The Way To Aja

Chapter Five: Forgetting. And Remembering.

 A piercing shriek sliced through the air, and Rye, Kyan, and Rorry turned to in time to see Alexandra hit the water from the five foot cliff she had jumped off. The others began laughing as she resurfaced, shooting them all glares.

"That was fucking scary! Why would you all want to jump off that thing?!" She cried as she swam over to them where they swam and splashed each other in the shallow water. Adar had to go to the high school that day, and the four friends had decided to go the hot springs a little ways away. Kessie had been invited, but she declined, saying she was going to work on her baby's nursery. The rest of the others had all gone back to their respective towns that day, besides Juliet who was spending the day with her sister and Saissa who was with her aunt farther south along the coast.

Surprisingly, it was Rorry that suggested they go to the hot spring. She had been there many times with Kessie's family growing up, and when she and Kyan went off on their own when they were older they had come here often. The water was warm year round, and there was a perfect little ledge to jump off from.

"Aw, c'mon Alex! It's all good fun!" Kyan chuckled at his sister-in-law. Alexandra wasn't technically his sister-in-law because she had never married Vik, but the couple had been engaged for five years, and been dating for close to twelve. Kyan was then hit with a face full of water. Rorry and Rye started giggling hysterically at Alexandra and Kyan's antics as he slowly began to wipe his face of water and playfully glare at Alex. He had been about to splash her back when again his face was full of water. Rye was bursting with hysteria now, to the point of almost having trouble breathing, as she had been the one to dish Kyan his second splash. And with that it became a full-fledged splashing match.

Subconsciously, Rorry knew it was the most fun she had had since Aja had died, and that this was the first time she wasn't floating around Rorry's immediate thoughts.

An hour later, the four were shivering, wrapped in towels and still laughing as they climbed into into Rorry's SUV.

"Wanna get lunch?" Kyan asked as he started the car. Rorry's sweats clung to her wet legs and her blonde hair was dripping tiny water droplets onto her large red hoodie. It was as if a switch had been flipped in Rorry's mind All of a sudden all she could think of was

"I'd go." Alexandra agreed. She was sitting in the backseat with Rorry, wearing thick grey sweats like hers and a long black long sleeve. Rorry leaned over onto the taller girl's shoulder and closed her eyes, trying to regain her energy. "Have you spoken to your mom lately?" Alex asked while she stroked Rorry's hair. She wasn't speaking very loud, but besides the ticking from the car as Kyan swiftly drove into town, he and Rye were silent and Rorry knew they were listening intently.

"No." Rorry was speaking quietly. "I talked to her and Jack a while before I came. They wanted me to go to Brisbane, but what would the point be anyway?" Rorry's relationship with her mother wasn't very pretty, as the woman left her daughter at eight-years-old, and the whole car had been close with Rorry long enough to know most of the story and experience the drama.

"You should. She does love you, and Jack does too." Alexandra went back to stroking the 23-year-old's hair, and the car fell silent. Rorry stared out the window as they drove, head now on Alexandra's lap and seat belt off. It was so green and beautiful; she had missed it more than she wold like to admit she had. As they entered town buildings began appearing, and people walking were visible from her angle out the window. It felt as if she had escaped from her grief for a short two hours, and now it was coming back hard. Aja had died, she was laughing and playing with her friends. Life was cruel. She grabbed her black phone from the cupholder and turned it on. Her lock screen, a picture of her and Max from her high school years, stared back at her. For three years, it had been a picture of her and Aja sleeping in bed and curled up together wrapped in each other's arms. A friend of their's, Lizzy, had taken it when she came over to their apartment to go out for breakfast. She found out pretty quick that she couldn't handle seeing it every time she turned her phone on. There was a text from her dad, but she didn't bother to read it and went to photos.

"Don't do that, Rorry." Alexandra had been watching what she was doing, and had clearly foreseen what Rorry was going to look at. Kyan and Rye seemed to have picked up on her emotions too. "You don't need to purposefully make yourself feel crappier." Wordlessly, Rorry flicked her phone off and tossed it on the floor. She felt the car come to a stop and Kyan handed Alexandra back the keys, before getting out with Rye. "Did something happen? You pretty much took a complete turn, there." Rorry sat up from lying on Alex's lap, and shrugged.

"I don't know... I guess I just miss her. I was so excited to bring her here. We were planning on coming for a couple months around now." Alexandra nodded. She didn't need to know everything going inside of Rorry's head.

"Okay. You wanna go get some lunch?" Kyan and Rye had started slowly making their way to a restaurant down a block. Rorry nodded, and hopped out of the car, leaving the black leather seats stained darker from swimming, and her phone on the floor.

"Kyan's gonna wanna talk to you soon, ya know? About everything." Alexandra and Rorry were heading down the sidewalk about a block behind the young man being discussed and their redheaded friend.

"Yeah," Rorry mumbled, staring down at her black high top vans, laces undone and loose, now colored blackish-brown after hiking around and all the rain.

The pair caught up with the others a moment later, to find them arguing wether Kessie was going to have a boy. Rye definitely predicted that the baby was going to be a boy, but Kyan was positive they wold be of the opposite gender.

"She's totally gonna have a girl, Rye." Rorry nodded in agreement, although still sullen, but trying to perk up.

"Ha, Rye! See, even Rorry agrees with me." They entered the restaurant and were greeted by a thin middle-aged man with a brown beard, a black cap, and glasses perched on the edge of his thing, long nose.

The four friends ordered their drinks, before leaping into conversation again. Rorry had been staring off into the distance, not that their was a distance to stare at, but she was staring sorrowfully at the back wall, as if it were suffering greatly. It wasn't, of course, it was just a wall. Rorry brought her attention back to the conversation to hear Kyan finish his sentence,

"you must at least want to have a wedding?" directed at Alex.

"Of course I want to have a wedding, Vik does to. And we practically are married, we've just never had the actual ceremony. We've never gotten around to it." Alexandra explained. "It doesn't really bother me if we wait another five years before a real wedding."

"How are things with Jighah?" Rorry asked. Rye wouldn't suspect anything about last night, right?

"Okay, I guess. I don't know.Things have been kind of weird recently. All of a sudden he's all controlling... I don't know. I'll have to see how it goes." Rye sighed, sounding exhausted by the topic. "I love him, but sometimes he's just..." The server brought the food over, and they began eating, no longer speaking, until Kyan broke the silence.

"Rorry? What are you gonna do?" He spoke quietly, and his eyes stared into her own. The girl, barely a woman, stared into her pasta for a few moments, before looking up.

"What do you mean, Kyan?"

"Are you going to move back home? Or go back to Amsterdam." He gazed at her from across the wooden table and dishes of food, brown eyes searching hers for an answer. Rorry shook her head.

"I don't know, Kyan. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing." Rye, Alexandra and Kyan were silent for a moment. Slowly, they all went back to eating their food, and silence consumed them, only leaving them with the sounds of chewing and murmurings of other conversations from other tables. It was then broken once again by Kyan.

"That's okay. Whatever you need, Rorry, whatever you need to do or wherever you need to go. We will all stand by you and help you as best we can. I mean, I would love it if my best friend came home," he grinned at her, "but, I could live without you for a while more, I believe."

"I'm with Kyan," Alex said. She was also intently looking to the side at Rorry, eyes understanding.