She can see the headline now: PIFA Student Kills Best Friend. On a slow news day she might even get the front page.

Sighing she gets out of the car and trudges the three blocks to her doom. Well, at least she didn't waste her last day on Earth reading that stupid lit book.

She catches a bit of luck when one of the tenants recognizes her and holds the door with a smile. She really wishes she'd had that cheesecake for dessert.  With what she's about to face, she could have used the fortification. Besides, if that was her last meal, it should have been a good one.

  
The stairs seem to get steeper as she climbs. She's fighting hard against gravity and her own sense of self-preservation by the time she drags herself up to the landing. Damn freshman fifteen doesn't help any.  Leaning against the wall she gives herself a silent pep-talk before banging on the door. There's the usual delay before the door opens, and she half-turns to eye the stairs. She still has enough time to make a clean getaway.

Too late.

"What the fuck do you want?"

He's wearing jeans so she only stares open-mouthed for a few seconds before he her  brain starts working again.

"Hi Brian, can I come in?"

"This isn't kiddyland anymore. Go play somewhere else."

She propels herself forward, invading his space and he retreats just enough for her to brush past him into the loft. Take-out food containers litter the table next to his briefcase and a jacket and tie hang just slightly askew off the back of a chair.

She turns around and he's standing beside the open door, waiting none too patiently. She starts to talk fast, a technique she picked up from Justin.

"He doesn't know I'm here. I needed to tell you something important about Jus..." As soon as she starts to say he name, Brian tenses. He walks away from the door, leaving it open, and stalks off towards the kitchen.

"So you're here to remind me how I cruelly wounded the little darling. Maybe hit me in the arm for good measure? That would make a nice change. Everyone else has gone for my balls."

His sneer is almost enough to make her want to cry, or at least kick him in the shin. With her pointy-toed shoes. Instead she walks over to the nearest chair and drops into it, crossing her arms.

"Go ahead, get it out of your system. I'll wait," she tells him. He may be a drama queen of the highest order but she's been dealing with Justin for years.  She can handle it.

"You don't have that kind of time."

"Sure I do. I am younger than you after all."

For just a moment she wonders if he can vaporize her with his angry glare. She watches as he walks over and picks up one of the food cartons and leans against the kitchen counter, eating and paging through a magazine.

"All that MSG will kill you," she comments after watching him eat for a while.

"Not if the booze and drugs get me first." He doesn't even look up.

He tosses the carton into the trash and takes a swig right from the three-quarters full bottle of JB. Without looking up, he picks another magazine off the stack and pages through it.

"He could get caught," she says at last. "Could get in big trouble."

"And this concerns me how?" the magazine pages continue to turn.

"Well, he did steal from you."

"He paid off the charges on my credit card a long time ago." He almost looks up then, and for a second asmile ghosts across his lips.

"I'm not talking about your credit card. There's something else."

He's looking up now, pretending to be uninterested. He isn't quite that good an actor.

"But since you're not interested in your ex-stalker's descent into crime..." She stands and turns with a flourish, fighting against the sudden urge to giggle.

She can feel him moving up fast behind her as she hurries towards the door. Without looking back she calls, "you'll need shoes."

She hears muttering and a thump and then he is moving up behind her again. She holds up the key she'd "borrowed" from Justin's backpack and waits.

"That little twat."

"Um, not what I'd call him, but..." She moves the key out of his reach and heads towards the recessed door to the roof.

She concentrates on the stairs, ignoring his questions. Stepping through to the roof she moves aside and turns to watch.

It takes him just a few seconds to spot the planters. She follows along, trying to read his body language as he puzzles things out.

"When did he do this?"

"A few months ago. You were in New York."

"You helped him?"

"Yeah, some of the stuff was heavy and he was worried he might drop the plants."

"Looks like a bunch of weeds."

"That's all that's left. The flowers died, I guess."

She tries not to smile when he kneels and starts moving some of the greenery aside gently.

"They didn't all die. This one's getting smothered though." He pulls out the weeds that are choking the struggling plant. When he is done the flower looks better, but lonely with nothing but dark earth around it.

"He wanted it to be a surprise."

"He never told me."

"I know. He kept the key and sneaks in here to take care of them, but he's been busy with school and work."

Brian carefully uproots another weed, trying not to dislodge too much soil. Daphne watches him for a moment before walking quietly away. At the doorway she hesitates for a moment, turning for one last look.

She watches as he pulls out the dandelion that has gone to seed. The soft breeze lifts the white seeds up into the pink-tinted sunset. She slips away as he watches them fly.

                  

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