((Yet another tribute to me coming up with something strange while my mother tries to ask me about my day. So, yeah. Guess what gaiz? I'm going to Build-A-Bear Workshop on Sunday for my lil' cuz's birthday! I'm probably more excited than she is. I love that place, so many good memories making stuffed animals and dressing them in odd little outfits. I've made a cat in a soccer/football uniform, a panda ice queen, a husky wearing a floral bikini, and a sparkly light blue bear who wore a set of froggy pj's. I just love that place! I'm going on 15, and I asked my mom if she would let me take my friends there for my next party and she shot me down. Apparently taking a group of teenagers to make stuffed animals isn't suitable for a birthday party. Damn social expectations...))

I met the cousins in Kindergarten on the very first day of school. Obviously the two of them were extremely different, and neither held very much respect for the other. They got over it though, because both wanted to play with me. We three played together from then on through elementary school. Then we "hung out" together until things changed for us in eighth grade.

Many things changed that year. Puberty was part of it, but I won't get into that. I started understanding that I had to be girlier to attract boys, so I started wearing skirts and dresses and wearing makeup. Roderich and I were officially a couple. I started failing my Algebra class. And Gilbert became mentally ill.

It's not like he liked to hang out with us much anymore anyway, he hated it when we got "mushy", but he became even more estranged. At the time he had begun to hang out with Francis and Antonio. They had gotten in a bit of trouble, cutting class, playing pranks, you know, harmless stuff. Nothing actually hurt anyone in any way, but one day Gilbert suddenly stopped talking to people.

He avoided anyone he had previously been friends with like the plague. Every week, on varying days, we would get calls from his little brother asking if we knew where he was, really late at night. He skipped school all together and disappeared into the woods outside of town. When anyone tried to talk to him, he acted emotionless. Gilbert was becoming someone that we didn't know about.

One day, when he actually showed up to school, he looked just plain paranoid. When a teacher asked what was wrong, he began yelling at her furiously and almost hit her before Francis and Antonio interfered. He was dragged away screaming, with a strange, terrified, and angry look in his eyes. Afterward, he didn't speak, he huddled himself into a ball and began to shake uncontrollably. Gilbert's family came for him and took him to a psychiatrist who diagnosed him with a few diseases that had very long names.

Gilbert was removed from school and then on he lived in a mental hospital. His brother visited every day after school, but for very little time. Roderich, Francis, Antonio, and I all visited too, but he still wanted nothing to do with us. He wouldn't speak or look at us, but he would look around the room as if searching for something some days. Other days, he said the worst things he could possibly say and scream animatedly at us from the bed he was confined to.

You see, while he was in the care of the mental hospital, they discovered that he was sick in more than one way. His health deteriorated every day. Gilbert was unpredictable though, so they had to strap him to the bed most of the day. He was completely erratic, and we didn't have any idea how to deal with that. Soon, no one visited him, not even family. We began to forget the boy we once knew, we began to forget what he had become too. Not a single one of us spoke of him or thought of his pain. We were to focused on school or relationships.

One day though, when I went home after school, my mama stood in the doorway with the phone in her hands. "Honey, the hospital called. The nurse said that Gilbert was asking for you. I think you should go."

"Why, Mama? All he's going to do is-is say really mean things and scream and lose his mind even more! Gil is just...I can't be around him! He isn't who he used to be! He isn't my friend anymore!" I said, distressed by my mother's news.

"Now dear, your friend can't help it. It's a disease, not a choice. The poor boy needs company. I asked the nurse, she said that he hadn't had a single visitor for at least four years. You're a senior now, almost an adult. Act like one. Be a friend to a boy who doesn't have any, despite his actions. And if he gets mean, just leave. Please?"

"Fine. I'll go," I replied. Stowing my school bag in my room, I grabbed my purse and a quick snack before getting behind the wheel of my car. It was a fifteen minute drive from my house to the hospital, barely anything really.

I walked into the hospital and signed in. It had been a very long time since I visited him, so I got a short, blonde nurse who was a bit too peppy to lead me. She peaked in on a few residents as we walked down the hall. They had a range of emotions that peaked in strange places, making me extremely uncomfortable.

She dropped me at his room and walked away without peaking in. She had a slightly worried look on her face, but she tried to hide it. When I entered, Gilbert turned to look at me. I didn't realize how much someone could change in four years. It was a change that looked like it had snuck up on him.

His hair was longer, falling past his ears and covered the back of his neck, and his bangs were parted so they fell around his eyes, but couldn't block his view. His eyes looked listless and empty, not angry, paranoid, or in any way animated. Gilbert was paler than his albino skin usually was and it looked sunken and tight to his skin. He was no longer bound in place, but he looked too...I don't know...to move from the bed.

"Hello," Gilbert said.

"Uh, hi Gil."

A small smile lit his face in a small glow, "It's nice to see you again, Liz."

"Why did you, um, ask for me. I didn't think you liked me anymore," I said awkwardly as I sat in a chair by the bed.

