A/N: More angst, more sadness. You know, the usual.

Chapter 10: 12:07 PM, Friday

TGIF, right. Friday is normally the happiest day of the week. Instead, it turns out to be the most painful for Riku. It had started out with him waking up to the alarm (that beep, beep, beep carrying on like nothing happened), and it had hit him.

She won't be there today. She won't be anywhere for forever.

It hit him even worse during his agonizingly long walk to Spanish class without her pale face in the hallway. No startling forest green eyes gazing hopefully at him, waiting for his signal that he does give a crap about her.

No smiles. Because dead people don't smile.

The whole morning has been a blur, one class falling into another in the same hum-drum fashion. And yet, he pays even less attention. He is virtually impassive when he sees that 71% on his math test paper, which fades into the background for him. It's not real. None of this is happening right now. He's trapped in some dreary existence where, funny thing is, it feels like it should be a crime to be happy. Other people aren't so lucky and so decide to jump off bridges to kill the pain. Literally. They may not have been that close, but Riku feels a part of him is missing.

So, at this moment (he can't believe he's remotely considering this as an option), he heads toward the guidance office to talk to the counselor. He has told his friends a lie by saying he'll be in the restroom. Yeah, dry retching, like he did last night. Still, he can't let them know how much this death has affected him. They'll worry too much. Maybe he'll tell Demyx the truth later. But, for now, this is deeply personal stuff that he needs to take care of.

Upon asking the secretary if Ms. Heartilly is around, he's told that she is currently finishing up with a student. Riku wonders if this student went here for the same reason. Death is a bitch to go through.

Sure enough, his assumption proves true when the door to the counselor's office opens, and a girl comes out with tears streaming down her face. It's Xion, Olette's closest friend.

"Thanks, Ms. Heartilly, I really needed this," she sniffles and gives the mid-twenty-something lady a hug. A sense of awkwardness falls over Riku as he glances away from this scene. It makes Olette's absence even more inevitable and even more poignant. He suddenly second-guesses himself about coming here. The atmosphere reminds him uncannily of a hospital. People are prone to tears there, too.

"It's no trouble, Xion," Ms. Heartilly soothes, returning the hug in a motherly way. "That's why we're here. We're a resource whenever you kids need us. This is one particular case, especially. And I'm very sorry for your loss."

"Y-Yeah." Xion wipes her nose with her hoodie sleeve, her eyes red and still tear-filled. "I better g—Riku?"

What if he gets blamed for this? In fact, yeah, he's getting ready for Xion to scream at him and tell him this is all his fault. That if he hadn't been so immobilized beyond words, Olette would still be here.

His heart nearly stops from this anxiety when this usually upbeat but now fragile sophomore girl approaches him. He sees that her face is as white as a sheet, drawn, and pained. With sadness in his heart, he speculates as to how much she has cried in the past not even twenty-four hours.

"Y—Yeah?" he mutters, unnerved at her growing nearness.

"Are you here because of...um, you know...her?" Xion asks, for the name must hurt too much to even say aloud.

Riku nods without a word.

"Did she mean a lot to you?"

A lump gets lodged in his throat as he replies in a strained voice, "More than any girl."

Murmuring a soft "aw", Xion hugs him too, and this makes him uncomfortable. He's all for this touching, but he barely knows her.

She draws back from him, mentions, "She would be really happy about that," and promptly walks out the door. Her loud sniffs accompany her. Maybe finding other people who'd seen Olette for who she really was (a great person) is Xion's way of coping, to make sense out of a senseless thing. Riku stares at the door she left through, a hollow feeling building in his chest.

Ms. Heartilly tells him, "Come in to my office, Riku," and he does. Her office gives him the sense of being on a different planet. He's never been here before.

Apprehensively, he sits on one of the chairs across from her desk, noticing the picture of her with her fiancé, Mr. Leonheart from Leon's Music, a store he actually likes visiting from time to time. It was the place where Joel had bought him his first guitar when he was twelve years old. This gift endeared him to Riku for pretty much forever. Anyway, it's a nice photo. They're out at some restaurant together, Ms. Heartilly with a beaming smile and Leonheart one that's more subtle. Why is it that counselors always have better lives than you? Riku almost resents this nice lady at the moment. She's not Janet, though, so he can relax.

Then again, Janet is probably a nice lady, too. Has he ever given her a chance? He squirms in his chair in guilt.

Meantime, Ms. Heartilly sits at her desk, hands folded in front of her. "OK, Riku, what brings you here? You're not going off campus?"

"No, I'm not...But, this has really been bugging me and I figured...I figured if I talked to somebody, I might feel better."

She smiles genuinely, not fake at all. "Well, then, you did the right thing to come here."

A silence presses over him like the invisible, hollow weight on his chest. He has a feeling that his face has gone sheet white too, and his fingers tremble the slightest bit. He starts to chicken out.

