It broke. No it shattered. In a million pieces. She sat there cradling Brian's dead body tears streaming down her face while her heart broke apart in her chest. When Paul and Amy came she somehow managed to say brokenly "He's dead" before breaking down completely again. They took her home after the police came and Paul told them it was a freak mugging accident. She was able to calm herself down enough to convince her mom to leave her alone but once she left she fell apart again sobbing on her bed. Sometime during the night she realized that she was alone. She wondered where he was. He was always there and was continually popping up unexpectedly at school at work at her house where was he now? The thought only made her start crying again until finally she collapsed into an exhausted restless sleep filled with nightmares of dying and waking up to find Brian dead.
When she woke up the next morning she almost forgot what had happened but within the next second it all came crashing back and she started to cry again. Amy came over later and they cried together. At some point she wiped her eyes looked at Amy and asked in a small voice "Have you seen Alek?" Amy shook her head and she was hit with a wave of loneliness and started to cry again. Later after Amy left she felt her bed give under new weight and looked up to see him looking at her carefully. "Hey" Alek said softly. That was all it took she threw herself into his arms and he hugged her and rocked her back and forth slowly and gently. They sat like that for what felt like hours. Eventually she looked up at him and for the first time that day noticed the exhaustion and misery in his face. She traced one of the bags under his eyes. "What happened" she whispered. His face crumpled and his eyes glistened. He swallowed a few times before saying "Valentina and Jasmine are dead". She gasped "Ww-what?" He pushed himself up from her bed and began frantically pacing. Her eyes followed his quick footsteps. "He killed them. We thought he was our friend and he killed them" his voice broke and he stopped shoving his hands through his hair. She got up and went over to his side "what do you mean he, who was it Alek?" He looked at her and said barley loud enough for her sensitive hearing to catch the words "my brother." With that tears started to fall. Chloe stood there for a moment a little stunned to see Alek, unshakable cocky Alek cry but then gathered him into a hug. Piece by piece she got the full story and they both fell asleep with tears on their face.
The next week she went back to school. It was her choice, her mother said she could stay home but she needed to get out of her room. She couldn't stand to only see the same four walls again today so here she was feeling a little lost and, she hated to admit it, fragile. She spent the whole day wandering from class to class in a daze. By now the entire school had heard rumors about what had happened that night. No one knew the truth but they knew enough to whisper and stare at her when they thought she wasn't looking. She almost didn't make it through the day but during the last half of the day she saw him in the hallway looking exactly how she felt, exhausted and miserable. When they passed he didn't say anything he just shifted slightly so that his knuckles brushed hers and then he was gone but it gave her the strength to get through the next few hours knowing that he was there too.
Slowly minutely and without fully realizing what was happening things started to change and with a start she realized that she thought about the incident (as they had started to call it) and Brian less and less. She hated herself for it. That night she went home and cried. The same thing had begun to happen to him too more or less. He looked less tense and the circles under his eyes were getting less prominent. He looked nowhere near happy or relaxed but he also no longer looked like death warmed over. They were forgetting, not quickly but they were in fact forgetting.
He was standing by her locker telling some ridiculous story when she laughed. It was short and surprised and ended quickly. He looked at her bewildered. It was the first time she had laughed in ages. She felt like a traitor. She turned and left without another word leaving him standing there staring at her retreating figure.
The next couple of days she avoided him. Finally after the fourth day she sat beside him in English. She felt rather than saw his smile.
Things eventually settled into a rhythm and the sharp pain in her chest that ached with every beat of her heart became almost normal and she found herself working around it. She went to school and work and sometimes on the weekend she even went out not usually but sometimes. Mostly she spent her nights at her house and he would come over and watch movies until dawn eating popcorn and ice cream or whatever else they wanted. She looked forward to those nights where it was just her and him the glow of the TV screen and the whole world asleep around them. It was her new normal.
"What's going on between you and Alek?" Amy asked one day. "Nothing" she responded instantly. "Please don't give me that you two are always together now, you're like joined at the hip". Almost as if to prove her friends point he turned around the corner and started to make his way over to them. Amy raised her eyebrows. "Don't give me that, nothing is going on" she said slamming her locker with a little more force than necessary. She smiled at him and he walked her to class. She could practically hear Amy's sarcastic remark that she was certain she would have to listen to later. It was true though, nowadays they barely left each other's sides and if they did it was only because it was absolutely necessary. He had basically moved into her guestroom. She didn't know what would happen if they were separated for any length of time and she didn't want to find out. She depended on him and him on her. She didn't know exactly when it had happened just that it had.
They were in her kitchen making dinner because her mother was out of town and he for reasons unknown to her wanted to cook that night. They were making enchiladas because they both found the name funny and he was cutting up peppers and she was grating cheese when she heard a soft intake of breath. She looked over to see him putting his cut finger into his mouth with a rueful expression. It was at that moment that she suspected she loved him. She said nothing just bandaged his finger and he made a remark about the beautiful girl always patching up the dashing hero (his words not hers) and she just smiled.
For weeks she was quiet and reserved around him. He noticed and frequently questioned her about it but she waved off his concern and sat there sorting her feelings. She had always thought that her heart was too broken to ever feel again that she would just glide through life unfeeling or at the very least never loving someone as much as she had before but now she was confused, thrown off, unbalanced. Like when you're walking down stairs and you expect one more step but there is none and you feel like the world has been ripped from under your feet. Maybe it couldn't be like before but sometimes you have to break things to make something better right?
It was during one of their all night movie marathons when she decided she didn't care anymore. She turned to look up at him and sensing her gaze he looked down at her and before she could second guess herself she leaned forward and brushed her lips with his. It barley lasted a second and when she pulled away he was looking at her startled. She opened her mouth to say something- anything when his lips crashed down on hers. It was everything that their first kiss had been so long ago: sweet, romantic, gentle. And with that on a snowy winter evening with The Terminator playing softly in the background began the rest of their lives.