A Silhouette and Maybe More

When All Our Friends Are Dead

A couple of days later Elise had reluctantly but generously given me the address that I desperately needed to find out more about Dan before his death. My first stop was my meeting with Kyle. I had arranged a time and place for us to meet and he gladly accepted to introduce himself to me and was willing to exchange his knowledge of Dan.

Standing in front of the hall mirror, I sighed fixing any fly-always and touching up on my appearance. Today meant everything to me and before I left I mentally prepared myself for anything that might come as a surprise. My mind was in such a focussed state that no emotion was in order to take control, not today. Abigail wished me luck as I left. The cold winter wind bit at my nose and ears similar to when I tried to make my way back to Dan's from my house, in fact, it was roughly around this time of the month...only it was a year ago. I wondered how I was able to last a year without ever struggling to live as normal, but then again, Dan was still alive.

My eyes met with a man who had quite an amount of facial hair, had deep brown eyes and finely groomed hair, this was who I recognised to be Kyle. After shaking hands we both took a seat at the quietest part of the cafe. We chatted for a while as friends before he began explaining that he already knew who I was and in fact had known me for quite a while.

"So how close were you and Dan?" I asked, feeling like an interviewer.

"We were pretty close, he was always such a laugh before things went downhill. After that, we never spoke, he'd disappeared for months upon months."

I looked down and fiddled with my fingers, realising how difficult it must've been for Kyle to lose his best friend and that it wasn't just me who suffered.

"H-How long have you known me?"

"A year maybe. Since you were still with Dan." I looked up at him, confused, how did he know? Reading my mind he sighed, hesitating before he explained. "Dan had contacted me for the first time in a while. It was quite surprising actually, after not talking for what seems like ages he messaged me out of nowhere first of all saying that he was sorry for all the damage he had caused to us and Bastille, then he went on to talk about you."

"Me?" I asked stunned.

"The only reason why he messaged me was because of you. He told me how much he had changed after meeting you, how his life had began to have gotten better."

I sat there, dumbstruck. I guess my experiment did work. Not only had he changed his perspective of me, but also letting other people in, treating them differently to the way he used to.

"But as you might've known that he didn't feel that you were safe around him. It was only a couple of weeks later that he'd asked a favour from me. And that's when he gave me the letter, asking me that when I felt like the time was right I had to give it to you."

I found it rather strange how he had asked to Kyle to deliver this letter when he felt it was right, not Dan but him. Our conversation was increasingly tense but awkward. We had let the subject of our conversation get the better of us and made us feel depressed, but I would rather feel this way and know exactly what happened rather than to live on and not know the truth.

"Had you contacted him after that?"

"Once again, he'd contacted me..."

I leaned in closer, eager to hear anything that was coming out of Kyle's mouth.

"A couple of weeks ago." He sighed.

He reached for his phone in his pocket, typed in the password and showed me the texts that came from the name 'Dan'. It was like a repeat from what I had seen before, that one line of text glowed in front me, nothing else. No explanation, no reason, nothing.

'Sorry'

I looked up at Kyle who looked awfully upset and disappointed. He pulled the phone away from me and looked down, avoiding any eye contact. I felt pity for him. His best friend that he must've known for some time, had his life taken from him this early.

"At first I didn't understand, but when I heard the news, I knew what he meant. I wish I could've done something." He mumbled, keeping his head low and his hands tightly clamped together. Even though I promised myself that I would keep my emotions under control, this was difficult for me. Death definitely takes a toll on you and no matter how hard you try and no matter who it is, it will always cause an effect on you.

For the rest of the evening Kyle and I sat and talked, getting over the sorrowfulness and chatting about funny memories that we had, of our own and about Dan. We were eventually chucked out by the manager late at night, unfortunately Kyle had to get up early the next morning so he left straight away, I however decided to take a stroll through the park, gathering my newly generated thoughts that had been sprung up after my meeting with Kyle.

The park bench seemed welcoming and I sat, staring into nothing.