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Aubrey was used to leaving school late. Whenever she bothered showing up for class she almost always wound up in detention for some reason or another, usually with at least one of her friends. Right now, however, she was all alone; not just alone without her friends, but alone without anyone else in the halls. It was never this empty when she left detention. She expected to see at least a few other students still at school for a club or something like that, but she hadn't seen a soul. What's more, it was never this dark when she left detention. Had she really been at school that long?
"Aubrey." The voice beside her was barely above a whisper, but compared to the dead silence of the surroundings it might as well have been screaming in her ear.
Instinctively reaching for a bat that wasn't there, Aubrey's heart jumped into her throat as she spun toward the source of the voice, only to be met with Sunny's nonplussed face.
"Jesus Sunny, you scared me." Aubrey gasped, relaxing.
Sunny blinked slowly. "Sorry."
"It's fine, don't worry about it." Aubrey said with a dismissive wave as she looked him over. "You're looking a lot better than you did this morning. I'm glad."
Sunny looked confused. "What do you mean?"
Aubrey frowned. What did she mean? It just seemed like the correct thing to say, but Sunny's reaction was making her second guess herself. She was pretty sure she was right, though; the image of Sunny she had in her mind - sunken eyes, pale skin, completely emotionless - seemed far too real to be something she had made up, even if it contrasted harshly with the much more healthy and animated Sunny that was standing before her right now.
Eh, whatever. School sucked the life out of everyone.
"Never mind." Aubrey shook her head. "Anyway, what's up? I didn't think you'd be here this late."
"I was waiting for you." Sunny said, blushing. "...I got your letter."
Now it was Aubrey's turn to be confused. "Letter? What letter?"
Sunny held up a plain white envelope, adorned only with a pink heart carefully drawn in colored pencil.
Aubrey narrowed her eyes as she examined the letter. As she did so, a strange sort of familiarity started to seep into her brain. Then, all at once, her eyes widened in recognition.
"O-oh." She stammered. "That letter." Feeling uncharacteristically bashful, she hastily brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "S-so, uh... what do you think?"
Sunny's blush deepened as a small smile formed on his face. "I'm so happy you feel the same way that I do, Aubrey... Yes, I accept your feelings."
A wave of relief and euphoria washed over Aubrey.
He said yes?
He said yes!
"HE SAID YES!" Aubrey cheered, pumping her fist. After a beat, she realized she had said that out loud and pulled herself together. "I-I mean, I'm happy you feel the same way too, Sunny."
Sunny nodded. "Do you... want to go somewhere?"
Aubrey felt her cheeks grow hot. "Y-yeah, sure. Just let me go to my locker super quick." She ran off down the hall, practically skipping along the way.
She still couldn't believe he said yes! She had been so scared of confessing; too scared to do it to his face, even. Even the letter was almost too much. She remembered walking up to Sunny's locker three separate times before finally biting the bullet and slipping it inside.
Her skipping stopped.
She did remember doing that, but... when did she do it, exactly? It must have been this morning, right? Then why didn't she remember doing it until Sunny showed her the letter?
"Aubrey."
Aubrey jolted before turning to her side, only to find-
"S-Sunny?" She asked. "Where did you-"
"Let's go to Gino's, Aubrey." Sunny said with a confident smile. "My treat."
"Uh... okay." Aubrey nodded slowly. "Just one second." She speed-walked away from him down the hall.
What just happened? Did Sunny run ahead of her and she didn't notice? He never had the greatest presence, but she was pretty sure she would have noticed that, even with her head in the clouds like it was right now.
"Aubrey."
Aubrey looked to her left, and there he was again.
"I'm really sorry, Aubrey." Sunny frowned. "I left you all alone."
"Left me all alone?" Aubrey asked. "Sunny, what are you talking about?"
"But I'm going to make it up to you." Sunny continued without answering her. "I promise I'll never abandon you again."
Aubrey shook her head, not sure what he meant. "I... yeah, sure, apology accepted." She started walking again, and after a few steps broke into a dead sprint without looking back.
The elation that Aubrey had felt was slowly being replaced by panic. What was going on here? Was the school hallway always this long? Shouldn't she have gotten to her locker by now? Shouldn't she have seen a wall by now?
And then she ran past Sunny again.
"I really like your new hair, Aubrey!"
And again.
"Aubrey, you're so cool!"
And again.
"I love you, Aubrey!"
Eventually, she ran out of steam and stopped running. Gasping for air, she leaned against the endless row of lockers, staring at the floor.
"Aubrey."
She didn't need to look up to know who it was.
"I-"
"Stop." She held out a hand to cut him off, panting. "Just stop, Sunny, and tell me how the hell you keep getting ahead of me."
"Getting ahead of you?" Sunny raised an eyebrow. "I haven't been getting ahead of..." He trailed off, looking at something behind Aubrey. "Aubrey, who are they?"
Swallowing hard, Aubrey turned around.
Standing behind her was another Sunny. Another six Sunnys, to be precise. As she stared at them, they all suddenly looked at each other in surprise, as though they were noticing each other for the very first time.
"What's going on here?" The seventh Sunny asked.
Before Aubrey could protest that she had no idea, one of the Sunnys behind her spoke up.
"I'm going on a date with Aubrey."
Another Sunny glared at the one that spoke. "No, I'm going on a date with Aubrey."
"We can't all be going on a date with Aubrey." Yet another Sunny said, before looking at her. "Can we?"
Aubrey felt the pressure of fourteen eyes upon her. "I-I don't..."
"Don't worry, Aubrey." The Sunny in front of her said. "I know how to fix this." He walked up to one of the other Sunnys.
