There were times where I desperately wanted to murder Laelin, but other times where I - so, so badly - wanted to kiss her. I didn't exactly know for sure if she was naturally annoying or used it as a genius barricade, but I did know that I was still stuck hopelessly behind it.
Lae had never been one to frown; after all, there was almost always a smile on her face, and when there was not, it was a wide grin that made your heart melt. She was about an average height, maybe around 5'5, but never seemed to look her actual height. She always wore boots that made her tall, or sandals that made her look short, even. Her eyes were always a different color, infinitely green on Wednesdays and grey on Sundays, and her hair was always styled differently, though never dyed.
It was as if everything about her was changing; not fake, not real. Just..not necessarily constant. All except for three things - her freckled nose always scrunched up just slightly when she laughed; she had a single signature half smile that caused only a single dimple to indent the center of her right cheek, though that damn half smile always seemed to end as soon as it started; the way she crosses her arms and pinches her elbows every single damned time.
I do remember that there was a time she did all three in just a matter of ten seconds. It was at Alfie's Coffee shop, and we were sitting across from each other with books situated in front of the both of us. I don't remember what the books were about, mainly because I had only gotten through a single page during the three hours spent there. Laelin never seemed to keep herself focused, and she kept saying something new and more strange every sentence or two.
Her eyes were blue that day, and her hair was in braided pigtails. She was wearing slightly too much blush on her left cheek. I remember that she would keep accidentally kicking me under the table and would mention something about puffins or pecan pie between the paragraphs.
I laughed at her joke about politicians (Frankly, she'd always chose certain days to talk about certain things that started with a certain letter) and she crossed her arms over her chest, pinching one of her elbows, and scrunched up her nose while returning the laugh. Merely a second later, her goofy half smile returned and her "I-Can't-Chose-A-Color" eyes settled on my own.
It seemed to only be about a minute of the two of us just studying each other's face.
Then, she finally spoke, and the half smile disappeared.
"Puffins can fit up to five sardines at a time in their beaks on average," she'd giggled and dog-eared the page in the book, causing me to have done the same.
And It was full-heartedly the little things like this that made me eventually fall in love with her.
There were days that we'd spend by the pond near our campus, eating Nutella and Marshmallow fluff sandwiches - she'd call them sammiches for no particular reason - she'd made at home. There were days she'd come visit me at my job at the library, laughing loudly and accidentally snorting at the end whenever I'd make a quiet joke, eventually causing her to have to leave, but it was fun while it lasted.
There were days I'd come to her house to pick her up and she'd only be wearing one sock, having woken up late - which she seemed to be an expert at. And then, there were the days that I'd meet her at Alfie's and she'd be staring at the popcorn ceiling, mainly only focused on finding constellations as much as the next teenage girl would be focused on finding a new outfit.
I also remember having wanted to marry her when we laid on my roof at 4:29 am, when she whispered the lyrics to Chasing Cars.
And here, I sat, staring into her lifeless eyes and waiting for the ambulance to show up. It was these things I wondered as I watching her bloodied and terrified expression.
I was curious as to what her letter of the day was, and what her original hairstyle was this morning. Her hair was now down, and matted with blood. One of her contacts must've been pushed to the back of her eye, and I could finally see her iris' real color. I realized, after four years of loving Laelin, it was a caramel brown, and I came to the second realization that I'd seen her real eye color every Tuesday.
I let the pad of my thumb brush the tip of her porcelain cheekbone, which seemed to be the only clean and perfected part of her face. I didn't cry, nor did I frown.
She was dead. I knew that much.
I sighed and crossed both of her arms over her chest for her, pinching her elbows in her place.
It was scary to have entered the house an hour ago and to have seen her screaming on the phone to her father, saying something about being afraid. Afraid? Of what?
Laelin had an amazing life. There was nothing to be afraid of.
And when she told me she wanted to die, I now thought that maybe, she hadn't meant it literally. Maybe she wasn't asking me to end her.
I came to this one last realization as I held the gun to my temple, now trembling in both fear and pain.
How tragi--
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ns 15.158.61.23da2
