I'm so sorry about the delayed update, it's summer, so they'll be more frequent: here you go.

~Leigh

**This chapter is dedicated to WallFlower95, who needs to update the final chapter to Convergent so I can see how Natalie dies. P.S She was also my co-author to 'Pencil and Pen'. Check out her stories!*

Not About Friendship

Certainly, in that moment I would've believed that this girl who I hadn't known long, was crying because of pity and because of loss, crying at the same spot I would cry when I was alone, but her being here sort of meant something to me, although I didn't know what it was.

"Kaitlyn," I asked, sinking down on one knee. "What's the matter?"

She didn't reply at first, and for a minute I thought it was maybe because she didn't hear me, but I could hear her breathing, and her scent lingered in the air. Jasmine.

She sighed, and I heard the sound of her finger running against her scalp, like her nails scratched it as she ran them through her hair. "I just came to see Hazel." Her breathing was rushed and fast, almost as if she couldn't catch her breath.

"Are you alright?" I asked. No response.

"You forget I'm blind." I added. "That I can't see the signals you make with your head or your fingers."

She spoke again a few moments later. "I'm sorry. I forgot." She sighed yet again, almost as if something was a burden on her.

"What's the matter?" I asked again.

"I said I came to see Hazel." Her voice was almost as if she was irritated I was asking the same question. I turned my head to the sound of her voice.

I shook my head. "No, I mean the sighing, and the fingers running through the hair in an exasperated tone."

"How did you know?"

"How did I know what?"

"How did you know?"

"What?" I ask, through laughter, and she makes a weird clicking noise.

"Oh," she said. "I meant how you knew I was running my fingers through my hair."

I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't really know how. I took a wild guess, and even to this day I recall it being so that it must've been one of the luckiest guesses of my time well spent.

She nodded, and I heard the sound of her footsteps. "Are you leaving?" I asked.

She must've nodded, and then forgotten I was blind again, becaue she said, "I'll see you soon."

I nodded, standing up after her with my cane. "Wait!" I called out. There was one more thing I had to ask her. "How come you can't remember anything very well?"

She didn't really reply for a moment, and I thought she had left, and then I felt her hand on my arm, which was warm, small, soft but also strong and sturdy, like she was trying to hold herself in place near me. "I've never had a good memory. And I have a really bad thyroid problem, too, and it makes me have long-term and short-term memory loss, so it's hard to remember some things."

"How did you remember my name?" I asked.

"Because we're friends." She replied, although she didn't seem too confident about it.

I raised an eyebrow, which was like opening one of my empty eyes behind my dark glasses, and then squeezing the other so tight my eyebrow would raise. "We're friends?"

She couldn't help but laugh. I don't know if it was because she thought my comment was sarcastic, or because she thought that maybe questioning herself was a bad idea.

I turned back toward the graves, listening to her footsteps trail off. Hazel's grave was on the right, and Gus's was on the left. After Gus died and Hazel got worse, her parents one day called me and asked where they thought we should bury her. Well, her mother asked me but her father was quietly sobbing.

"Right beside Gus." I told her. "But to the right, because she always stayed on his right side, whether they were walking, or sitting down, or cuddling on the couch which disgusted me listening to the sound of their smacking lips together.

I took a deep breath, stood up and turned around, using my cane to maneuver me back to my mom's car. She ran the engine a few times so I could follow the sound, and when I sat in the car I was blasted with cool air.

"Was that Kaitlyn?" My mother asked. She clicked my cane to a close a I buckled my seatbelt in.

I turned to the sound of her voice and nodded my head once. "Yeah, that was Kaitlyn."

"She doesn't look so sick." My mother commented.

"Neither did Gus." I added, and she was quiet during the drive home.

When we got home, my brother didn't exactly question anything. He sat in the car quietly the entire time, not uttering a word, not even when we brought up Kaitlyn, he remained silent. I was sitting in my room when the door opened and someone knocked.

"Isaac?" My brother's voice called me, and I turned to the sound of it.

"Are you okay Graham?" I asked.

He mumbled in reply, and I heard him walk into my bedroom. I sat up so he could sit on the edge of my bed, and I felt his small figure weigh the end of my mattress down. I had a sense he was looking at me.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I know why you don't want to be friends with that pretty brown-haired girl." Oh, I thought, so she has brown hair. Of course, I also heard my brother. I was curious about his insights.

"What do you mean I don't want to be friends with her?" I asked.

He kind of mumbled for a moment, and then he said, "I don't know. It's just… Gus died, and then Hazel died." He was kicking his feet back and forth against my mattress and I could feel the vibration. At least I knew he was attentive.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't see a need to have friends."

"Because you won't be so lonely all the time and because you won't miss Hazel and Gus so often." Graham replied his voice almost like a whine but wasn't meant to be taken like a cry for help, or displeasure, but almost as if he was concerned.

I smiled at him a little, and I had a sense he was smiling back. "Thanks little brother, but you know… it's not really about friendship."

His tone was a little curious. "Then what is it about?"

I shrugged. I didn't really have an answer. What is it really about?