A/N: For future reference, this follows the book except for what the characters look like; Leslie looks like Anna Sophia Robb.

Frequency

Chapter 1: A Normal, Teenage Life

Night was creeping in on "Aarons' Hardware" and the shop was silent. Well, almost silent. There was a sound of the tightening of bolts and the occasional curse. The shop was pitch black, bar a lone light illuminating a table in the back room, where a lone boy sat, tinkering with a old radio.

The boy's name was Jess Aarons. He had a part time job in his father's company where he fixed things. That's what he did, and that was what he was good at. He spent a lot of time alone when he was younger, so his dad showed him how to fix a radio. From then on, it was all he would ever do. Now, around the run down settlement that was his town, he was a bit of a novelty. They would say: "If you had a radio problem or a car needin' fixin', bring it to that Aarons' boy, he'll fix it right up!"

Jess was sixteen years of age, suffered with serious sleep insomnia, and attended Tristitia Creek High School, West Virginia. Tristitia was the local big town, about four miles west of Lark Creek, and was somewhere Jess tried to avoid, far too many people for his liking.

He may as well not attend school, he wasn't a model student. He spent as much of his time away as possible, and spent most of his time there staring out of the window. At one point, not too long ago, his parents would have tiptoed around his emotions, knowing he was fragile. However, five years on, they had no time for it. He was regularly scolded for either not being at school (because he was in this shop), or not paying attention on the rare occasion he was.

Why did he loath school so much? Simple, he was alone. Kids can be cruel, and a lone teenager is like a fish out of water for any group; an easy target. What made matters worse was his clothes. Even though he got a lot of work at Aarons' hardware, most people in his town were poor and could barely pay, which meant that prices had to be very low. For this reason, he got hand-me-downs from his two obnoxious older sisters. Their old pink shoes that he used to have to cover with old ink. Not any more, it all seemed so pointless now. He went in with his pink shoes and too long shirts and didn't notice until someone smacked into him in the halls or ganged up on him in his car.

"What is wrong with this thing?" he muttered, slapping the radio on the side. He had been tinkering for three hours now, and still nothing.

It was a sight, a sixteen year old boy, on his own, working at nine o'clock on a Friday night when everyone else was out experimenting with drugs or alcohol with their friends. Why wasn't that him? That was the reason for his insomnia, his obsession with fixing what was broken and the reason he wasn't a model student. Jess had been through more than most American teenagers can only dream of and can never, truly imagine. Jess had everything, and it had been ripped from him.

"Ah," he said, coiling a particularly irritating bit of wire and Lark Creek radio service filled his ears.

Jess didn't lean back, sigh with happiness for fixing something that had taken him so long, all he did was stand up and shut the light off. He headed through the store, locking up the doors his father had told him to, and locked the front entrance behind him. What greeted him when he turned was his sorry excuse for a car.

Without worrying, like most teenagers do, about how he looked, he opened the door and hopped in. The car, grumbling as if it didn't want to wake up, stalled for a moment before starting. This time he sighed, pulled out of the car park, and headed to the long, dirty road that lead to his old, dirty house.

xXx

A/N: From here on out the story will be in first person, that was a small introduction.

I pushed our front door open and headed inside. "Hey there, Jess," May-Bell greeted me from reading on the stairs. She was older now, but had exactly the same childish face that looked like it could cry at any moment.

"Hi," I said, absent mindedly. "Did Mom save me any food?" I asked, just noticing that I was hungry from my stomach angrily growling at me.

"Yeah," she replied. "A couple of sandwiches, I think."

"Thanks," I told her, letting that be the end of it as I headed down the hall to the kitchen. Most of my conversations with others were like this, now. Mechanical and felt rehearsed, and never longer than a minute. My thoughts were always to be my own.

Dad was waiting at the table, reading through some pieces of paper that were undoubtedly finance sheets. He looked up and nodded at me in greeting. I nodded back. "Did you fix it?" he asked me, looking back to the papers.

"Yeah, just a coil was interfering," I said, not wanting to go into any detail.

"Right," he replied. "I'll call Mrs. Jackson to come pick it up in the morning, she loved that radio."

That was something you learned from fixing radios: how much people loved them. You also learned a lot about people and, pieced together with my own experience, you could really understand them. Mrs. Jackson didn't love her radio, it wasn't the radio at all. Her husband was a truck driver, so they never saw each other. Mrs. Jackson loved her husband, and missed him every second, and was crushed by the loneliness of not seeing him when she woke up in the morning. The radio spoke to her, gave her someone to listen to who would always be there. I know how she feels. Loneliness is the worst emotion of all. Other than guilt...

"Yeah," I replied, again absent mindedly, "yeah... she does."

"Did you lock up?" he asked briskly.

"Yes," I replied, heading over to the dirty fridge and grabbing the sandwiches Mum had put out on a plate for me.

