We were best friends...

I wrote this story a month ago, and now I FINALLY finished polishing it up, please comment and tell me what you think of it^^, thanks so much!

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We could always tell, through little signs, that summer was ending: the slight, but noticeable drop in temperature, the once suffocating heat reduced to a dull warm, and if we are really sensitive, the shorter days. Adrian and Danny could also tell through little signs that their summer was ending. The colorful school-transfer papers spewed on the countertop like fallen leaves, the scavenging of cardboard boxes like how a squirrel collects acorns, and a thorough cleaning of the house all indicated one thing. But Adrian and Danny never talked about it, afraid to jinx it and make it come earlier, and because there was no use to talking, even if they spoke or not, the event would still follow through, sooner or later, like an anointed day to die.

One day, it became too cool, too cool to be called summer. Danny's belongings were all hidden from view in cardboard boxes and suitcases, his room was stripped to the bone, his bed already dismantled, leaning against the living room wall with all the other mattresses and wood-stained parts, a deformed tree growing from a sea of boxes. That night Danny would sleep on the couch; the next morning he would be gone. It was time to don a jacket and admit that autumn had come.

"Adrian," said Danny calmly, "I'm moving." There. The words were spoken, loud and clear. Adrian was not so calm, "You can't move away!" His voice cracked under the fury of the emotions whirling inside him - anger, sadness, betrayal even, but most of all the sense of hopelessness - knowing that no matter how much he begged, threatened, no matter what he did, nothing would change the fact that Danny was moving away. Some words were said between them, low, hushed and angry, with an edge of desperation, but neither of them remembered which words were spoken. Both were immersed in a fog of darkness.

The next morning, Danny and Adrian were standing in front of an empty house, the weather in sync with their emotions, gray and on the verge of tears. Danny held a stuffed dog in his hands, but besides that they were identical, both facing each other, but both stared silently at the ground. When the second to last box was in the moving truck, Danny broke the silence. "This is yours," he said, handing Adrian the stuffed dog. "You gave me your lucky cap on my birthday remember? I know it's not your birthday yet but here, take good care of Scruffy and be happy for me, 'kay?" and with that, Danny climbed into the family car and slammed the door shut behind him.

It looked like Danny was just going on a family outing. If it weren't for the moving truck in front of them of the empty house behind him, Adrian never would have guessed Danny was moving away. The two waved to each other until Danny's car turned the corner and was blocked from view. Although Danny already told him to his face that he was moving, and all evidence pointed in that same direction, Adrian sat on their doorstep and waited with Scruffy for a return that would never happen. "They'll come back in just a little bit, huh Scruffy?" Adrian asked Scruffy, over and over again. But the stuffed dog just kept on staring at the road, his mouth sealed with thread.

Thirty minutes, an hour, four hours... still no one turned around the corner and exclaimed, "Oh, never mind, we weren't moving after all, it's all a big mistake..." Curfew had come and the sky had darkened when Adrian started off for home, a few blocks away. First one drop fell, then five, then a hundred. Soon the angels just let it all loose. Their tears mixed with his, their cries of anguish entwined with his own, their grief one.

---

Adrian tried to move on, but every time he did something, Danny would come up in his mind. He tried hanging out with different people, trying to take his mind off Danny, while trying to find a place like the one Danny and he created, a home away from home.

But wherever he sought refuge, he was always the third wheel, an extra. He was not needed. Soon Adrian learned that 'hanging out' was just the same as watching from afar. Then another realization came to him: the world doesn't care, I'm the only one who even notices Danny's gone, and everything just keeps on moving, nothing stops.

It didn't take long before Adrian went deep inside himself, deep, where his realizations couldn't torment his mind, where he couldn't pull out his pleasant, now grievous memories and bash his heart to pieces. The days became hazy cycles of school, home and sleep, each the same as the other: cold and dark.

The color in the world, once bright, had faded until it was a dull grey.

One day, as with any other, Adrian was in a sleeplike trance, slouched in his chair, gazing blindly at absolutely nothing, his mind almost deads, his soul buried deep within the infinite space that Danny made when he moved away. Suddenly a voice resonated through this barren world, and Adrian was savagely torn from his thick shroud of numbness and back to life again. His heart pulsed with hope and joy, his senses came to life with even more sensitivity than before, and color flooded back into the world. "Danny!" he whispered hoarsely, his throat raspy from lack of use. He looked around expectantly, but Danny wasn't there... was it a hallucination?

