Stop the clocks

Who: Aaron and his mom
Where: Aaron's room
When: Saturday afternoon

Aside from Dylan's rather odd exit the night before, Aaron had fun. Even if Heather's asshole boyfriend was there for most of the time; at least he was on his best behavior around the girls even if he wasn't otherwise. And Aaron had decided Dylan was eccentric as fuck and they could expect more dramatic exits like that in the future, if nothing else it was something to laugh about.

He had stayed the night in one of the guest rooms with May, gossiping until the early hours. When he finally woke up, late, he got Heather to drive him home after a nice breakfast, brunch or whatever.

Unfortunately he had to take a break from fun, they'd planned to meet again that night and maybe use Sunday for ice skating so homework had to be done. He'd just made himself comfortable on his bed with the book they were supposed to read for English when his mother came in.

It was too easy to tell something was wrong. If things were normal she'd probably just babble on softly and maybe crawl up on the bed with him to snuggle him and look at what he was doing - no matter if she was high or low - but she just stood in the doorway like a ghost. It was like she when she came to tell him about the divorce, small and worried and wringing her hands with that look on her face that said she didn't want him to have to hear anything bad ever.

He sat up, put the book aside and frowned at her. "What?" He finally said and at least this time she didn't stutter like last time. Maybe because this time it wasn't her fault.

Mr. Chapman called...

Anything from there on was like listening to sound underwater but he got the gist. Chrissy was dead, she'd been attacked the night before and everything just went dark in Aaron's room. He barely noticed when his mom sat down next to him or when she put her arms around him, he just sat there, still like a statue.

Chrissy was dead.