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Everything was gathered in that corner of the earth. Their hasty life, slowly consuming itself,silently flowing away like a polluted river.
'Seeing your life pass by is the worst thing that could ever happen to any human being.'
When he came back to his hometown, it was the first thing that came to mind: that stupid phrase that the homeless man that once lived in Faraway Park told him in exchange for a few bucks.
If those bucks ever actually helped the man, Kel didn't know, and sometimes he wondered if he could have done more.
He looked around, suffocated by nostalgia, crossing the main streets of his rotting heart.
Only a ghost remained of the elementary school he once went to.
Of the things he learned in school, almost none of them actually stuck, but every feeling and sensation, he remembered them clearly,a piece of his life still stuck to that place, maybe glued under an old desk, held by a chewed up melon flavored bubble gum, his favorite ,maybe written on a post-it glued to the side of his messy locker full of funny pictures and stickers given to him by his friends. The once white stairs still looked like a portal from the real life to a fictional one, in that pink tinted building surrounded by dead trees that were once said to make your wishes come true, where once him and his friends invented a whole new religion, and prayed the Tree God every time Sunny and his sister had a concert, when Hero had an exam, or just hoping that the new chapter of Capitan Spaceboy would have came out earlier. The inside of the building didn't smell like cleaning supplies anymore, but each object was still in it's place, like everything was trapped in time, and there it was, Mrs. Sweetheart's desk;
No one ever knew what her actual name was, but everyone knew she owned the keys to heaven: a metal locker full of new notebooks and colored pencils, glitters and stickers, but most importantly, snacks and sweets that she would give away to the children whenever they acted good, and even though she made Sunny and Basil, who were usually the only ones to receive a lot of goods, promise to not give their gifts to anyone, they would always share them with the class. Kel looked at the walls, where the paint had peeled off a bit and a heart drawn in blue pen with someone's initials was fading, reminding him of the time when Sunny asked Aubrey to draw one with their initials in it and she, dense as she was, happily suggested they should have written all of their friends initials in it. Watching the photos trapped in the wooden frames crookedly hung on the wall, he remembered how they were supposed to split up, boys on the right and girls on the left, but him, Basil and Sunny, screamed and cried until the teachers let Aubrey stand next to them. She was once the tallest out of the four, and Kel could still clearly point out the pink bow that she always put in her hair, laughing at the memory of her going on about how said bow was "super extra pink" that day, and when a girl in their class pointed out the fact that it was the same as always, Sunny, who barely ever spoke, stood up for Aubrey,and so followed Basil and Kel, even tho they all knew that girl was right.
Kel took the picture out of the dusty frame, putting it into his pocket after looking one last time at the toothless smiles on his and his former friend's round faces. Basil was always the one to take photos of them, and somehow they always came out beautiful. Who knows where him and Sunny were now; rumors said they both killed themselves, but Kel never believed them.
Even Aubrey, whom he took the freedom to go visit without asking, sweared she didn't know, simply expressing that, in all of those years, she never cared to ask herself where they were,but Kel didn't belive that either. Aubrey was one of those people who never gave up, even though she acted like she never cared, honest and with strong moral values;
Basil always compared her to a gladiolus, Kel never exactly knew how a human person could look like a plant, but he figured his friend was right and nonetheless teased her about it. Who knows what Basil's reaction would have been, knowing that Kel still cared for the small cactus they once bought togheter. Aubrey always said that destiny didn't exist, that the so called destiny was something you build yourself, and that's what always made her a better person, better than most, at least.
She graduated school, even though she always firmly stated she hated it, and was now working as a veterinary, because animals had always been kinder than humans to her.
Her hair and eyes were dark again but, at the nape of her neck, whenever she walked in front of Kel to guide him through clustered buildings and tangled streets, he could still spot a couple of bright pink hair strands that still held the memory of her friendship with Mari.
"Why did you come here?"
She asked. Aubrey's life had changed, she had time to heal, but her aggressive behavior never did.
Kel softly laughed, still struck by the ice cold words that came out of the girls mouth without any hesitation. Maybe she didn't want to see him, maybe coming back hadn't been the right choice, especially without wany warnings.
"I don't know, maybe for this... "
He answered, pulling the photo out of his pocket, handing it to her. She took it, quietly observing each one of the children's figures.
"... Maybe I came back for you "
Kel added, his voice a bit too loud than he intended it to be. Aubrey's body tensed up, Kel's did as well as he searched for any type of reaction from the girl. Her gaze remained locked onto the old picture, not daring to look in the boy's direction. He was about to open his mouth to speak, to tell her that last statement was just a joke,hoping that maybe April and September wouldn't have sounded so far apart, but she suddenly started speaking,
"Remember when we were little? We always used to play pretend, except I was always the prince and you were the princess. We lived in a place that felt like ours, thinking that maybe one day we would have bought it and turned it into our land,planting flowers and breeding bunnies,thinking about each of their names while eating our favorite jam sandwiches... "
They stopped walking, now in front of the train station covered in trash and spray paint, built where once was the always green grass of Faraway Park where they used to always have picnics.
"... Instead they built houses in every angle of this place,and no one waves or smiles at you anymore when you pass by,they don't make Orange Joe or Pet Rocks anymore, and even the fish lady has moved. Coming back now, it makes no sense. This town has changed, and so have we… "
Aubrey finally turned towards him,
"Go away, and don't come back anymore."
Kel wanted to ask her why she didn't move out like the rest of them did,or if it was really too late for him to ask her to run away together and live in the castle that they always dreamed about and eat endless jam sandwiches, but he never did, he didn't have the courage to do that.
Aubrey strongly held the photo, like she was afraid every memory of her childhood would have dissapered if she wouldn't have held it strongly enough.
"Then, goodbye", he said.
"Goodbye", she answered. They both turned around, one to go back to her tiny apartment, awayted only by her bunny and her cat,the other to go wait for the train, to go back to a place that never felt right, complete, a knot in both of their throats longing the hug and apologies that they failed to share.
"Kel", Aubrey screamed through the awfully loud sound signaling the arrival of the train.
"It's not true," she hesitantly said "I know where they are. Basil moved not long after you did. He works at a small flower shop in Center Town, and he's also studying to be a photographer. Sunny graduated art school and, him and Basil are trying really hard to mend their friendship up,how stupid of them. But.."
Aubrey closed her eyes, almost like her own feelings could have jumpscared her.
"... I'm really glad I got to see you,so I guess I'm stupid too. That's all."
Kel's eyes widened,and he felt his smile grow uncontrollably wide.
"I'm stupid too! I mean- I'm glad I got to see you too and I-"
The thought of him sounding too excited made his cheeks redden. He fucked up.
Then she started laughing. The thought of making Aubrey laugh again was something so distant for him at that point of time,and yet there it was, the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. Even when she mocked him, her genuine and sincere laugh always made him all warm and fuzzy inside; she never forced a laugh for things that didn't deserve it and that always made Kel proud of himself as a kid.
He started laughing too, thinking about how stupid they had been untill now, and so the both of them carried that out of tune simphony, as the train engine harmonized with them through it's whistle, fading away in the distance.