Dark Enough

A/N: This was inspired by the song 'Dark Enough' by Amanda Lopiccolo. I don't know if she's the original artist, but I haven't found the song sung by anyone else, and I like her version anyway. I was listening to the song, and it really touched me. It made me think of Jack Frost, because, like the girl described in the song, he's very likable and charming, and I imagine that a lot of people would be unable to grasp why he possesses such low self-esteem, if he does at all. So I had to write this.

Jack Frost was a bit of a mystery to us all.

I don't know if it's alright for me to tell this story, because it is not my story. It is not my story to tell, it is not my story to begin with, although it is a true one and it did involve me. I was certainly not the most interesting character within the story, but I was involved, and I know that no one else will tell it. Everybody else will one day forget what happened and what didn't, long before anybody ever puts pen to paper, and that feels wrong to me. So I'll be telling it instead, because Jack Frost can't.

It started on a rather rainy, gray day in the beginning of October, and Jack Frost was talking again. He sat at the front of the class in homeroom, and before our teacher came in every morning, he was always talking to somebody. He had only just moved here in August, and enrolled in school in September, but he wasn't shy by any means, and nobody in the school dared bully him. It wasn't that he was particularly quick with blows or impressively violent; it was more that he was quick with his words. He could embarrass or encourage anyone, depending on who was speaking, and whether they had been mean to him previously, or any of his friends. But ninety percent of the time, he chose to encourage.

I don't think I'd ever met anyone that happy. He was just very at peace, with himself and the world, and it showed in everything he did. He was always smiling or laughing, and I had never once seen him look down. He was always telling jokes, trying to cheer somebody up when they looked upset, asking what was wrong, trying to fix it for them. A lot of people loved him, and some even referred to him as the nicest person in the whole school. He brought a smile to everyone's face, no matter how unwilling they were to give one.

Aster was probably the angriest kid in the school, aside from me, and Jack had even made him laugh once. Aster had been hiding his nose in a book, pretending he couldn't hear the kid making a fool of himself in front of the class. He was goofy, but mature, and only he seemed able to walk that razor edge. He was making everyone laugh – everyone, that is, except me and Aster.

"What's wrong?" Jack hopped down from his seat when he noticed Aster wasn't paying him any attention, sliding into the vacant desk beside the blonde boy. He folded his arms over the chest of his blue hoodie – I had never once seen him without that hoodie, I don't think.

"You're what's wrong," Aster snapped from behind his book. "You're being a bloody show pony, that's what!"

Jack laughed. And it wasn't forced so Aster would laugh, it was genuine; clear and sparkling and so heartbreakingly happy that it almost hurt to listen to, with how much I wanted to be able to laugh like that.

"What's so funny?" Aster demanded, lowering his book just a tad.

"Your insults," Jack responded. "I like them. They're creative. Give me another one."

And Aster smiled. Just a little, more like a tiny grin than a smile. "You're not my bowl of rice."

"You can do better than that," Jack replied teasingly, and before long, he had the bigger boy shouting every insult through his laughter.

That was just the way Jack was. He turned everyone's bad day into a good one, just by being him. I never understood it. I tried to ignore him as best as I could, seething silently to myself sometimes about how lucky he was, and how he didn't seem to understand that he was lucky.

Because from then on, he and Aster were friends. I don't really understand why they became friends through that, but I guess I didn't really need an explanation. Aster was friends with some other pretty popular kids, whom I also despised, and they slowly became Jack's friends too.

And I had to listen to the two kids gabbing in front of me all the time. I was never sure whether I hated Jack or loved him during those days; he was a fascinating enigma to me, to be sure, but I wasn't sure if I could ever see a use for him beyond that. He seemed both annoying and mysterious, and if there was one thing I liked, it was a good mystery.

And on the day that our story starts, that gray and rainy day of October 8th, I discovered the first clue in the mystery.

He had never spoken to me. He had never given me a single sign of recognition. But he did that day, and I guess I made it plain that I had been having a bad one. I wasn't even sure what was bothering me so much, but I knew I did not wish to be in my homeroom right then. I stared unseeingly down at my desk, tracing my finger along the letters that the previous occupants had carved.

"Hi, Pitch."

Nobody in the whole school had ever spoken to me, except to yell an insult when I passed them in the hall. So, naturally, my head was up so fast that I hurt my neck. I was shocked to see Jack Frost sliding into the seat next to me, blue eyes sparkling, and I was astonished that he knew my name.

I tried to keep my cool, merely raising an eyebrow in his direction, hoping to convey disgust. I wasn't sure if I wanted him to talk to me or not. Nobody ever had before.

"Imagine seeing you here," he swung his legs around the chair, hugging the back of it.

"Not really," I responded coldly. "This is my homeroom, after all."

"I know," he told me. "I was being funny."

"Your joke fell flat." I pretended to be studying my desk, feeling an odd sense of triumph when he took a minute to reply. I had finally rendered the brilliant, perfect Jack Frost speechless.

"Mine?" He pretended to be shocked, drawing back and clutching at his heart. "But I'm hilarious!"

I rolled my eyes, furious with myself for the traitorous smile that flickered onto my lips before I managed to banish it. Unfortunately, Jack had spotted it, too, and this just seemed to encourage him.

"So, what's up?" He demanded, leaning closer to me.

"The sky."

He laughed. "Clouds?"

I hesitated before letting the smile take over my face. "Of course."

