Hello, Can You Please Stop Haunting Me?

“How can you not care about this? He’s your friend!” Eliza said, tired of the fight she was having.

“No, Eliza,” Zach said, his voice ringing with coldness that matched the iciness of his eyes. “He was my friend. Do you want to know why my mother never wanted me to get involve in the crap you’re in right now? Exhibit A,” he spat, gesturing to her.

“So you’re just going to pretend he’s not here anymore? That he doesn’t matter?”

“He is dead, Eliza! He’s gone, he killed himself and that selfish bastard didn’t only put his family in a hard situation, he’s putting you in a hard situation! He’s supposed to suffer for what he’s done. This is not a difficult concept to understand!”

She blinked. Her throat felt so dry that it was difficult to swallow.

“Very well, then,” she said, her shoulders shook vehemently as she stormed out of the room. Zach panted, watching her slam the door shut before gritting his teeth and kicking the nearest chair he saw. The room was silent except for his ragged breathing.

He was not satisfied.

He took his jacket and snatched his scarf before wrapping it messily around his neck before storming out the door himself with only one destination set in his head. A few minutes later, he arrived in the burial grounds still fuming as he searched for Jeremy, which was nearly impossible considering the fact that he couldn’t see him in the first place.

But he knew where his tombstone was.

“You have been here for weeks, Jeremy,” he said, shoving his hands into his pocket. And for once in his life, he could pinpoint the exact location where Jeremy was.

“He’s dead,” Zach heard Jeremy muttered.

“And so you’re just going to give up, like you always do.”

Zach stood there, looking at the wilting flower on Jeremy’s grave without any ounce of remorse left in his body. His heart was beating rapidly against his chest, threatening to burst. He was angered more by his guilt of not feeling sympathetic at Jeremy. Guilt and sympathy was the entire reason Eliza got into this problem in the first place. And indirectly, Zach was involved in it too.

Zach was never the kind of person to raise his voice whenever he was angry but you could always hear the tremble of rage in his voice.

And Jeremy knew it all too well.

Jeremy stood up for the first time in weeks.

“I know I’ve made a mistake by jumping.”

Zach laughed – a cynical laugh.

“Oh god, do you think that’s the only thing you’ve done to give up? You gave up a lot of times. But I never expected that you’re capable to jump off that building, so bravo,” he said, every words uttered were drenched in sarcasm.

“Do you think I want this? I am supposed to be dead!”

“I do,” Zach replied. “You jumped. You didn’t die of a natural cause, you didn’t die because a serial killer was out to get you, you didn’t die because you got hit by a bus that came out of nowhere, no one strapped you to the railways and for fuck’s sake, no one pushed you off of the Golden Gate Bridge! You did this to yourself. Sure, Mia and your mother might have forgiven you and maybe, maybe Xavier was kind enough to do so too.”

“Don’t,” Jeremy hissed. “I’ve been through so many shit in my life, you have no idea how it is to be in my fucking shoes—”

“I don’t!” Zach exclaimed. “You’re right, I don’t know. But I could’ve help! You never asked, you didn’t say anything to me! And I had to live every second of my days wondering if I helped, if I knew. But you know what? I didn’t. Because you know why? You didn’t tell me. You decided that on your own. There were other ways to approach these problems! There were always other options. You gave up.”

“You gave up,” Zach repeated.

“What the hell do you want me to do? It’s not like I can reverse back time and be alive. It’s not like…it’s not like I can rewind and not drink too much at that stupid fucking party and kill my sister and apparently, Xavier too.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Zach said. “He had a brain aneurysm. He died a few weeks after you did.”

“What? How on earth do you know that?”

“Because I met him!” Zach screamed. “I tracked him down and I met him and apologized for your mistake.”

“Zach,” Jeremy began but to be frank, he didn’t know what to say. He ran out of things to say, he ran out energy to fight anymore.

“You could’ve at least talked, you know,” Zach said, feeling his muscles relaxing. “I was your friend.”

He turned around, biting his bottom lip and closing his eyes as he walked away. He just wanted to get away from the two of them or anyone that was involved and get drunk.