"I wanted to apologize. I'm really really extremely sorry for everything that I said to you. It was just...like it wasn't me talking and I was just watching or something. I didn't mean to make you upset...or scare you away. I don't like what I did to you, Lizzy, so I thought I'd try to apologize while I had a moment of sane thoughts."

"Sane?"

"I've been coming in and out of it for the last couple weeks. An hour or three of sane thought before I fall back into...it," he looked at me with those hollow eyes.

"Wh-what happened to you? When did all of this start?"

Gilbert looked at me for a minute before he looked down at his open palms. "I...I had skipped school one day, I felt sick but my bruder still going to make me go. So I went out to the woods and hung out in that tree house we made when we were little. I kept feeling like someone was following me though, and I shook so hard from fear that I fell out of the tree. Then I got mad because I fell out and I started breaking logs and screaming at anything. It made my head feel like I was hanging upside-down, underwater, in a circus. That was the night I didn't come home because my head felt too strange for me to move more than ten feet from the tree."

I gaped at him, "Does anyone else-?"

"No, no one else knows. I didn't want people to know. It's a strange thing to keep secret. I made up a story for the doctors involving me going out with a girl to the sea side, cliff diving, and hitting my head on a rock. They believed it too," he snorted.

I smiled softly, then looked at him curiously. "Why would you tell me then?"

"Liz, I never told you...I love you. I really do, but I haven't expected a chance since I got sick. I...I'm okay with just being friends, or acquaintances."

"Gil, I-I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," he responded. His eyes suddenly had a depth to them that showed fear. "Please, go. My sanity is leaving again...goodbye..." His eyes began to change even more and he began to shake, so I took cue to retreat.

I didn't know what to feel, but there were a few emotions poking out in my head. Flattery, of course, because Gil loved me. Fear of the strange, terrible emotional roller coaster that Gilbert had. A strange pull to the boy that I couldn't understand. It was all...too much. Especially because recently Roderich and I had broken off our relationship. I headed home and curled up in my bed to think.

I thought of all the fun times we had in our childhood. He was really annoying, conceited, prone to freaking out about little things, and he couldn't be serious about anything. Gilbert was also cute, immensely kind, derpy, fun, hilarious, kind, chivalrous, and hopelessly...Gilbert. I loved him, I decided. And I was going to tell him tomorrow before school. So I went to sleep, quickly, so it could come faster.

I dreamt of him and I sitting under a tree in a large forest. We were at the edge of a large clearing that had a small meadow in it. Tulips and cornflowers grew all around us. He sat with his back to the tree, which made dark shadows obscure his face. He wore black pants with thin, blood red pin-stripes and a matching vest, a red dress shirt, and a black tie. He looked tired, but happy. I hadn't seen him like that in ages.

Sitting in front of him, I wore funeral attire. A modest black dress that came to the knee, a thick strip of cornflower blue wrapped around my ribs and tied off in a bow on my back. I wore an old necklace that Gilbert had given me for my eleventh birthday, a simple heart locket that used to house Roderich's picture, but now I knew without looking that it held Gilbert's.

"Gilbert, I-" I began, but my voice caught and I was mute.

"I love you, Elizabeta. Don't you ever forget that. Remember that I'm sorry for what I did. Remember how I used to be. Please, don't be mad at me."

Once again, I tried so hard to tell him how I felt, to tell him that he was forgiven. To tell him that I loved him. But my voice wouldn't come out. So he pressed a soft kisses to my cheeks, forehead, and lips. Gil stood and smiled at me again, then turned and walked into the dark forest without looking back. I cried, my voice had come back so I screamed in sorrow because I somehow knew he wasn't ever coming back.

I woke to the sound of my alarm clock blaring. Slapping it, I stood quickly and got ready to leave as quick as possible. I left the house and sped to the hospital, needing to tell him everything. When I reached his hospital room, it was empty. Devoid of anything. Any sign he had ever been there was gone. I turned around to see that the a-bit-too-peppy nurse was standing there looking wistfully into the room.

"W-where is he?" I asked, my voice cracking. I knew where he was.

"I'm so sorry...So so so sorry...he's gone," the nurse had a sad look on her face, in her eyes.

"What happened? When?" I asked urgently.

"Last night, around two, I had come in to make my nightly rounds and he...he was getting colder and colder. He wouldn't wake up...He started crying and whispering in his sleep, and I knew that nothing could help. The doctors came in and tried to save him, but nothing worked. I'm so incredibly sorry for your loss."

I looked at the crisp sheets that were laying folded on the hospital bed. "What was he whispering?"

"He kept saying "I'm so sorry", "I love you", and "Lizzy". Over and over and over."

I couldn't hold in the tears any longer. Collapsing to the floor, I let out shuddering sobs as tears cascaded down my cheeks. "No...no, you can't leave me Gil! I love you! I love you! I forgave you! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE!" I cried out, knowing it was much to late.

I guess that just proves that we live in a cruel world.

((Please review! And I'd just like you to know that I prefer ones that have more than just "I really like it! :)"))