"NO!" Screamed Valerie, as she was told the unbearable news. "He's not dead!" she shouted over and over again, as her family watched the tears stream down her pale face. "Jack can't be dead, he's not dead. You're lying!"

You see, Valerie had just been told that her best friend, the only person in the world she could really trust, had died. He had saved his little sister from thin ice on the nearby lake, only to fall in himself. This was something that came very painfully to Valerie, as not only had Jack been her best friend, but they both had seemed to become quite affectionate to each other, and Valerie had fell hard for the boy with brown hair, and eyes to match. She stormed out from the small house and walked down the road quite fast, tears pouring from her eyes. She earned various stares, but ignored them and continued walking. 'Jack isn't dead,' she assured herself, fairly certain that all of this was some sort of sick, twisted joke. A prank that Jack would likely pull himself. But something about her friend's face, the one who told her, had said otherwise. His face was miserable, like he too had been crying. Valerie wiped her eyes and sniffed, looking down at the snow-covered ground as she wandered along a small pathway.

Finally, she got to a large frozen lake, which had a fair sized hole in it. The ice looked to have given way to something…or someone. Her eyes grew wide as she realised that the proof was right in front of her. Jack, had indeed, fallen and drowned. "No," she whispered, covering her cold blue lips with her hands. She slowly made her way across the ice, being wary of its tendency to give in to weight, and finally got to the hole. She lowered herself at the edge of it and placed both hands around it. She peered in, but there was no sign of the boy she had once loved. "Jack, no," she cried out, folding her head into her hands and weeping quietly. Her eyes sat still, staring into the water below the ice, imagining how Jack had died.

She sat on the lake for quite a while, mourning the death of Jack. "He's gone," she chanted to herself, over and over again. By this time, the moon had risen, and it was well and truly night.

"Valerie?" called a voice, and she turned to see her little brother standing at the lakes edge, contemplating whether to go and retrieve his sister, or stay where it was safe.

"No, Dean, don't come out," warned Valerie fearfully, holding both hands outstretched to her brother. He obeyed, and stayed there, as Valerie made her way off of the dangerous ice and to her worried little brother.

"Valerie?" he asked in a small, mousy voice.

"Yes, Dean?" she asked, worn out and full of misery and despair.

"Is Jack really gone? Is he never coming back like mum said?" he asked, scuffing his feet on the snow and looking down at his boots. Valerie smiled a small, pitiful smile and crouched to her brother, embracing him softly and resting her chin on his shoulder.

"Jack is really gone. He isn't coming back," she whispered, droplets running down her pale complexion.

"I liked Jack," said Dean, on the verge of crying. "And he told me he liked you," he whimpered before bursting out and wrapping his arms around his sister.

"What do you mean?" asked Valerie, pulling away from Dean and gently pushing a bit of his hair from his face.

"I asked him if he loved you, like mummy loves daddy, and he said maybe more," said Dean, quieting down and sniffling every so often. "He said that one day, he would ask you a very special question and he would be very happy, but only if you said yes," he continued. Valerie looked at her brother with wide eyes, and when she finally spoke, it was in a hushed, small voice.

"Let's go, mother will be worried," she said, standing up and guiding her brother back home, where that night, she laid in her warm bed and cried herself into a restless slumber.