"Oh yeah?" The other Sunny challenged him. "What are you going to-"
He moved so quickly Aubrey almost didn't see the knife.
The other Sunny seized up as he was stabbed in the chest. Then, as the Sunny with the knife pulled it out, he toppled to the tiled floor of the hallway without a sound.
Aubrey jumped back, covering her mouth in shock. She looked at the rest of the crowd of Sunnys to see if they were as alarmed as she was, only to find that they all suddenly had knives of their own.
In seconds they were all on top of each other. The ensuing fight was quick but brutal; one Sunny would finally get his knife between the ribs of another, only for a third to stab him in the back. As the number of Sunnys rapidly dwindled these cheap shots became harder and harder to do until all that remained were two Sunnys standing on either side of Aubrey, lunging and feinting at each other from across a pile of bodies.
Emboldened, the Sunny on the right surged forward with a wide slash that the Sunny on the left was barely able to lean away from. A second upward slice was deftly parried, and then it was suddenly Left Sunny on the attack with a quick thrust at Right Sunny that grazed his cheek.
"You'll have to do better than that!" Right Sunny snarled, grabbing the extended arm.
With his arm held in place, Left Sunny was unable to dodge the next slash, and could only turn his head away from the blade, resulting in a cut on his own face nearly identical to that of his doppelganger.
"Same to you!" Twisting his body around, Left Sunny escaped from the hold before whirling around for another swipe.
The two blades scraped against each other, sparks flying as they locked. The two twins tried to press their blades towards each other's throats for a few seconds more before they each staggered back, stumbling to the floor.
"This... this isn't working..." Left Sunny said, out of breath.
"You're... telling me..." Right Sunny nodded, picking himself up. "We're too evenly matched."
"There's only one way to settle this." Left Sunny stood up.
"Yes, only one way." Right Sunny nodded again.
Both Sunnys turned to Aubrey, who instinctively took another step back.
"Aubrey, who are you going to go out with?"
Aubrey looked between the two Sunnys as she took another step back, bumping against the row of lockers behind her. "I... I..."
Before she could make a choice, the wall behind her vanished, plunging her into darkness and giving her the briefest experience of falling.
Aubrey winced in pain as her head banged against the wall behind her bed. Grimacing, she sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, taking in the familiar scenery of her attic room. It was the middle of the night; her dream must have woken her up.
Her dream... seeing Sunny after so long must have really been getting to her if he was showing up in her dreams again. Of course, tonight's dream was a far cry from the childish ones she used to have. There were much fewer knives in her old dreams, for one thing.
She knew where the knives came from, at least.
Aubrey held up her right arm. In the moonlight, she could just make out the cut Sunny had given her. He had barely grazed her so it probably wasn't going to scar, but that didn't change the fact that her childhood friend had attacked her with a goddamn knife. Sure she yelled at him, and sure she threatened him with her bat first, but still! What the hell was wrong with him?
More importantly, what the hell was wrong with her? Sunny comes out of his house for the first time in four years and does nothing but make her life difficult, and here she was dreaming about him confessing to her like she was still twelve years old.
Because that's when she actually wrote that stupid love letter. She had dropped it off the last day of school before the recital. She didn't expect him to respond right away since he was still busy practicing every evening, but she hoped that maybe he would give her an answer after the recital.
And then Mari...
When Sunny came back to school after the funeral it was like all the life had been drained out of him. Any attempts to talk to him were just met with a wall of silence. She didn't press him about the letter - even she wasn't that tactless - but looking back she couldn't help but wonder if he had read it or not.
It didn't matter anymore. As far as she was concerned, the girl that put her feelings into that letter no longer existed. Besides, Sunny had already given her his answer. He gave it when he went into his house and never came out again.
Until yesterday.
He looked just as bad as he did right after Mari died. If anything, he looked worse. Had he seriously not done anything else for years besides say cooped up in there?
Anger flared up in Aubrey. He acted like he was the only one affected by Mari's suicide. Like no one else was hurt by what happened. Like she wasn't hurt by what happened.
But... isn't that what she wanted? She was mad at Kel for forgetting about Mari. She was furious at Basil for defiling their memories of her. Sunny, on the other hand, was very clearly still broken by what had happened, even after all these years. She just wanted someone else to grieve for Mari as she did; why didn't she think of Mari's little brother, of all people?
Because she was waiting for him to come to her, that's why. Just like always, Aubrey was selfish and wanted other people to come to her rescue, and never the other way around. It made her think of Kel. She remembered seeing him knocking on Sunny's door a few times; it never worked, and it made her upset that Kel never did anything like that for her, but at least he was trying. And apparently, it finally had worked, because now Sunny was back outside.
All of the anger she had felt fizzled out, and self-loathing took its place. She should have been the one knocking on his door. Hell, maybe she could have swallowed her pride, forgave Kel, and the two of them could have knocked on Sunny's door together.
Instead, she abandoned him, just like she accused everyone else of doing to her. And when they finally were reunited, she managed to screw that up too. If Sunny didn't already hate her for the fight they got into yesterday, he certainly did after she nearly drowned him today. She couldn't help anyone. All she was good at was burning bridges.
Sunny hated her for abandoning and hurting him. Basil hated her for bullying him. Kel hated her for bullying Basil. She had no idea about Hero, but once Kel told him what she had done, she was sure he would hate her too.
It was fine. That was what she deserved, to have all of her old friends hate her.
...Just as much as she hated them.
Aubrey rolled onto her side and hugged her pillow, crying herself back to sleep.