"What are you looking at? There is nothing here to see, so stop looking at me!" He screamed at everyone in the food court. You could see the anger in his eyes. He stood up and walked around every table there. The smell of french fries and hamburgers filled the air. Then he turns to look at me with those hateful, piercing eyes, "You did this to me. You made me this way, Ann Marie." I was so confused, I haven't talked to Aiden in five years. We used to be best friends from kindergarten to sixth grade. Everyone at our school used to make fun of us. He was always the fat kid and I was the nobody that had stuck up for him. I used to get beat up in middle school for sticking up for him. One day I got tired of fighting for him. Then when we were assigned lab partners for a science project I met my now best friend Tiffany. While we were working she told me, "If you want to be cool like me, then you have to change. And that includes talking to the fat kid your always with." She was talking about Aiden, so I did what she said, I changed everything about myself. Aiden never really forgave me for leaving him behind. Now he wants to blame me for his problems, the problems he brought upon himself. " I didn't do anything to you, you made yourself like this." I was in shock.

Twenty minutes before this big blow up things were fine. Me, my friends and Brett (my boyfriend) were all sitting at a table in the food court at the mall. We had just ordered our hamburgers, then right behind us was Aiden. He was a very large boy and he ate all the time, no matter where he was , he ate. If you looked at him you could tell all he ever did was eat and eat and eat. He ordered a full tray of food for himself, greasy, fatty foods that wouldn't help him. He had big ketchup and grease stains on his used to be gray shirt. His hair, brown and curly, was un-brushed, he was growing a mustache that was crusty. You could see yesterdays food crumbs still in it. His pants were huge and starting to fall down below his fat. His shoes were busted up, you could see his toe, big and hairy, poking out of his sketcher. He walked across the floor and you could feel it move. Not like that earthquake feeling, but you could feel it, and it wasn't gentle.

As he walked to the table and sat down every eye watched him. His every movement was being interpreted by every surrounding person. I watched as everyone stared at the massive figure that used to be my best friend. He sat down all by himself and started to eat, no one took their eyes off him. He ate like an animal you see on the Animal Planet. Ripping the hamburger like a wild coyote does its prey. He looks up from his buffet and see's me looking at him. I look away trying not to draw too much attention to myself . Everyone watches Aiden eat his food, making those annoying noises a cow makes when it chews. Then, he asks the people next to him "What the hell are you looking at?" They just turn away and carried on with their own conversations. Then he got up to leave and this guy we both knew real well, Brian, hit his tray out of his hand. Aiden looked down at the mess of his meal. The burger had fallen apart and smeared the condiments all over the floor, fries were scattered and soda splattered all over the ground. It was one large mess, that Brian had made.

Aiden had looked from the floor to his brother Brian and back again. "Clean it up you fat bastard!" Brian had never acknowledged Aiden as his twin brother and never treated him like it either. None of Aiden's family treated him kindly. They've all had a hard time since his sister died in a car accident, two years ago, and Aiden didn't. He was the one driving the car. She was sixteen, just got her license, and he was fourteen, he had begged her to let him drive, so she did. She told him that he could drive down one of the side streets where there wasn't a lot of traffic. He got in the front seat and once he took off it was a mistake. They were going way to fast, Aiden hit a ditch and flipped the car, it was crushing them. By the time that the paramedics arrived Tina had already died. Aiden was on the verge of dying, but they got him out before he had stopped breathing. Tina's skull had crushed and pierced her brain. His family blamed him for his sisters death. They didn't even go to visit him while he was recovering, neither did I. They didn't care that he was hurting too. They couldn't see his pain, his guilt, the feeling that he killed his only sister. The one person that stood up for him no matter what, no matter who it was making fun of him, she was there to protect him. Now she's gone and he thinks its all his fault. Aiden and Brian used to be close, back before Aiden had turned fat and killed his sister. Brian loved his sister more than anything, that was his big sister. He would have died for her. Now he can't get passed what has happened and he blames Aiden more than anybody.

It was tragic to see him like this, his face turned a sort of reddish purple. His eyes filled with hate and anger. Brian had pushed Aiden, by now everyone was watching them, even the staff. The security guard pulled Brian aside and told him "You need to leave Brian, fighting him isn't solving anything. Besides we don't want a big scene now do we?". Brian shook his head and walked out not taking his eyes off of Aiden, with the security guard right behind him. Brett got up to follow but I pulled him back into his seat. I didn't want him to leave me here all by myself. Then Aiden had realized that everyone was watching him, waiting to see what he would do. Then he snapped, he started yelling at people and throwing food around the place. People started running out of the mall trying not to get hit with anything. Then he picked up a chair and threw it towards my table.

Suddenly I felt a nudge, it was from Tiffany, she whispered, "Why are you looking at Aiden? You don't like him again do you?." I whispered back, "NO! never again will I be friends with him. He 's repulsive." I regretted saying that but I did what I had to, I had to lie or I would be a nobody again. "Hey lets go, this is so lame." Brett screamed, "There's too many fat people here and their chewing really loud." "Yeah, Aiden should never eat again. Look how fat he is, he weighs like six hundred pounds." Brian said loudly. So we got up to leave, thank god, I didn't want to stick around to see what would really happen if Aiden had went on a rampage.

