They used to be friends, back when she wasn't a dead girl and he wasn't a boy wishing for the end. He looked down at her grave, and she looked at him through angry, clouded eyes.

He was torn between wanting to stomp on her headstone or fall to his knees and whisper apologies to it. She wanted to scream at him, tell him it wasn't her, just a stupid hunk of granite with her name on it, and that it wasn't his fault.

But it was. There was no going around that fact, no side-stepping the ruins that were his conscience. He decided to head home before he did something stupid, so he laid the flowers down hastily, turning before he could see them scatter throughout the cemetery.

She was frustrated. He kept doing this. She just wanted him to leave and never come back. He wasn't good company when he was like this, and it hurt to see him cry. Besides, she didn't even like the flowers, they still made her sneeze.

When he got home, his mother asked why his shoes were muddy. "Because Mom," he said with a sad smile. "I don't walk on my hands."

His mother laughed, pretending she didn't know that her son was blaming himself for everything that went wrong. Maybe if she pretended long enough, he'd become that happy kid that could light up the world with his smile again. She hoped she'd be able to forget the difference between pretend and reality soon.

People live, and people die. Eventually no one left flowers on her grave anymore. One day, a boy that would have been her age had she lived, was buried next to her. He walked over to her, with that same sorrowful look on his face.

"We used to be friends." He said quietly, the wind carrying his voice away.

She looked at him for a long moment. "How old are you?" She asked.

"Twenty eight." He said. He was twice her age now, she'd never be that old.

She squinted her eyes and tilted her head to the side, watching him. "We used to be friends," she repeated. "I don't remember you though."

When the frown on his face deepened, she added "It's okay though. I don't remember a lot of things."

She walked up to him and held out her hand. "We used to be friends. Can we be friends again?"