped his head in his hands, crumpling. She flinched, had to look away from his pain, before she cried or threw something at the wall or threw something at him. 

For a split second, Ivy felt for the boy. He and Isaac were like brothers to each other. Aaron would give him his old comics and teach him tunes on the piano. They watched cartoons together; skateboarded together before all this shit, the cancer and the dying and the loneliness and fucking unfairness of it all, fuck -

But the moment passed. "He's dead," she confirmed. As if he didn't already figure it out. "Three months."

The boy against her bedroom door let out a silent sob, wiping away tears. He was breaking. Ivy deflected his emotions away like she was swatting a fly. She'd been there, in his shoes, but now she had a new pair, and she wasn't going back. Old shoes weren't kept or re-worn, they were chucked.

"You should go." The words barely escaped her lips.

Aaron looked up at her, at a loss. His wet eyelashes glistened. "Why are you being like this?"

She wanted to hug him; she wanted him gone. She shut her eyes. "Please." Don't do this. Without him, everything was under control. So it was better like that.

She was shutting down and blocking him out. He saw this and shook his head. "I don't want to. I owe my friend, and right now she needs me."

"Leave or I'll scream."

"You need me."

Something sounded on the other side of Ivy's bedroom wall. They froze. Footsteps.

Without wasting any time, Ivy reached for the latch on her window. Aaron went along with it; he didn't need another reason for her parents to want him away from her. He would see her tomorrow anyway, somehow.

He'd barely ducked his head below the window ledge, squatting on the overhang roof, when he heard Mrs Bennett's voice.

"Ivy?"

"I'm fine, Mum. Go back to sleep."

"I thought I heard you sleep-talking. Bad dream again?"

A momentary pause. "Yeah."

"Honey, if you're hot, just don't sleep with your duvet. You don't have fling your window wide open like that."

"I just wanted some fresh air. I'll close it in a bit."

"Okay."

Her mother finally left. When Ivy went to shut her window, Aaron was already gone.

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a/n: hope you've been enjoying the soundtrack !! also gimme all the song recommendations, i'd love to hear new stuff  :)))