When we went passed Aiden he said "Hey Ann Marie, How's it going?" I just waved and walked out of the mall without a word to say. I didn't think there was anything I could say, I know that after the accident he fell apart and could blow up any minute but I did not want to stay around to witness it myself. I never looked at him the same way after that day. He made me feel sorry for him, but in another sense I hated him, I hated who he had become. I didn't know if it was possible to hate him and like him at the same time, but that's how I felt right now. He made me start to think about a lot of stuff, about how I betrayed him and all my other friends I used to have. All I could think about for weeks was if I really did make him this way, or if he did it to himself. When we went back to school on Monday it was weird. I was walking down the hall and Aiden had stopped me, "Hey, I don't blame you for my problems. You know that don't you?" I don't know what it was but this seemed really weird, like he knew about my little daydream (more like day nightmare) at the mall the other day. "Uhhh....yea I know. Why would you?" I saw Brett, out of the corner of my eye, he was waving me over, I had a feeling he was going to tell me to stay away from Aiden. "I gotta go Aid, I'll see ya around." "Yea... see ya later Ann Marie." I nodded and walked over to Brett. What else was I gonna do? Stay and chat with my old best friend? I don't think my friends would have liked that. I couldn't risk loosing everyone that I cared about now. I love my friends, I can't just stop talking to them so me and Aiden can pick up where we left off when we were in the sixth grade. I just can't!

When I reached Brett at the end of the hallway he asked me "What the hell was that Ann Marie?" "Nothing Brett, he just stopped me to talk to me and I told him I couldn't talk to him." Brett walked over to Aiden, pushed him then asked "Why the hell are you messing with my girl? She doesn't want to talk to you, leave her alone. You got that?" Aiden smiled at me then said "I think that Ann Marie can speak for herself. If she doesn't want to talk to me then she can tell me." "Tell him Ann Marie!" Brett turned to me standing behind him. I looked at Aiden and told him "I NEVER want to talk to you again we aren't friends. Look at you and look at me. Why would I be friends with you?" I heard everyone laugh behind me, I turned and saw all of my friends laughing, I started laughing too, I managed to chuckle out "He actually thought I would talk to him." " What happened to you," it fell silent, "You became a bitch ever since you started hanging out with these idiots. Your just like them, monsters." Brett punched Aiden right in the face for saying that to me. Aiden fell to the ground, he made a loud thump. He didn't bother getting up. "Say that again and I'll rearrange your face." Brett grabbed me around the waist and pulled me toward our class, I looked back at Aiden and gave him a dirty look. He just smiled.

I can't believe what he just said that to me. What was he thinking? He knew that Brett would always protect me and if someone had hurt my feelings then Brett would take care of him. All through English I thought about what he just said to me. At the end of English Brett waited for me, I hadn't even noticed that I started to cry. "Babe, what's wrong? If it's about that fat kid don't worry about it. I always got your back." He smiled at me and I tried my hardest to smile back, he bent down to kiss me. I kissed back for a long minute, everyone was awww-ing it was embarrassing but I didn't care who was watching me kiss my prince. He stood up for me and that showed that he really loves me. That day after school Brain and Brett went looking for Aiden. They found him waiting for the bus (who rides the bus anymore? We all have our license.) they grabbed him and started hitting him. Everyone was watching this now. It was insane how many people wanted to see a fight. When Aiden was laying on the ground clutching his stomach Brett kneeled down and whispered something that sounded like "You ever make her cry again I'll mess you up even more than you are now." Then he yelled in Aiden's face "I think that you owe Ann Marie an apology." "I....I'm soo sorr....yy." I nodded my head then looked to Brett. He smiled that adorable smile that showed part of his pearly teeth and I couldn't help but smile back. He drove me home and that was the end of our problem.

Aiden just watched me walk out of his life that day, we never talked or saw each other after that, he had committed suicide the weekend after all of that stuff at school that week. Things just never got better for him that week, people made fun of him, he got beat up three times in two days. I think it was partly his guilt that had pushed him to it, partly his family's hatred, partly my fault and partly because he didn't want to get picked on anymore. I treated him like crap, I made fun of him with my friends, I was so mean and I regret that. Because of all of those horrible things in his life he took his life to get away from them and escape his prison that was holding him back from happiness. Now he's free and happy where ever he is. I try not to think about him, Brian doesn't care that his brother is dead. He invites people over to his house more often. It's like Aiden was never there, there is nothing in his house to remind them that he was ever there. His mother didn't even care that her son had died. Now all she had left was Brian and her husband Don. It was horrible how they didn't even care that Aiden died, but I didn't really either.

My life went on like it always had. I still felt like it was partly my fault that Aiden killed himself, but I can't put my life on hold to feel bad. People die all the time, it's a part of life and everyone will die someday. So why would I waist the rest of my life feeling horrible and mourning a guy I barely even knew? I will have to live with the regret that I feel for being mean to him all those years but I have to live. Aiden got what he wanted, to be free of bullies, free from guilt, free from life. Why should I feel guilty for not spending a year to mourn his death? He's the one that killed himself, not me, I didn't pull that trigger. So I won't feel bad, I can't waist my life like that. Next year I'll be a senior and then I'll graduate and go to college and probably forget all about Aiden.

His parents should feel guilty that he died, they pushed him to it after all. The total number of suicide deaths was 30,622. Suicides outnumbered homicides (20,308) by 3 to 2. Many people kill themselves. I've done the research and have read up on suicide. I wish I could have helped him to make a different decision. Maybe if I would have been friends with him then maybe he would still be alive today. Maybe if he wouldn't have got in the driver seat of his sister's car Tina would be alive and he wouldn't have thrown his life away. All I have is a bunch of what-if's I am not going to beat myself up about this anymore. Goodbye Aiden, rest in peace where ever you are. As long as your happy then I can finally rest my head and relieve my guilt. But at the end of the day I still feel that guilt inside of me and it will probably reside there until I die, when that will be is uncertain. Till death guilt will eat away at me.