Remembering Sunday

"Even though she doesn't believe in love, he's determined to call her bluff. Who could deny these butterflies? They're filling his gut."

full summary:after making a horrible mistake with aiden, kaitlyn is sick and tired of everything and everyone. that is, until aiden's best friend, gavin, texts her asking about aiden. thus making meetings, and showing her it's okay to trust and fall in love. it's a hard fight, but soon kaitlyn is safely in love for the first time and things are looking up until someone is out to ruin them. what if kaitlyn isn't strong enough without gavin there to hold her up anymore?

author's note: THE BEGINNING may or may not be really confusing. this is orignally the second of a two part series. i'm hoping it can still make sense, because it brings up things that happened in the previous story. please read and review!

Chapter One.

It all began with a text.

Ever since Aiden, I hardly ever texted anymore, so when my phone vibrated one night, I honestly had no idea who it could be. A very big part of me was still hoping every text I did get was Aiden, saying he was sorry. It never was. And this was no exception.

It was an unknown number, never seen before in my life on the 'from' line. The text read;

"Hi, im a friend of aidens.
jw how come you havent talked to him?"

Why would this friend of Aiden's care? Nobody knew what happened, and nobody else needed to know. I answered;

"Who are you? Its none of your business."

I was in my room. I couldn't stay in it after what had happened. Some nights, I couldn't sleep in my own bed. I would fall asleep for a little while, wake up and realize where I was, cry, and when I was sure I was done, I would bring myself downstairs and fall asleep on the couch.

I didn't exactly blame Aiden. I blamed myself for ever liking someone like him. Someone who played around, and left once he got what he wanted.

It hadn't even been that long. It hadn't even been a month to the day yet.

I hadn't been expecting Aiden's friend to reply, but he had;

"My name is gavin. I was only wondering
he didn't ask me if that's what youre thinking."

I didn't believe him for even a second. This boy 'Gavin' probably was just like Aiden himself; a player, a liar, a cheat.

"Honestly I just don't want to talk
about it. Or him. And Ill think
what I want."

I didn't know this boy enough to actually joke around with him. I'd meant it being serious, or a joke, however he decided to take it.

Gavin's replies came faster than Aiden's ever had;

"Alright, sorry for bringing it
up. So its kaitlyn right?"

He at least knew my name. Maybe it meant Aiden talked about me. Well, he must have if Gavin knew he and I were no longer talking.

"Yeah it is. Does aiden talk
about me or something?"

It took a long time for Gavin to answer. I had gone downstairs and brushed my teeth before I got the response;

"He has. I asked how you two
were and he said you randomly
stopped talking to him. He
seemed kinda upset.."

Please. I couldn't begin to count the amount of times Aiden 'randomly' stopped talking to me because he felt like it. It's like I wasn't allowed to do it. Like a guy could screw as many girls as he wanted and be a god to others, but a girl would just be a slut. It's always the other way around with Aiden. He was never sorry. He was never guilty.

"It wasn't random."

I started to prepare for my bed downstairs. I wrapped my red blanket around my body, and picked up my stuffed bunny. I probably looked so innocent, and I wasn't anymore. All because of him.

I went back downstairs again to the living room and crashed on the couch. Since I was scared of the dark, I turned on the tv.

"Well, ill stop talking about
it. what else is up?"

I ended up staying awake until one in the morning texting Gavin back and forth. He wasn't in my school, but one about ten minutes away. He'd met Aiden when they were little, and had been best friends since. I fell asleep in the middle of our conversation.

The next morning, I was exhausted, but it was only a Thursday. I was barely able to change out of my pajamas without falling asleep.

Zach was already waiting outside for the bus. He waited for me to come over to say, "You look tired."

"I was up late," I answered.

"Doing homework?" And so begins Zach's mom mode. I only lived with my father, and he honestly didn't care what I did. And that was why it had happened.

"No...I was doing something else." Zach, of course, would automatically assume the opposite of what I'd meant, and would lecture with no interruptions. This time, however, he did not.

My phones message tone went off. I forgot to set it to vibrate when I left my house for the bus stop. I fixed that problem, then read;

"Fall asleep on me last night?
good morning :)"

I smiled as I texted back how I had fallen asleep, and a good morning back. Odd, morning sounded like mourning, meaning sad. Good mourning? Was it supposed to be good to be sad?

"That better not be Aiden," warned Zach, who refused to let Aiden and I look at each other anymore, because he was the reason I nearly managed to kill myself. I was still wearing the bandage.

"No, it's not."

"Well, who is it then?"

"A friend of Aiden's." I knew that was the wrong thing to say the moment I said it.