Then, much to his surprise, Riku starts to speak, "I'm here...I'm here because of Olette. She's dead."

As quickly as the words come, he stops, looks to the counselor as if for clarification.

She nods. "Yes, she is. I was shocked myself when I heard the news."

Yet, can you sound any calmer, you insensitive cow? He has this urge to scream at her, to force her to show some raw emotion. Like this emotion he's feeling, the one he's trying to get out, and it's clawing at him and clawing at him and dammit, he can't take it!

"I...I needed to talk to somebody about it." His words are even less fluid.

Closing his eyes, he struggles to breathe calmly, evenly. One way or another, these words will be spoken. He has to let them flow.

"I liked Olette. More than friends, I mean. I didn't know her, and I only talked to her twice, but she's someone you don't forget. Not to me anyway. She was so different...from all the other girls, you know? She was smart, pretty, nice, and...God, this is my fault."

The stinging, the horrible, cringe-worthy stinging, is back with a vengeance. His stomach churns slightly, like he'll get sick to his stomach.

At this moment, he's glad he's not a cop. If he was, he would have seen her in a way he would never want to see. Her limp body floating on the water, like she's no better than a dead fish.

Ms. Heartilly asks softly, "Why would you think it's your fault?"

"Because...Cuz the day she died, you know...Earlier that day, she told me she liked me. And I didn't say anything. She thought I didn't like her and left. I tried to get to her...I did. Now, she's gone and...and I'll never get to tell her how I feel."

His eyes get watery, so Riku does all he can to fight back these tears. He's a guy. He can't...shouldn't cry.

He notices Ms. Heartilly scooting the Kleenex box closer to his side of the desk. Averting his eyes quickly, he tries to avoid showing the obvious hurt that's there. It's been there since last night.

"It's OK for you to cry, Riku," she points out. "This is a death. Letting your emotions out is better than holding them in. You don't have to try to be tough here."

With that, he starts crying. Silently, but the tears fall as he deals with another loss. At least his dad didn't die. Olette's gone...She's gone.

He takes two Kleenex, putting them to his eyes.

Through the Kleenex, his voice comes out muffled. "I don't get why she killed herself. I...I feel like I made her life worse or something. But...This was, like...the closest thing to love I've ever felt for somebody."

Now, that's out on the table, but it's a confession he feels needed to be said at some point. He might have loved her. If not, it was close to it. Gradually, more so than what he would like, he recovers from the tears that he shed and the sobs that nearly overtook him.

"I loved her," he repeats softly, more tenderly.

He continues to love her, and he's unsure if he could call it love, exactly. But, why else does he care so much?

Ms. Heartilly reaches out, pats his shoulder. "I understand. Or, in my definition, I suppose I've tried to understand. You can be in love at your age. It's rare, but it's easy to see you really cared about her."

"Yeah...Yeah, I did."

"And Riku? None of this was your fault. Normally, suicidal people intend to kill themselves no matter what happens in their interactions. You know, as we all do, that Olette was an honors student who had everything going for her. However, I do believe she had a deep, clinical depression."

When she gets a puzzled look from him, she continues, "I can only conclude that people in her condition premeditate suicide all along. At a certain point, there is nothing anyone can do, I'm afraid. And it usually is people like her, Riku. People who act perfectly sane and are cordial around others, trying to convince them nothing is wrong. But, don't blame yourself."

Riku releases a long, shaky sigh. "Guess I won't. I have to move on, right?"

"Right. At some point. It's OK to grieve in the meantime."

"Yeah...But, Ms. Heartilly?"

"Yes?"

He looks up at her, eyes pain-filled. "She won't be a senior with me."

That's the most devastating part in his opinion, the one thing he can't get out of his head. Will she even be remembered?

"No, she won't. It's really sad, isn't it? If you want my view, I will say that too many kids are committing suicide these days. And it isn't as though they truly had nothing. They felt trapped."

Trapped. Well, Olette spoke negatively of her mom once. Was the mom keeping too tight a leash on her? Maybe school wringed the happiness out of her. He won't end up like she did, broken from her pain. He'll stay strong.

"I think I can understand. But, it's not an easy way out. It kind of makes things worse for the loved ones."

"Exactly. Well, I'm glad you talked with me, Riku."

He smiles, just slightly. "Yeah, me too. It helped a lot."

It has, particularly with the pent-up emotions he has concealed for what has felt like forever. Forever and a day. So, though it hurts to admit it, he has come to terms with Olette's death, at least somewhat. It will take longer to be completely over her. However, turning to the guidance counselor has taken some weight off.

A/N: I thought it would be realistic for Riku to talk to a counselor yet keep it all secret, so that his friends didn't find out about it. I mean, guys are more hard-pressed for talking about emotions than girls are, obviously. Um, yeah, that's about it. Have a Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow, everybody.