His Name.

He came and left quickly.
Everything did, for Kaeden.
She met him the second day of her freshman year- he was in the same study hall as her. They shared the same guitar class. They quickly friended each other, they liked the same music, the same styles of clothing, the same sports, the same food. She joined the band, and she didn't get to see him as much as she would have liked to. She came across again him one morning, and said "Hi."

They got to talking again, and they talked a lot. He gave her a hoodie of his that she had wanted. She gave him her cell phone number, and she realized then that she was in love with him. Her heart fluttered at the thought of him. She waited all weekend for his phone call, but it never came.

She came in to school Monday. She was sick to her stomach. She had decided to tell him that she loved him that morning, and her friend asked her what was the matter, as she had a sad look on her face. She said nothing was wrong, and smiled fakely. He came over, when he arrived, and asked her if her phone received text messages. She said no. He said that would explain why the text he tried to send her failed. He smiled, and she smiled back. She was relieved that he didn't just ignore her. They discussed a lot of things that morning but only one thing stood out in her mind.

He had a girlfriend.

Her heart sunk.

She thought all about him first and second period. She drew hearts all over a scrap of paper and wrote his name on it. She kept the paper between her fingers all day.
She went up to her friend during her lunch period and told her about her feelings. Her friend was dumbfounded. Her friendship with him continued, however, and they became extremely good friends.

But then something happened.
She slipped.
She let him know her feelings.
She felt the words leave her mouth, and her stomach plummeted to the floor.

And he was good about it, no obsessive jeering, no awkwardness.
Then she learned that his girlfriend broke up with him. And she helped him through it. She kept her ecstatic feeling to herself, and she stayed by his side, making him smile as much as she could.

Then, two weeks later, she spent some time at his mom's home.
Alone, in his room, for three hours.
He professed his true feelings for her~ he wanted her, he loved her, and he always did.
She smiled for what seemed like hours
They kissed for what seemed like days.

They broke her boundaries together. They moved through the steps of relationship~ kissing, then moving along the greater steps..

"Only you," she had promised him. "You'll be my first, and I'm gonna be yours, sweetie." She told him over a phone call.

Then the wicked days came.

He had been having massive migraines in his brain, and his father had him go to the hospital to get an MRI to check it out.
She called him everyday, more than once a day, to make sure he was okay. She kept at his side when she could.
Two weeks passed, and the results came in the mail.

Malignant Brain tumor, said that evil little document. It gave him only three months to live.

She cried. He cried. They lay there crying for hours, days possibly. She begged her father to let her stay at his home, to be with him through the hard times. He started chemotherapy, and his hair fell off, everywhere. He became depressed, missing days of school, and she with him, staying with him, at all times.

She kept her promise.

It was a dirty deed, but she couldn't let him die that way.

They waited, for weeks. She stayed in his bed. She gave him food. She had a small fridge and griddle installed in his room, to make sure she didn't have to leave him alone, in case he wasn't there when she came back.

The dreaded day came. The day of their anniversary.

She awoke, next to him, and his eyes were closed, his body cool to her touch. She opened his eyes with her finger. She screamed at the blankness. She cried as his parents ran to their room, her draped over his lifeless body.

And all she could say was his name.