I Am Invincible

I didn’t tell anyone what happened at prom. What was the point? It was my own fault. So I kept it a secret and spent the next week and a half with a fake smile plastered on my face. That was until my life continued crashing down a spiral of hurt and anguish three days before I was due to leave Australia and go home to my family. In the morning before I left my apartment to wait to be picked up by Jackson so that we could go to Jake’s for a bit of a farewell party, I remembered that I hadn’t checked the mail for a few days. There wasn’t really a lot of point checking it every day because bills and stuff were sent to mom and dad.

But I decided to check it just in case and was surprised to find a single white envelope sitting in the small box.
I grabbed it out and looked on the front, thinking that perhaps it was put in the wrong box or something.

My hands began shaking when I read my name and address on the front. I recognised the hand-writing; how couldn’t I? I’d seen that hand-writing on hundreds of cute little notes that always made my heart flutter when I saw the messy ‘I love you’ scrawled on a piece of notepaper from the notebook Zach had been working in during classes at school.

Whatever was in this envelope, it wasn’t a love note. I knew that much for certain. I threw myself down on the front step of the apartment block and stared at my name on the front. I didn’t even notice Jackson’s presence until he sat down next to me on the stair.
“What’s that?” he asked quietly.
“Letter,” I replied hoarsely. “I haven’t opened it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s from Zach…”
“So open it. You can’t just bury your head in the sand. What’s the point in that?” Jackson said gently.

I nodded, and slowly, hesitantly opened the envelope and removed the single white piece of paper. I drew in a deep breath and held it as I flipped open the folded paper.

Cameron, it said, and immediately, just reading my name made tears well up in my eyes.
I wish you would have answered my phone calls. I didn’t want to tell you like this.
She’s pregnant. It’s mine.
I’m so sorry.
I love you so much. I miss you. Please can we talk when you get home?
Cameron, I love you more than anything. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry.
-Zach

My eyes spilled over and a sob was released from my throat. Jackson noticed this and pulled me into his chest, hugging me tight. He didn’t say anything, but silently sat holding me and letting me soak his shirt with my tears for at least half an hour.

When my tears had finally dried up, I looked up from Jackson’s drenched shoulder and wiped my eyes.
“Cam? You okay?” Jackson asked, concerned.
Silently, I handed over the letter. Jackson skim read the letter and sighed.
“I’m sorry, Cameron,” he whispered.
“Why can’t my life just be easy? I just want one thing in my life to work out well. Is that really so hard?” I sobbed, and Jackson drew me into his chest again as the tears began flowing again.
“I’m going to text Jake okay? And tell him that we’re going to be late,” Jackson told me, pulling out his phone.
“N-no. Don’t. You go to the party. I just want to stay here. I’m not going to be much fun. I just need some time to think…”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind staying.”

I nodded, “I’m sure. Thanks, though,” I said quietly, getting to my feet. Jackson put the letter back in the envelope that he’d taken from me and handed it to me. I glanced at the front of the envelope quickly before letting my arm drop to my side. I stood on my tip-toes quickly to peck Jackson on the cheek before turning around and entering the building. I trudged up the stairs towards my apartment and as soon as I opened the door and entered, I slammed it and slid down until I was leaning against it. I stayed that way until my back was sore from leaning over and I got up after a while and placed the letter in my drawer beside my bed, before I pulled my phone out and searched my phone book. I stopped at ‘Father’ (I know it seems weird that I don’t just have him in my phonebook as ‘Dad’, but believe me, my name in his phone is weirder – ‘Offspring starting with C’. Seriously. My father’s a nutcase) and pressed the ‘call’ button.

When he answered, I explained what had just happened in the smallest amount of words possible, before telling him that I didn’t want to go home, that I didn’t want to face Zach. He explained calmly that I was going to have to face him eventually, but agreed that maybe it was still too soon and that if I saw him now it might send me back into the mess I was before I moved to Australia. I told him the plan that I had come up with while I was sitting on the floor against the door and crossed my fingers as he mulled it over, hoping that he would think it was as good an idea as I did. He moved away from the phone after about 5 minutes of nothing but his tongue clicking annoyingly while he thought and I heard him talking to my mom in the background.

“Okay,” dad said when he finally got back on the phone, “Just as long as it’s okay with everyone over there.”
“I’m going to call when I get off the phone with you,” I replied.
“But you know that you won’t be able to stay there for long. There are a lot of tours coming up soon…”
“Yeah, I know,” I said sadly.
“Alright, well, I’ll book you a ticket then. But you’ll have to get off at the normal airport first and then catch another plane out.”
“Yeah that’s fine.”

“Alright. Well, we’ll come to the airport anyway. You know, we haven’t seen you in nearly a year, we would’ve forgotten what you looked like if we hadn’t been able to chat with you on webcam” dad said, “Well, I’ll let you go so you can call them. See you in three days. Your mom says to stay strong… I say that too, of course… Um, yeah. Bye.”

I shook my head at my father’s awkwardness before hanging up and scrolling down in my phonebook a little further until I got to the person I was looking for. Hitting ‘call’ I waited for the person who would hopefully help me to once again escape from my messed up life to answer the phone.