"Oh, you name is Danny?" Danny's voice sounded from an unfamiliar face.

"What...?"

"I asked you what your name was, and you said 'Danny'."

"Who are you?" How could their voices be so similar?

"I'm Pat," the guy said, "and you still haven't ansewered my question yet."

This is so confusing; his voice is just like Danny's, except he's not Danny... Adrian's mind had barely recovered from the shock of Danny's voice, and could not fully grasped the idea that Danny's voice did not come from Danny himself, but from a stranger...

"What's your name?" Pat insisted, taking a step closer.

"Adrian, can you just leave me alone and go bother someone else?" the words came out harsher then he intended, but what was said was said.

That evening, Adrian received a letter from Danny.

'Hey Adrian,

How are things back home?

My new school and new home are okay now. I used to hate everything, even considered becoming one of those emo bitches! (No offense to anyone though, :])

I have a new friend now, Zach, don't worry though, you're still my best friend, but it's nice to chill with someone again.

-Danny

PS. I miss you'

After reading it, Adrian leaned back on his chair, into a warm darkness where the light of his desk lamp couldn't illuminate, his hands gently holding the paper upright, silently contemplating the contents of Danny's letter.

The next day on his way for a frap, Adrian saw Pat crouched next to the greenery outside the Starbucks coffee shop, seemingly looking for something.

"Hi," Adrian said.

No answer.

"What are you doing?" asked Adrian, lowering himself so that he was at eye level with Pat.

"I thought I saw a cricket," said Pat, still looking, not bothering to look up.

"Crickets?" Adrian laughed softly, amused, "Queer."

"It's not strange," said Pat defensively, "I used to have a pet cricket, but when I moved here I had to leave it behind."

"There are some in my backyard," Adrian offered.

"You gotta be kidding me," said Pat.

"No really, it's true, wanna come over to my house to see?"

At this Pat turned to face Adrian, studying him, trying to figure out if Adrian really was sincere. After a pause, Pat said, "Okay."

The backyard was like a homeless old man. His green beard was bushy and overgrown, his pale skin was cracked and streaked with mud, and his ragged brown clothes drooped limply around his form, barely covering it. Two children stood in the mist of this mess, quiet.

Spying something, Pat drifted slowly towards the ground; his eyes focusing on an unknown object. In one swift movement, his hands sprang out and nabbed a cricket.

"Seems no one comes here a lot," said Pat, and then turning to Adrian, "You must really like me to take me here, don't you?"

"Danny used to come here,"

"Who's Danny?"

"He's my best friend, but he moved far away... we send each other letters now though. We used to go on the roof and gaze at the stars and listen to the crickets..." Adrian gazed at the rooftop, and back in time, remember, "heh... he always wondered if they could feel our emotions and only sing when we feel happy..."

"Why don't you write to him about the crickets?" offered Pat, "They're singing now."

Adrian listened, and sure enough, though pretty quietly, the cricket in Pat's hands was chirping.

---

Warm sunny rays splashed on Adrian's nightwear as he sat at his desk with Danny's letter in front of him. Wiping his chocolate milk mustache off his mouth, he proceeded to answer Danny's letter.

'Hey Danny,

Things are all right at home, just the usual.

No offense taken, and don't be so hard on yourself about just thinking about being emo, im even more at fault than you.

If you were here, we'd do so many things together, but you're not.

I heard a cricket sing yesterday, the new kid named Pat showed me it.

-Adrian

PS. I miss you

PPS. How's Zach?

PPPS. See you when you come to visit this summer.'

Adrian looked over his work. Satisfied, he folded his letter into thirds and placed it in a white, crispy preaddressed envelope. After slipping a pair of jeans over his boxers and throwing on a short-sleeved shirt, he bent down to where Scruffy sat on his desk and kissed him on his head, "I'm leaving now, Scruffy," he whispered. Then, holding a slice of toast in his mouth he walked outside and mailed his letter. Then he rode his bike over to Pat's house to chill.

The End