Picture on the side is of my Aaron. I chose Logan Lerman, because I love him:)

Chapter 2

Summer

Numb. If there was ever a word used to describe a person, feeling numb was what did it for me. I remembered bits and pieces of Matt’s funeral, but nothing that made a lasting memory.

I remembered that a lot of strangers who claimed to be best friends with Matt showed up. I remembered Matt’s mom sticking by my side the entire three days Matt’s body was allowed to be in the funeral home.

“At least I have you,” she kept repeating.

Matt was an only child. Now that he was gone, his parents were alone.

I was at least glad they weren’t like those couples, who losing a child usually brought on a divorce. If anything, I noticed that George and Silvia, Matt’s parents, were closer than they had ever been before.

All of the days that followed Matt’s death were a blur. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months.

Nothing about that summer was memorable.

Most of my days were spent locked up in my room. At first, people tried to visit me. My friends, even some who I wasn’t as close to, would come and visit. After my mom told them the first few times I wasn’t up for it, they stopped coming.

The only one who kept coming, and who I wasn’t ignoring, was Silvia, Matt’s mom.

It didn’t matter if I was crying, or if I felt depressed. Seeing Silvia, being around her- it was a reminder that all the time I spent with Matt- it had been real.

Fall

Matt and I were supposed to start our first year of college in the fall. We had everything ready. We’d be sharing an apartment a few blocks away from the campus. Our classes had been picked three weeks before we graduated.

But, I couldn’t do it.

So I spent the next months after that, locked up in my room, just like I had done in the summer. My parents attempted to get me out.

My mom even threatened to kick me out of the house if I didn’t start school. Of course, it was an empty threat. I knew she was doing it so that I would stop, but I couldn’t.

I loved Matt. Now that Matt was gone, I felt lost, empty.

Winter

Cold weather usually made me depressed. When I was with Matt, I used to cuddle with him, while he told me stories about the Sci-Fi books he loved so much. Most of them included other worlds, or other dimensions.

Being with him always made everything better, but even he couldn’t push away that sadness that sometimes crept up to me when it was cold or rainy outside.

It was two days after New Year’s. My parents had gone to visit my grandma. They invited me, just like they did every time they went out. I had said no.

A lot of Matt’s belongings were in my room. Silvia had decided to keep Matt’s room just as it was. One day while I was visiting her, I went into his room.

Most of the time I was inside, I’d spent crying. When Silvia saw me, she joined in. Finally, after we had both calmed down, we began reminiscing about him. She had allowed me to keep some of his stuff.

I honestly wanted everything, but of course, I couldn’t do that.

So, I picked things that I thought reminded me most of Matt.

I took his favorite hat, his playing cards, some of his shirts- which still had his scent- a few books, and his journal.

Finding his journal had been a surprise. I knew that sometimes he wrote down some thoughts in books, but I didn’t know he had a journal. That was, until I found it hidden behind some books in the shelf. 

Without Silvia noticing, I slipped the journal under some of the books I kept, and brought it home with me.

The journal tormented me all summer and fall. I had been tempted to read it, but I was scared of what I would find.

Finally, when my parents were out the house, I kept staring at it. After arguing with myself about it for the longest time, I opened it. When I did, I couldn’t help myself until I had read it all.

Everything about it was just like Matt. Reading it felt like I was hearing him talk, right next to me. Tears kept running down my cheeks, making my vision blurry. I only wiped them away, and kept reading.

The last ten pages of Matt’s journal made something in my heart twist. The tears stopped, and no longer was I missing Matt, but I was angry with him.

He had kept a secret for me.

Spring

I was sitting down at a diner, with my head down. I’d ordered a burger with a drink, but I couldn’t eat it.

It was only February, and I was already cursing my decision of starting school. I was only taking the four required classes, but one of them was already kicking my butt.

I’d taken Pre-Cal in high school, but nothing could prepare me for the Calculus course I was taking, or for the teacher who liked to give twenty problems of homework each day we met for class.

I was only on my fifth problem, and already I was stuck. It didn’t help that it was getting late. I had class late tomorrow, but I liked to go for a morning jog before class began.

“You’re in my booth,” I heard a guy say.

I picked up my head, to find a guy standing next to the table, looking amused by something.

“I’m starting to wonder if this table has something that attracts girls,” he said, sliding down across from me.

“Excuse me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“This is my booth,” he repeated casually.

“I don’t think so. I’ve been here for a while, and it was empty when I got here,” I told him.

I began working on my problems, or attempted to work on them.

The guy didn’t move from the seat across from me. He was looking at what I was writing down in my paper, and it was starting to annoy me.

“Can I help you with anything?” I asked him, wanting for him to go away.

“I doubt you can. It seems like you can’t even help yourself,” he said, pointing down at my unsolved problems.

“2, 3, and 5 are wrong, by the way,” he continued.

I looked down at the work I had done for the problems. They seemed right. I’d worked on problem number 3 for almost an hour. It had to be right.

“How do I know you’re not lying to me?” I asked.

The waitress walked over in that moment, a pad was on her hand.

“The usual?” She asked the guy in front of me.

He nodded, giving her a friendly smile.

Dimples formed on his cheek, and I couldn’t help but find them cute. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I felt guilty for thinking it. An image of Matt crossed through my mind. Even though I was still mad at him, it felt like cheating to think of any other guy as cute.

“I’ll be back with your food,” the waitress said, before walking away.

“You come here a lot?” I asked him, nodding toward the waitress that had walked away. She already knew what he was going to have.

