“She does haunt me.” He admitted quietly, looking over at her, smiling even though the situation didn’t call for it. He lived in the same apartment, kept small tokens of her things around the place as though it was something he was doing to punish himself. Their photos were still tucked away, her favorite blanket still hung over the back of her couch. He did it to himself - but he couldn’t bring himself to change it. He could see her ghost in every corner, and he lived with that as a way to punish himself.
He considered her words, mulling it over as he took a sip of his drink. “There’s nothing you can do. Most of them are in jail, the rest have burrowed themselves so deeply into the shit hole that is the underground of this city that I can’t track them down from behind a desk.” Admitting it out loud pissed him off as much as it put a dagger in his chest, and he down the rest of his drink in one go. He would need far more of this to get him through the rest of the night, but he owed Aria this. She deserved to be able to move on, somehow. “She talked about you all the time, you know? Thought the sun shined out of your ass, honestly. You couldn’t do anything wrong.”
People dealt with the pain of death in different ways — Aria knew that, from her reporting all the way to Abby’s family. Some, like herself, tried to rid themselves of the memory the best they could; scrubbed their minds and space with bleach until the dead was just a faded stain, floating away into the mist. Others kept pieces around like medallions of their love and devotion — and she wondered if he was the latter.
“What do you mean?” Aria asked, eyebrows knitting together. “You mean, you’re not looking for all of them anymore?” Swallowing, she inhaled, trying to control her breath. The thought that the men that were responsible for Abby’s death being out there… it made her skin crawl.
But a brief smile crossed Aria’s face when he mentioned the kind words Abby had for herself, and she shook her head. “I could say the same for you,” she commented. “Talked about how you were this amazing cop… and then I met you.” Raising her eyebrows, she chuckled at the memory. “Truthfully, I thought she was crazy — the only time I really doubted her judgement, really.” Abby was just and kind, but she also had a penchant for seeing right through people, and Aria knew she didn’t have the patience for awful people. It had always confused her when she latched onto Rhett, considering that Aria never pegged him as a particularly nice guy. “I still don’t see it, really,” she commented, bursting into a small fit of soft giggles as she watched him. Ah, the alcohol was talking now.