"You have any school work to finish?" Dad asked.

"Yeah, got some maths," I replied. That was all it was with Dad. He asked a question, I replied, he asked another question, and I replied again. Not much of a conversation. Then again, I had experienced one of those for a long time. Five years, to put a number on it.

"Make sure you get up there and do it," he grunted. His voice had become a lot more husky recently; we must be going under again. Then again, had we ever been, financially, above water? Did it really matter, anyway? Money was just as meaningless as people. As soon as you get it, it's taken away from you. "I don't want another call from no damn teacher complaining about you, you understand?"

"Yes."

"What are you waiting for?"

I didn't respond to that, just took my food up to my room and got on with my homework. At one point, the crushing blow of my father disregarding everything I do brought me to almost tears. Not any more, I think I am 'all cried out'. Now I just seem to be going through the motions of life, like the machines I fix, rather than actually living it. All day I long to be asleep, but sleep never comes. Damn this insomnia.

When I got in my room, which was bare since my sister had moved out into the room where my eldest sister used to live, who had moved out with a boyfriend to Charleston, I saw the piece of paper that was my maths work. I sat at my desk and answered the questions, getting as many right as I could be bothered to, before heading into my bed. It was early, but there was nothing to do but lie in my bed.

I curled up and stared at a picture that I had never removed from my wall since the day after I drew it. The childish drawing that expressed more emotion, to me, than any Da Vinci painting or Beethoven Sonata ever could. A childish drawing of a furiously blonde girl stared back at me.

Leslie...

Leslie Burke. My childhood friend, my childhood best friend. I was ten years old when I met her, a tiny age where everyone thinks you are blind to the world. I probably was, but there was one thing that I knew even then, that Leslie meant everything to me.

You see, I was like Mrs. Jackson. My sisters ignored me, my dad didn't seem to care about me and all Mum did was feed me. I was completely isolated in my own home. School was no better. All that happened there was I was tormented by the local bullies, bothered by a big girl called Janice and spent all my time doodling to escape life. No ten year old should have to feel like that.

Then, one day, out of the blue a young girl read her work on the sea. I was mesmerised, even then. At first, I was full of trepidation; everything hadn't gone well for me so I tried to stay on my own. However, she showed me a world, the true escapism for the trapped. Leslie Burke showed me a land called Terabithia.

Terabithia was a land that existed within our minds, but back then it seemed so real. When I look back, I saw how tragic it was: two children finding hope in each other, who were crushed by their own loneliness so much they had to escape into an imaginary world. However, I loved every second of it and, even now, I would give anything to go back.

The reason I can't go back is even more terrible. As I said, there is only one thing worse than loneliness and that is guilt. Guilt presses upon my shoulders every second I am awake and haunts my dreams every moment I sleep. The guilt of knowing I killed something special.

Like my teacher said, girls like her don't come about every day. I think she was wrong about that, though. Girls like Leslie don't come about every century. She was rarer than a diamond on a beach. Even knowing this, even watching her run through the rain with the dog I had given her just for an excuse to see her smile, I still betrayed her and deserted her when she needed me most of all.

Leslie Burke died five years ago, at eleven years of age. It was one of the biggest tragedies to strike my town. I never told anyone exactly why it was my fault, and that made it all my fault. I could never utter the words fully.

Ms. Edmunds was my childhood crush, a beautiful teacher than taught me music and encouraged my art. One day, seemingly out of the blue, she asked me if I wanted to go to an art museum with her. Obviously, I accepted without a moments hesitation. On the day, a Saturday (if I remember rightly), I rushed out of the house and jumped into her car. That was the moment I could have done something.

Out of the love of being alone in Ms. Edmunds' company, I looked at Leslie's house and ignored her. Little did I know, she was heading the the land she had invented without me. I wonder what she was thinking when she tried to cross the water. I wonder what she thought of me during those moments she hung in the air, like an angel, before tumbling into the torrent and ending her life. Did she blame me? She should do, I deserve it.

If I had just invited her, or if I'd have jumped out of the car and told Ms. Edmunds that I would go another time, or never. If I had just not been a selfish creature not worthy of breath, I could have rescued her. The worst part is knowing she would never have done it to me. She would never have betrayed me. That much I know to this day, you would never meet someone a quarter as loyal as Leslie Burke.

Now she's gone. Taken away from me when I had just become so happy. It was the perfect week when she died. I watched her run through the rain, that damn rain that raised the water and rotted the rope, smiling back at me I felt so happy with my life, knowing I was going to spend a long time with her. I had stupid visions of marrying her, like little kids do, as I scurried back to my house. I relive that moment again and again, just to see her smile back at me. As I get older, the image gets more blurred, and I scream inside for more time, knowing there can be none.

To summarise, it's all my fault and I hate that I lived and she didn't.

Well, I hope you enjoyed. I tried to imagine how I would feel in his situation, and I hope I did it justice.