“Na, just every night,” he replied jokingly.

I frowned at him, not finding his comment funny, and continued on my homework.

“You know, you’re doing them wrong,” he said, interrupting my train of thought.

“No I’m not,” I told him.

When I looked up, he was shaking his head at me. His longish black hair was moving along with him, and I couldn’t help but notice that for a guy- he really had nice hair. It had that skater look, but still managing to look preppy.

“You are doing it wrong. You’re trying to work out all the problems like problem 1. But after the first one, the rest follow a different pattern. That equation you used for problem number 3 isn’t really Calculus at all. I’m not sure where you got that from,” he said, trying not to laugh at me.

I covered my paper, not wanting to have him criticize my work more than he already had.

“I’m doing it like the professor did it in the example,” I said, defensively.

“Which example?” He asked, turning my paper around so that he could look at it.

I showed him the notes I’d copied from the teacher. He gave them a once over and then looked up to at me, with a grin on his face.

“See here, that’s exactly like problem 3. If you follow this example, you should get it right this time,” he told me, pointing toward an equation I had completely ignored.

I was reluctant to do what he said at first. After I worked out the problem, I realized he had been right.

“See, I told you.”

As soon as he said that, I found myself frowning again.

The waitress brought two plates filled with food, a large drink, ice cream, and some coffee.

“Are you seriously going to eat all that?” I asked him, pointing at all the food the waitress had put in front of him.

He nodded at me, while he took a fork full of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

“You come here every night, order all that, and I’m guessing you go to school here. How are you not broke?” I asked, looking at him in awe as he managed to eat half of the eggs in his plate in record time.

“It’s not as expensive as you would think,” he replied, after taking a long drink from his coke.

For the first time, I noticed his hazel eyes. Right now they were concentrated on the plate of food in front of him, but when he looked up, the light would hit them. They seemed to change from hazel to green, depending on how the light touched his eyes.

“I’m Aaron, by the way,” he said, outstretching his hand to me. It was sort of awkward shaking hands with him. With all the things in front of him and me, we had to be careful not to bump over anything.

“I’m Annabel,” I introduced myself.

“So is this your second semester?” He asked, taking a break from his eggs, and now focusing on his ice cream.

“No, it’s my first, actually. I started late,” I replied.

He looked at me curiously, and I was scared he would ask me why I didn’t start last semester. It was actually a miracle that I was able to make it for the spring semester. My dad had to contact the school, and make a lot of arrangements in order to get me to register so late.

“How’s it going? You’re first semester, I mean,” he asked.

“It’s still going,” I replied, which made him chuckle.

“You?” I asked, feeling a little curious about him.

“I’m a sophomore, and this is my fourth semester. Well, fifth, if you count the summer. I took two classes, but they weren’t hard,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders.

“What are you studying?” He asked me, while he nodded toward the scattered papers in the table.

“I’m still undeclared, but I had to choose classes. My advisor said you can’t go wrong with Calculus, but now I know not to listen to her next time,” I told him.

Again he chuckled at my words, while he scooped another spoon of ice cream into his mouth.

“Calculus isn’t so bad,” he said, but his grin told me he thought otherwise.

“You’re probably studying something really smart, aren’t you?”

“I’m going for Computer Science, and it’s not that smart. It’s entertaining,” he said.

I noticed that since we started talking, he was always smiling, grinning, or chuckling.

I couldn’t help but want to feel as happy as he seemed. He looked so carefree.

Aaron ended up helping me with the rest of the problems. He seemed to enjoy correcting me every time I made a mistake. It didn’t exactly help that I made mistakes on every single problem.

By the time I was done with the worksheet, I had five pages filled with my worked out equations, and Aaron had kept that smug look on his face.

I kept thinking he was mocking me, but he said he was only trying to help out a fellow student who was in trouble.

“I need to get going,” I told him, after I stuck all my homework in my Calculus binder.

“Okay,” he said, offering me a smile.

He’d finished his food long ago. While I picked up my stuff and shoved them in my book bag, I noticed he was taking out a notebook from the back pack he’d been carrying.

“You’re going to start your homework?” I asked him. It was already past midnight. I felt guilty that I had him help me with mine that he hadn’t gotten a chance to work on his.

“Not really. I usually do my homework on my laptop, and it’s usually done right after its assigned,” he replied, with that grin I was learning to know as his trademark.

“What are you going to do then?” I curiously asked.

“I’m writing a code for a software. The algorithm is giving me some trouble, so I usually draw pointless things and it helps me think,” he said, while he opened up the notebook.

When he did, I realized that it wasn’t just a regular notebook. It was actually a sketchbook, which had a lot of different sketches all over the place.

“That’s actually really cool,” I said, taking the book from him.

“It’s decent,” he replied, while he waved the waitress over.

While the waitress poured more coffee in his mug, I started looking over some of his drawings. They were intricate, creative, and simply beautiful.

“You want a refill?” The waitress, whose name I discovered was Rose, asked me.

I nodded unconsciously, without looking up from the sketchbook.

Just like that, my night was decided.

I hadn’t noticed time passing by. I only focused on Aaron, who was probably the smartest person I knew, while also being slightly narcissistic, but with the perfect sense of humor.

He’d offered to walk me to my apartment. It was only two blocks from the diner, so I turned down his offer.

It was almost 4 in the morning. The sky was still dark and the air was really fresh. I was glad I had decided to carry my jacket to the diner.

While I walked back, I couldn’t help but think that all the time I spent with Aaron, was the longest I had gone without thinking of Matt.

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