He smiled brightly, too, his eyes regaining their sparkle. And I realized then that a part of him depended on making others happy, that he needed other people to smile around him. And as I thought this, he leaned just a little closer, and the sleeve of his blue hoodie caught on the chair, yanking back a little and revealing his pale wrist.

He hurriedly grabbed for the edge of his sleeve, making to put it back down, but I caught a glimpse before he could. There were scars all over his wrist, the pale skin uneven and bumpy. And not all of those marks were scars. Some of them were clearly recent.

For a second, I felt my heart skipping beats in my chest as I recognized intentional cuts. I knew what it was. I had scars just the same on my own wrists, bracelets of shame that I had tried my hardest to hide. Normal people might have said they didn't know what to do, but I did. I played along, and pretended I didn't see, and I never said a word to anyone about it. I understood it, the sadness, the anger, the frustration, spilled so clearly in those thin white and pink lines all over his arm, and I knew that he would hate me for telling anyone. I would hate him, if he knew about mine and told somebody.

So I pretended I just didn't see. I smiled again, as if nothing had happened, as if that single moment hadn't been enough to see so much more to the boy I both hated and secretly admired.

His eyes met mine, and he thought I had seen nothing, I masked it so well. He relaxed visibly, his shoulders slumping in relief. And then he picked up right back where he had left off, as if nothing had happened.

Maybe a little bit had happened, maybe. It was a big deal that he had struggles in his own life, which I had always imagined to be cushy and perfect. Now I knew what was wrong, and that's what kept me thinking about it. Not the cuts themselves. His wrists begged for help, something that he would never do, and I pretended not to hear the cries.

Now I wish I had opened my ears.

I noticed the change in him earlier, but for now, let's start with November 2nd. That seems like a good a day as any to have noticed what I did. That was when his friends noticed, anyway. And why should I notice one second before his friends, did?

"So, who is it?" Aster poked Jack teasingly in the side, and the boy jumped slightly. His blue eyes were glazed over, as if he was barely aware that he was in the same room as everyone else.

"What?" he stuttered distractedly, blinking a little.

"I think this distraction of yours has got something to do with a girl. So, which one is it?"

Jack smiled a little, and even blushed a bit. The grin was evidently sheepish, and Aster ribbed him to no end until the teacher came in. But that glazed-over look never entirely faded, and I knew that whatever was bothering him wasn't completely gone, and it wasn't a girl.

I didn't know what it was, but I opened my textbook and pretended to be reading while my mind whirled with the possibilities.

Finally, when they ground to a halt, I scolded myself. Jack Frost isn't your friend! You shouldn't care about him!

Whatever his problem was, I never asked. Now, I wish I had.

Jack Frost slumped down in his seat. Everybody stared at him openly from behind their books, sneaking peeks at him in between pages, waiting for him to start up his usual jokes and teasing before the teacher came in. But he didn't. He stared down at his desk, and I thought maybe his eyes were brighter than normal. But not from the familiar sparkle, I knew.

Throughout the whole day, he didn't smile or laugh. He just sat there listlessly at his desk, scribbling away on his notebooks with a pencil. The teacher never once called on him. The man's brown eyes slid away from the boy's blue ones, and he ignored him like he was invisible.

Aster poked him a few times, and whispered jokes to him, but never once did Jack smile. He nodded politely, but he didn't speak. He turned back to his notebook. Aster left him alone.

I will never forget this date. I am not going to skip ahead a few days to when everyone noticed. Not because everyone noticed at the same time. But because Jack Frost deserves – deserved – better than that. He deserved the truth to be told about him, not a lie. And the date was December 13th when we came in, everybody around me chatting excitedly about Christmas break, and how they couldn't wait for it to come.

The teacher wasn't there yet, and Jack's chair was empty. He almost always got to school early, to be there and make the most of the time until the teacher did get there, I think. We waited for Jack to come rushing in the door. We didn't dare get our hopes up enough to think that he would come back with his familiar sparkling eyes and bright smile, but we hoped that he would show, at least.

The door stayed firmly shut until the teacher opened it. Now, the teacher never seemed to like Jack. He was always snapping at him to settle down, and I could never quite understand how someone could hate Jack Frost, and not even feel just the tiniest hint of respect or admiration for him as well.

But when he walked in his classroom that day, we knew he liked Jack. Somewhere very deep down, he truly was fond. Because he looked one hundred years old as he shuffled into the room, stood at the front of the desk, and spoke the terrible words. "Class, I'm afraid I have some very bad news for you all."

Scattered whispers broke out, but they were almost immediately silenced again by his look. It wasn't a glare; it was just a look of dreadful sorrow, and everyone collectively shut up.

"Yesterday evening, a wonderful student in this class took his own life. Jack Frost was a charming boy…"

Everything seemed to melt away, and I gripped at the edges of my desk for something solid within this world to hold onto. The wood felt like it was crumbling beneath my fingers, and it wouldn't stay still.

"He wrote farewell notes to quite a few people within this class." Even the teacher looked on the verge of tears now; a lot of students had burst into tears when they understood what was going on. "He spoke to a certain Aster Mund, telling him goodbye…and he wrote to the boy in the back of his class, saying thank-you…for what, we don't yet understand…"

It felt like I was floating underwater. I was the only person who sat in the back of the class. And he had said thank you. I realized then, with astonishing certainty, that he knew that I had seen the scars. And he was thanking me for telling no one, for never listening to his cries for help.

Now, I wish I had.