Melancholy

Author: Jess (aka JNJ)
Spoilers:Four Aliens and A Baby
Rating: PG 13
Disclaimer: I do not own Kyle, Tess, or anyone else in Roswell...but DAMN I wish I did!
Email: candygurl2878956@aol.com

Melancholy

So this is odd,
the painful realization that all has gone wrong.
And nobody cares at all,
and nobody cares at all.
So you buried all your lover’s clothes
and burned the letters lover wrote,
but it doesn’t make it any better.
Does it make it any better?

-Dashboard Confessional, The Brilliant Dance


Nearly lifeless, and covered in dark sheets of grey that matched his mood, he lay in the darkness for the third day in a row, black images running through his heavy head. Old memories he tried once to forget flooded in and out of his mind, making his misery intensify. The high he felt when she hugged him, the way she always cheerfully laughed at his jokes, and her sparkling blue eyes, gazing into his across the table. These memories were the only way he’d ever experience those things again. And this time, he couldn't push them out of his mind.

This time, it was different. She wasn’t just gone, there was no possibility of her sweet voice returning...ever. Last year, when she left him for the first time, Kyle told himself it really didn’t matter. That he didn’t even love her, that she was evil, and that he didn’t care at all. He pushed all the raw emotions he felt when someone said her name out the window. He pretended to be strong, and he closed himself up for no one to see. He didn’t admit to himself how much he missed her presence in the morning, instead he made small jokes to cover it up.

He did a pretty good job of it too. But, when he stepped into Michael’s apartment and found her standing there, back from space, that act crumbled to the ground. And all those emotions Kyle had pushed away for a year surged forward, making him realize how much he had loved her. How much he needed her. How stupid he had been to think he could ever forget her sweet smile.

But all that really didn’t matter now. Because, this time, all that was left of Tess Harding were tiny grey ashes, scattered across the cold desert air. This time she was gone for good. Tess was dead, and Kyle seemed to be the only one in Roswell not rejoicing it. No longer could he keep his heart from aching every time he thought of her, which was every second of every day. Kyle just wanted to lie there in his room with the shades pulled shut and the door locked, wishing that she was there with him.


He had watched from the cold door frame as his father packed up her things two nights ago, with dull tears in his eyes. Every radiant item that had once filled her room was now in tiresome cardboard boxes. Her ‘Nynsc posters which he had teased her for once before were now folded neatly into a garbage bag, along with her school books which she had doodled her name onto. Kyle had took a huge gulp and stood in the silence, watching Jim take what was left of his son’s first love away. Every fuzzy stuffed animal, now shoved in a box with the rest of her girly stuff, brought back a painful recollection.

Kyle remembered last year how he’d thrown away everything in his room she had given him without a single tear. He had thought it would make everything recover, so he could get on with his life without thinking twice about the girl he had said he thought of as a sister. With every CD and note thrown into the garbage can, the pain that ran through his body decreased, for a little while. It always came back, though. Nothing could take away the ache he felt in his heart where he missed her more than words.

He felt like telling his father to stop packing what was left of her away, but that wasn’t fair to Jim. He had to move on with his life, because that’s all he knew to do. But Kyle would never move on. All he wanted was to be with her, and if he couldn’t, he’d just have to live life wrapped up alone in his misery.

He drew a deep sigh, and rubbed his cold hands together, without much effort. He wanted to die so much it scared him. The fact that he was still living and breathing, and Tess was not, was killing him inside. If only she had woken him up instead of Liz, then maybe, just maybe she’d be alive today. Maybe they’d be together, and he could ask her all the questions he needed to know. Like, if she loved him so much, why had she chosen Max Evans, that creep, over himself?

But Kyle already knew the answer to that question, and it hurt. Tess never wanted Max, she wanted to be with him. But he was too stubborn to believe that someone like her, someone so beautiful would ever love a brainless jock back. So he pushed her far away, let her believe that he’d slept with Liz, let her believe that he only thought of her as family, and wouldn’t even kiss her for the fear of rejection. Kyle shook his head. If only he hadn’t decided to become a brick wall, she wouldn’t have left at all.

A single tear fell down his dry cheek. He didn’t even blink to hold it back, letting it run down his face until more and more came. And for once, he wasn’t strong, and he wasn’t hiding anything at all.

He was just plain Kyle Valenti, whose only love had died to save three selfish aliens. And he didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.

*****

THE END

*J*E*S*S*
And in between the moon and you
The Angels get a better view
of the crumbling difference between
Wrong and Right