"Don't talk to any of his friends! Kaitlyn, I want to watch you turn off your phone and leave it off." He crossed his arms. The bus was coming from down the street.

Zach wasn't always as bright as he seemed. I turned off my cellphone, put it in my bag, and got on the bus when it stopped in front of us. We got a seat together, as always. I was going to turn my phone back on when I got to school, we didn't have any classes together, as he was a freshman, so he would never know.

People who knew Aiden still looked at me weird, knowing I almost died because of him. All they knew was Aiden didn't like me, and found it pathetic. But they didn't know the whole story.

Zach left me to go to his locker, while I waited near the door for whoever I knew to come into school. I switched back on my phone. A text from Gavin was waiting;

"It is a good morning isn't
it? all nice and cold, its
just great"

Sarcastically, which he probably wouldn't pick up in a message, I replied;

"Yeah i just love snow and
rain at the same time."

I looked up to find Emily in yet another one of her stylish dress outfits, her hair straight with a bow headband to top it off.

We wondered around aimlessly as we usually did, and I stopped occasionally to answer Gavin's texts. In the middle of reading one of his responses, I crashed right into someone, sending my phone to the ground.

It felt like everything went still as I saw who I'd bumped into. Aiden was towering over me, looking right at my eyes. On accident, I had done the same, causing my breath to be sucked away from me and I gasped for air. He went to the ground and grabbed my phone.

"Since when do you talk to Gavin?" he asked casually as he glanced at my screen. I couldn't do this, I couldn't just talk to him. Everything flashed in my mind, and I shook my head at him. I started to back away, not caring if I hit anyone else in the process. "Don't you want your phone back?" He held it out toward me.

Aiden knew what had happened. He was there. He knew why I cut myself. Every time I'd done it to myself, I confided in him, and no one else. Now he had turned on me. He didn't explain why I tried to die. After all, Aiden Cross was always innocent.

Once I grabbed my phone from him, I made a dash so that Emily couldn't keep up with me. I found myself in an empty bathroom, and locked myself in a stall. I began breathing hard, I could barely get any air, probably from the smoky fumes without even a cracked window.

Being near Aiden, I could almost feel him on me again, I could still feel his lips hard on mine, lasting so long I thought our rings would tangle, until I felt his hand move on me... I made it sound like I hadn't wanted it, in my mind, and the way I played it over in my head at night. But I only hadn't wanted it to turn out this way. I hadn't wanted to go as far as he wanted just so he could find somebody better. And yet, that was exactly what he had done. And I had deserved that. I basically begged for all of this to happen.

Although Gavin and I were in the middle of a conversation, it took a quick turn;

"I cant do this i cant be
near him. i cant look
at him..."

I felt light headed and dizzy, as if I was going to pass out. Or maybe this was morning sickness. What if I was pregnant with Aiden's baby?! That couldn't even be possible, we both had a way of protection. His reply came quick;

"What happened babe?"

Babe. Aiden always had a pet name like that for me. What if Gavin was just like him?

"I ran into him. he acts
like nothing ever happened"

I hadn't intended on telling Gavin what a mistake I had made, but he was likely to ask now. I couldn't bring myself to let anyone know.

"Like what ever happened?"

Aiden hadn't even bothered to tell his best friend what he did. Did he honestly go on in life, acting like it'd never happened? There was no way I could ever forget. I answered;

"Just nothing..."

The bell rang, and I could hear people getting louder in the halls as first period was starting. I got up and made sure I looked alright. My hair had been dyed recently to black, but faded a little to have dark brown streaks mixed with lighter browns. My lip studs now had a checkered design on the balls.

Before I got to the door, Gavin had texted me again;

"I think we should meet."

Meet? What if he turned out to be some creep old guy Aiden didn't even know? And he tried to kill me? Or worse-

"I dont know..."

I began to go to my first class of the day. English was not a class I could use my phone in easily, because the teacher walked around a lot, not to mention she was very strict. The teacher seemed like if she saw a phone, not only would she take it, she might snap it in half as well.

And of course, within the first five minutes of class, I got a new text.

"Itd be fun. we can go
see a movie? :)"

Maybe the smiley face got me. He wasn't so bad. And you couldn't exactly kill someone in a mall, too many witnesses.

"I guess i could..."

Saturday morning came around, and for the first time in a month, I was happy. In just a few hours time, I would get to meet Aiden's best friend Gavin. I didn't know how it would turn out in the least bit, but I had lied to my dad and said I've hung out with Gavin a million times. It's not like my dad would know, he knew little to nothing about me.

