Summary: 300 words. Madeline angst and character death.

Disclaimer: I don't own 'em.

Etc: This was written when I found out my friend's sister was really sick and could maybe die. For Shay.

Feedback: C'est bon, c'est bon! Il est délicieux!

Stupid

And suddenly, Madeline is older than her brother and she'll never again be the younger sister and his smile is frozen in a fading photograph with time pealing away her years while he stays the same. She looks at the photograph now, as she sits on the floor, back to the bed she hid under when she was a child. The frame that traps him in a forever lasting glass world is pretty: it shines when she moves it and has brown woodworking and is simple and plain. She thinks he would have liked it.

She wonders what time will do to her; she knows he'll stay the same. But to her pain—what will change? Will it lessen over the years or will it build back up to the gut wrenching agony she first felt? Will it hurt less to think of him or will she cry herself to sleep at night? Will she ever be able to go past that vintage clothing store where he spent all of his allowance on the shirt that read 'plus je connais les hommes, plus j'aime mon chein' for her when Paul broke up with her and not want to cry? When will it stop hurting so much that she wants to die?

In a fit of guilt and pain and grief-stricken anger, she throws the frame and her brother's picture. Then, she realizes what she has done and jumps up and goes to it and fusses and apologizes and touches the shards. Her fingers bleed. She lifts the photo and cradles it. Tomorrow, she'll buy it a new frame, like the old one and put his picture back in it. No one will ever know what happened, except for her. But it won't matter much.

Malcolm is dead.

Madeline feels stupid.