The Day You Fell Apart

Every step I took was heavy. Each breath I took didn’t feel real. Everything had come crashing upon me in just a mere 10 minutes, and I wanted nothing more than to make this all stop. My heart was aching and my head wasn’t doing too great either. I felt like I was in some slow moving movie, where everything was planned out for me, but without my consent. And to make it even worse, a light rain was beginning to fall. As if feeling this wasn’t enough, weather had to come into the picture. So, as I was walking, with tears streaming down my face, I felt the undying nerve to scream. To scream as loud as I could to the point where the whole town would hear me. To scream so loud, that Evan could hear me.
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“What?” I asked Jonah. I would have stood up if it weren’t for my legs already feeling numb and unresponsive. My hand began to shake involuntarily and I shook my head from side to side, trying to think of a logical reason as to why Jonah would say what he just did. “You’re… you’re kidding right? Like, seriously, you've got to be kidding.”

Jonah looked over at me with slight tears in his eyes, but I scooted farther and farther away from him with a confused expression on my face.

“Jill, I came here to visit once before I moved here. I wanted to see if moving to another state was actually worth it. So… so I stayed with my dad for the weekend. Over a year ago.”

“Shut up,” I said angrily. My voice was shaking, and Jonah kept staring at me with his dark eyes which held so much sadness and so much regret. “Jonah, you have got to be joking. This doesn’t make any sense. Please stop it. Just stop.” My whole body began shaking even more, and I was reluctantly letting out small sobs in between words.

Jonah scooted closer to me and placed his hands in my own, but I quickly yanked them away.

“You need to listen to me alright, Jillianne?” He whispered. I bit my lip and sobbed even harder. I had no idea what was going on. Why was he telling me this? Is this some part of a cruel joke? I had just gotten over Evan’s death, and he had to go and bring this all up. This all had to be a lie. And if this was or even if this wasn't, then Jonah was more evil than I ever thought. “I never meant for any of this to happen. If I could take it all back I would.” Jonah remarked.

“Take what back?!” I yelled. “You didn’t do anything to take back! Evan fell off of the balcony. He was the one drinking. He accidentally killed himself. You didn’t even know Evan. You moved here months and months after his death. You’ve never met him. You’ve never met me before you moved. You’re lying. You’re making this whole thing up!” I was in hysterics now and my hands were clamping down at the ends of my hair. It was the only thing I could hold onto that felt real.

“I wish I was making this up,” Jonah replied. “But I’m not. You need to listen, please just… listen.”

Everything became silent. Nothing was heard besides the high pitched chiming in my ear that someone only gets when it seems the world is at its quietist. We both stayed perfectly still, until Jonah opened his mouth to speak again.
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I sat down on a swing in the park. The same park that Jonah and I spent a wonderful fourth of July in. The same park where I chewed out Katie for trying to steal him away from me like she did Evan. The same park that I had the feelings of being happy, the feelings of being one hundred percent carefree. That all seemed like such a long time ago, those feelings felt so foreign to me.

“Jill.”

I looked up through my tired eyes to see a girl with long black hair and straight bangs. I cried even harder at the sight of the girl who I used to feel was the reason for all of this. No matter how hard I tried, and no matter how hard I wanted to tell myself that it didn’t, it all came back to her.
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Jonah rested his elbows on his legs, while he hunched over, hands intertwined and wrists weak. His head hung low in shame and his hair covered his face.