I had a text waiting for me when I awoke;

"Ill wait outside, trust me
you cant miss me. be there
at one."

It was already eleven, and I was already internally freaking out. What if he didn't even show up? Or he came late? Or he didn't like me? What if I couldn't find him?

As I was getting dressed, I tried not to look as dark and gloomy as I have been lately, but I noticed that's how a lot of my clothes had begun to look. Everything looked darker than it used to compared to the light I was currently basking in.

I had been the one five minutes late to the mall. And I saw him almost instantly, mostly because he was the only one standing at the entrance, and because he resembled Aiden piercing-wise. Like myself, he had snakebites, as well as multiple rings down both of his ears, ending with gauges I could probably put my finger in. His hair spiked up in just about every way possible, and had too many colors in it, a mix of red, blond, brown and black.

My dad drove his car away unusually fast, although he constantly did that.

"Ah, so you're Kaitlyn?" For some reason, his voice made me jump inside, cacoons hatching inside my stomach. It scared me, and for a second I almost backed away, but I couldn't. It was almost as if I'd been stuck in cement, or frozen in time. Just like it used to be with Aiden.

"That would be me," I answered, instantly feeling like I sounded like a loser. In texts, I could erase what I said before sending the message. Real words weren't so easily taken back.

He smiled back at me, I hadn't even realized I smiled in the first place. This might not be a good sign.

We walked inside the mall, crowded as usual, since it was Saturday afternoon. There wasn't much to do in our town but go to the mall, pretty much, and it got boring after a while to be truthful.

There was a silence between Gavin and I, and yet, I didn't feel like I needed to say anything. Gavin broke the silence once we got to the elevator and pushed the button.

"Any good movies you want to see?" he asked while we waited for the elevator to come down. I could see it high up through the glass windows.

"Mmm...well I'm not really sure. I guess we can see what's playing when we get up there."

The doors opened to reveal an empty elevator. We stepped in, and Gavin hit the floor button as the doors shut. We were officially alone for the first time, sort of. The elevator was clear, exposing us to everyone walking on all the floors of the mall.

Either the elevator had already given me a heart dropping feeling, or my nervousness was getting the best of me.

"Kaitlyn?" I snapped out of it, feeling sweaty palms. "You alright?"

No. He seemed to be too close. His eyes were brown. Almost the exact same shade as Aiden's... I backed into the edge of the elevator, and for the second time in ten minutes, time went still. My heart pounded, it wasn't the elevator, it was me. The doors had opened like nothing had happened.

I nodded slowly. "I'm fine."

Some people stepped into the elevator the moment we got off. The cinema level had posters of a bunch of new and upcoming movies. The ticket area had an electric board of all the available shows for the day.

Both Gavin and I read through the list a few times while waiting in line. I'd seen previews for almost all of them, and finally settled on one.

"I've seen commercials for What Happens in Vegas...how about that?" Gavin suggested before I could form my words. Oddly enough, that had been my choice as well. This day was just getting better and better.

"Sure." I knew I smiled at him this time. We'd reached the front of the line and the employee boredly asked what we wanted to see. Honestly, after hearing the same few titles over and over, I'd get bored too.

"Two for Vegas?" Gavin asked. I opened my mouth to protest as he slipped money in through the hole to the lady. I was not the type to have a guy pay on a date. Although this was not a date. I just didn't like guys paying for me in general. "Don't worry about paying me back, hun."

Hun. The word went in one ear and spun around in my head like the right at the fair I had loved so much, that I'd ridden it maybe seven times in a row.

A ticket was slipped into my hand, and I glanced down at it. The movie was starting in ten minutes. In theater nine...

We had time to get snacks. I watched him pick out sour skittles and popcorn with soda. I bought mints, out of habit.

"Mints?" he looked at me like I had an extra head.

"I always get them during movies," I explained, feeling foolish and looking down at the ground.

"Hey, don't worry," Gavin said, tilting my head back up with one finger. It was the first time he touched me, and saying it was electric was an understatement. It began at my chin, where his finger had been, all the way to my heart that began to beat faster. "I think that's kinda cute," he finished.

On the way into the theater, I concluded that the only reason my heart sped up was because it made me nervous when people touched me, nothing else. But it felt like deja vu, giving excuses to why I feel the way I do all the time.

Then my heart went from racing, to a complete stop.

Theater nine was the same theater Aiden and I had once sneaked into. And then I remembered clearly when he held my hand during the movie. Even trying to do more that that, when I knew he was dating Claire at the time. Not even a year after that, I'd given in and lost my virginity to him, someone I'd known was playing me all along.

