A Murder Of Crows [boyxboy]

A Murder Of Crows {25}

                Aria and I sat together for a while, barely speaking. Aria was her usual self. Unpredictable, always a mystery.

                She let a ladybug crawl onto the tip of her finger and set it gently down on a cluster of leaves. She let a spider crawl onto her finger and squished it against the ground without a second thought.

                Words weren't needed between us. No matter how long it had been since we'd last spoken, no matter how much I'd hurt her by cutting her out of my life, no matter how much things had changed, we were still just Aria and Cor.

                As it got a little later, I knew I had something to do before asking Jamison to dinner. So I stood up, offering my hand to Aria.

                She raised an eyebrow but took my hand. "You don't usually offer meaningless help. I'm perfectly capable of standing up on my own."

                "You still took my hand," I said. "I guess we've both grown."

                She didn't let go of my hand, instead lifting my arm up and looking at the bracelet. "Now you have to stay friends with me. No one else can make one like that."

                "Yea. No one else," I said.

                It was a promise, in our own way. Aria released my hand, which meant she trusted that even if she let me go, I'd come back this time.

                But it was Aria, and I'd always come back to her.

                We left the path and parted ways without a word. She'd given me my space all this time, despite the questions I was sure she must've had. It was no coincidence we hadn't happened to run into each other since I'd stopped speaking to her.

                I went back to my dorm room, hands in my pockets. I could feel the light tickle of the bracelet against my wrist. It wasn't unbreakable. It was better.

                I let myself into my room and texted Val. I sat down in front of our unfinished puzzle and waited.

                It was a few minutes before Val let herself into my room. She shut the door and sat across from me, picking up a piece.

                "So what is this about? I know you wouldn't just invite me here if you didn't want something." The smug look on her face said she already knew what this was about, though.

                "You tipped Jamison off to Kieran's involvement," I said. I'd been thinking it over and over in my mind. "Why? What was your goal in all of this?"

                She eyed a piece and set it in the proper spot. "Did you know I met Jamison when I was a little kid? He doesn't remember, but I do. These older boys were picking on me while I was walking home from school one day. They pulled my hair and stole my doll. They were tossing it between each other, and I couldn't catch it. Jamison stopped them. Kieran and Cole were with him, but they didn't even notice it was happening. Jamison did, though. Kieran is narrow-minded. He fights for his goals, but that's all he can see. Jamison sees the bigger picture. He saw the little girl getting bully, and he stopped it."

                "What does that have to do with anything?" I said. She was being cryptic again, but I was done playing her games. I wanted answers.

                "My grandpa always had this saying. 'The world spins' he always said. 'The world spins' is what he said when my parents told him they were moving to America, and what he said when I was born, and what he said when his dog ran away, and what he said when my dad started a new job, and what he said when my cousin died from a drug overdose." She picked through the puzzle pieces carefully. "Life goes on, good or bad. My cousin, he had some prescription pills he took legally and some he bought illegally for other issues his doctor didn't think were as serious. And the combination of those pills killed him when he was 19 years old."