track #04 in cadence aurora di angelo

(g)-idle // tomboy

AS THE sounds of Gwyneth and Kunboss yelling at each other continue down below, I snuggle further into my warm sheets, hoisting yet another sketch pad onto my lap as I sit on my bed facing the projections of the sea and the waves, remembering all the memories that bring yet another wave of nostalgia at me. Tears well up in my eyes as I remember him, and the 'us' that didn't have a chance to exist.

I grasp a pencil between my fingers unsteadily, and start outlining my sketch on the soft, textured paper of the sketchbook. Every scene is taken straight from my memories, straight from the extensive photo gallery of my brain; as if someone extracted a wisp of my childhood memories using Dumbledore's pensieve.

Smiling, I draw his chiseled side profile – his smile, his charming eyes, and that fearless glint in them as he smiled for a karate game; his tall, handsome nose, and how grown-up he looked as a nine-year-old – and caress the charcoal drawing with my hand, rubbing some of the lead off in the process. I immediately panic, trying to salvage my already kind of ruined portrait, but it's of no use. Just like how the charcoal erases eventually, every bit of Rylie that I remember – is slowly fading away. But I just won't believe it. I refuse to.

With rage, I throw the charcoal pencil onto the floor and watch it break into two, smiling wide as I see it being destroyed. Then, I pick a black gel pen from my collection and continue drawing every scene I can think of.

Sleepovers; Rylie's sleeping figure and us girls teasing him, school; passing notes in Science – which made it less boring, karate class; where he was only the best of the best; and when he stood tall on a tree, ever so bravely facing his fear of heights.

Lips pursed, tongue stuck out – revising for tests; reading from a book – as how our life was like a fairytale; hangouts with Ariana and Andros; swinging from the neighborhood hammock; chasing each other as we raced down the street after dismissal.

But as much as I hoped the gel pen wouldn't rub off like the charcoal, it does. It smudges squid black ink all over my dominant right hand as I move it across the canvas, adding details to his figure; and I yell in anguish and frustration, flinging the pen onto the floor carelessly once again.

I close my eyes, trying to imagine what sixteen-year-old Rylie would look like now, and put my notepad aside. From my bedside table, I retrieve my iPad and begin outlining again, this time carefully tracing it with my stylus pen. This has never once deleted my work – my iPad is my safe haven when it comes to digital art and digital reading.

Without knowing it, I've drawn the two of us together, but as I take the iPad up into my arms to admire my drawing of a now-Rylie and me – how we fit together perfectly, how happy I look seeing Rylie back alive, the app suddenly glitches, fading into darkness and all of my hard work is gone.. again.

The point isn't the time or effort I spent drawing – it's what I put the time and effort into to draw. And the subject is my best friend – who has three times, faded into nothingness.

I guess the world thinks I will never have a future with Rylie in it – which is unacceptable. Even in my brain, Rylie lives on.. forever.

I roar in rage and click the screen off immediately, picking up my notepad, pen and pencil from where they lay. I snap the pencil in half again until the lead breaks for good measure, smirking as I rip the pages with my ruined drawings out from my notepad, tear them apart and crumple them until they're as tiny as shreds, before dumping them into the bin in the corner of my room.

The tears of anger combined with grief eventually come racing down like a waterfall, but it isn't as easy or simple as just tears welling in the corner of my eyes, or silvery beads of water making their way out.

It's wretched wails, the searing heat making its way to my brain, staining my freshly laundered sheets with wet, salty tears. It's the screams of rage and anguish, imagining him gone forever. It's the yells of frustration, the hotness on my cheeks. My hands hurt from punching the stupid hard walls; the same for my head, but for banging against my pillow.

I believed that I would get Rylie's attention this way; that he'd come ever so comforting and tell me it was gonna be alright, tell me that I wasn't in the wrong. And that he'd always be with me. Even if he was a mere spirit, dissolved into the world of the dead.

But since his spirit snapped at me that last time, he's disappeared as if he disintegrated into thin air, and I fear he will never appear again – at least until I apologize or make up for what I did wrong. But didn't I do that? By throwing all the memories that I'd drawn on the notepad and leaving him behind, no longer dwelling on my dead best friend?

Was the 'better place' in heaven good enough for him to leave me; or was it just me, stuck on the thought that he'd stay with me forever?

Stupid, stupid Cadence. Stupid for thinking that he'd stay with you, stupid for thinking that he wouldn't have wanted to move on. Most of all, stupid for crying. And stupid for reopening your old wounds.

The sound of footsteps ring through the stairwells, and somehow even this reminds me of him, of the times when I would get excited hearing the footsteps coming to my room – because it meant that he was coming with snacks.

I twist the doorknob gently, opening the door, with blots of wet tears still splattered onto my red, hot face.

"Tristan?" Gwyneth asks, yelling to the floor above, but there's no reply. She starts making her way up the extra flights of stairs, but turns her head down and sees me instead.

Her concernedness is reflected through her eyes, and I shake my head quickly, denying her access. I gesture towards the stairs, and she hesitantly starts trudging up the extra two flights of stairs again, sighing.

When she's out of eye and ear-shot, I lock myself in my room again, slamming the door shut with an enormous bang, still stuck at the sudden disappearance of my long-lost, dead, best friend.

Even when they call me down for dinner, I refuse. I say no.

I spend the entire night in my room moping.

As the sounds of Gwyneth talking to her mom in her own room come even down to my floor, I sneak out to my terrace and look up to the fourth floor, only to see both of them sitting on her own balcony.

"I love Dad. Kunboss is the only one who doesn't know how much it hurts me to see him still captive. Even Tristan understands. Cadence does, Eunice does, Zoey does, Aiden also does. But why does Kunboss not?" she says through muffled sobs, and her mom pats her back.

"B-but how could that be? He's literally my best friend. I've known him practically since birth. Does that eighteen years of friendship, of platonic love, of hangouts near the beach, of sticking together basically every day, mean nothing to him?" she asks exasperatedly again. "Why can't he just understand?"

Angela smiles. "I know it's hard. But he'll come around. At least in the meantime, you know I'm here for you, and so are Eunice, Zoey, Aiden, Tristan," she smirks, and I let out a giggle at the fact that she pauses at the boy's name, "and Cadence."

I smile when I hear my own name. Humbled to be remembered.

This time around, there's no longer even one single tear lingering in my eye. I look ahead at the boats sailing in the sea, moving towards the lighthouse, amidst nighttime stars, and decide – I wouldn't fall to my love for my dead best friend.

Gwyneth hiccups. "But it's no use if Kun doesn't understand. Of course I love everyone, but... he's just being so insensitive. Not only to me, but to Tristan and Aiden, too," she mutters. "He didn't even catch on to the fact that the people they loved died, and even lashed out because of that. Mom, he's changed. Why so? I liked the old him better."

"He's pretending to be strong, sweetie," Angela grins. "Your dad was like that too," she says jokingly, and Gwyneth laughs along with her. I can see where she got her empathy, humor, and strong-willed-ness from.

I zone out as the mother and daughter talk about their family relationship, and I understood – that if she could be strong for her best friend, I would try to be strong too.

— a/n: what do you think? more depth into cadence's character - what will happen next?