I associated everything I did now to Aiden and me, and it somehow always came down to that very thought. Just getting reading in the morning was hard. Getting dressed, I would remember getting undressed. Doing my hair, I would remember his hand brushing through it. While brushing my teeth, I found myself trying to practically tear out my tongue with the toothbrush to get rid of his cinnamon taste.

"No." That was my voice. I saw I was sitting in a seat beside Gavin, and I had no idea what was going on, not to mention what he'd asked and I responded no to.

"Well what's wrong?"

"What?"

"I asked if you were okay, and you said no," he explained. He was looking directly at me, and I couldn't look him in the eyes, they were too similar to Aiden's. His piercings even reminded me of Aiden. I just couldn't look at him.

"I-I'm sorry," I stammered before getting back up and leaving theater nine.

I sat outside the door, staring at the carpet's pattern. I wasn't even talking to Aiden anymore, and he still managed to take over my life. I couldn't even move on. I could be dating someone and being happy, but Aiden always fed off of my heartache. This was probably like Thanksgiving to him.

And I hated to admit to myself that Gavin was such a nice person to me and treated me a million times better than Aiden ever did. But I'd only hung out with him today, and it was too soon to consider him that way. But I already wanted to say no, only because he was Aiden's best friend. But that's what Aiden would want, for me to give up potential happiness for him.

"Kaitlyn." Gavin sunk down beside me. He had his arm around my shoulder as if to comfort me. "Look at me."

I still couldn't.

"I'm not that ugly," he joked. "Just tell me what's wrong with you."

I'd have thought by now I would've ran out of tears, but I had not. It seemed whenever I expected something, it always turned out the complete opposite no matter what. I closed my eyes and shook my head. "You might hate me if I do."

"No," he sounded almost like he was a bad actor in a soap opera, "I wouldn't."

I could not tell him everything. I thought of the whole sex thing as my and Aiden's little secret. If no one asked about it, I wouldn't have to tell. As far as everyone else was concerned - my family, my best friend, everyone in school, Gavin - I was a virgin who over-reacted to being just led on.

Sometimes I wished that I could just stop everyone in the hall and tell the truth. But who would believe me?

"I had a reason why I stopped talking to Aiden," I began. Confrontations did not come easy to me, ever, and this one would take the cake. "I...used to like him - or something - a lot."

I thought he would be satisfied with just that, but he wasn't. "I knew that. He liked you too."

"No. He didn't," I nearly burst. "You only know his side. And Aiden is a liar. He fools everyone, including the both of us." I stopped as soon as I'd started. I didn't want to talk about any of this. Not to mention we were missing the movie Gavin had paid for. "Okay," I sniffled a bit, "Should we go back?"

"I don't know. Should we?" Almost instantly, I realized what he'd meant: are you okay enough? I was able to fake it so well sometimes, and I constantly worried that someone would catch onto my lie.

"Yeah... let's go."

The movie was good. The mints were good. Everything was just great. That wasn't a lie. I got through it all. I don't know how I managed that. It could have been that I finally lied to myself enough times to believe it, or that I knew Gavin was beside me, willing to help. It all almost seemed too new for me.

Gavin offered to drive me home, a possibly scary thought. How well did he drive? And what would happen being alone in a car with him?

He didn't try anything, which I was thankful for. I gave him directions and we talked about the movie, reciting the jokes that had been in it.

When we pulled into my driveway, I saw my dad's car no where to be seen.

"Your parents aren't home?"

"It's just my father," I corrected. "And he's always gone anyways."

I remember learning when I was nine or ten that my parents weren't in love, and trying to fall in love on my own just to show to them that it was possible, but I had failed.

"Oh... I'm sorry," he sounded like he wasn't sure what to say. But I was fine with it, sometimes. I didn't want my parents hovering over me all the time like others. But sometimes, I wish I had someone to care about me so much.

"It's fine, really." I said, getting out of the car. Gavin did the same, leaving the car running. I looked at him nervously.

"Chill, just want a hug goodbye," he smiled, his lip studs sticking out a little farther, just like mine did when I smiled or laughed.

He casually wrapped his arms around the bottom of my back, and I did the same around his neck and rested my ear against his chest for a second.

His heart was beating faster than one should be.

In less that a second, I pulled away. "Well, I'll see you around," I told him, going right inside.

Once I closed he door, I regretted it. Today might have been one of the best days I'd had in a long time, and I let old feelings get in the way. Would it ever end? It had to, it needed to.

Almost a minute later, a text came for me;

"I had a really good time today.
you can come to me about
anything dont worry. and
i hope we can do this again
sometime... :)"