“I was having problems with my mom and her boyfriend. I was having problems with school and with alcohol and drugs. I was having a problem with everything. I needed out of that town and I needed to start over. My dad had offered me a place to stay, but I told him that I was skeptical. My sister had already moved in with him, but I still felt like I needed to stay with my mom, for her own sake. My dad offered to let me stay for a weekend to see what it was like. I… I thought it’d be a good idea. A weekend in a new town, with my father and my sister. Once, I got here, I met a boy named Hunter Van Dorsen, and he invited me to a party, saying that he’d show me a good time while I was here, and that it would give me a solid reason to stay here for good. When I got to the party, it was as if I was in a completely new world. No one looked the same as they did back home, no one shook their heads at me when they saw me walk by thinking, ‘Oh it’s just that fuck up’. No one acted the same… no one was the same. I was enthralled, and amused, and it was like I was in some kind of dream, a dream where I felt that I could be a completely different person. I could change my name, or even talk differently. I wouldn’t have to be myself. The one who disappointed everyone and even himself. Hunter offered me a drink. And then another and another. I kept going until I couldn’t anymore. This was normal for me, drinking and hating myself. I was almost ready to just call it a night and go home until I saw her. She was drunk, obviously, and was stumbling over just like everyone else in the party was. But instead of laughing, she had this look of pure sadness on her face. I walked over to her and asked if she was alright, and she just shook her head no. She kept asking ‘Where’s Evan?’ ‘Where’s Evan?” ‘I need Evan’. I couldn’t understand a word she said, but I helped her to a couch and then asked her what her name was. She said it was Katie.”
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Katie sat down on the swing by me, while my foot limply dragged along the sand while the swing went forward and back rhythmically. My head was down, but we both knew that I was aware of her presence. She took a deep breath, reached over and pushed my bangs out of my face, making me look up at her. For the first time, she didn’t look so innocent anymore. Her freckles along her nose didn’t make her look young and naïve as I was perceived them to be. I was staring at a girl who looked like she had experienced so many things in such a short amount of time. What I saw in her right then was completely different than what I saw in her all of those days she was walking in the halls with Evan. Or what I saw in her the night that I confronted her. What I saw in her right now… was myself.
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”Katie told me she needed to use the bathroom, so I stayed on the couch completely hammered. Music was blaring, and I was so happy at that moment. Suddenly, Hunter approached me and introduced me to a guy who looked a bit out of place and a bit worried. I remember him saying, ‘Jonah, meet Evan. Evan meet Jonah. Evan has a little stick up his ass right now, we should loosen him up!’. I smiled, thinking that it would be fun to get this all around good guy who never looked like he’d ever drink, drunk. Hunter began taunting Evan, and kept saying, ‘Come on, man, one drink, one drink! Katie’s fine, I just saw her go into the bathroom. She’s fine. Just one drink! You won your game on Friday. You need to reward yourself.’ Somehow he convinced Evan to take a shot. Peer pressure, I don’t know. I think the only reason Evan even took any alcohol was because Hunter kept coaxing him to do it, and it seemed like Evan knew that if he didn’t, Hunter would get on his back even more, and then Evan wouldn’t be able to get to Katie. Katie came back a few minutes later and all she could do was lean on Evan and tell him that she didn’t want him to go back to ‘Jill’. She’d keep saying ‘You know how I feel about you, please, don’t go back to Jill’. I asked Evan who ‘Jill’ was, and he clearly said, ‘Jillianne Montgomery, my girlfriend.’”
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“It’s kind of funny how I hadn’t cried in a year, but in the past month I’ve been crying all the time. It’s funny how much things change, huh?” I asked quietly. Katie gave me a small smile and sat down on the swing by me.

“Jonah was there that night.” Katie said softly. I bit my lip and leaned my head against the chain of the swing.

“I know.” I replied.
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“When Evan said your name, Katie flinched. It was like she didn’t want him to even mention your name. She didn't want you to be in the picture. She didn’t want him to go back to you, but he insisted. She went along with Hunter, who was coaxing Evan to take more shots. I joined in. We all did. She refused to go home if he didn’t, and we warned Evan that if he tried to get her to leave, that we’d keep her here ourselves. We were all drunk. I don’t even know what I was thinking. Evan angrily looked over at Katie and told her that they needed to talk. They both went upstairs and all of us downstairs were yelling at them provocatively, thinking that he was leading her upstairs for a completely different reason. I think as he was leading her up the stairs, that Katie was thinking the same thing we were. I think she thought that she was finally getting what she had always wanted. Him.”
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“I’m just as much to blame as he is, Jill. You were right about me. I caused Evan’s death. I’m the terrible person. I was trying to steal him away from you. I don’t even deserve to be talking to you right now,” Katie said quickly. I wiped a tear from my cheek and tried to straighten up in my swing. My foot dangled on the ground, and my ankle was in some weird position. My lips were chapped and bleeding, and my hair was beginning to get damp from the light sprinkle. Everything seemed so solemn and sad. It was like Hemmingway wrote this whole scene out, just for me, unfortunately. I turned to Katie and opened my mouth to speak.

“How could you know what he had done, and not have told me?" I asked quietly. "How could you have sat there and watched him with me and not have said anything? By not saying anything to me, you are just as evil as he is."
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”About ten minutes later, we all thought it’d be a fun idea if I were to burst in on their little sex brigade upstairs, or at least that’s what we thought they were doing. I went up alone and found them on the balcony connecting to one of the bedrooms. Evan was talking to her, trying to calm her down. She was basically in hysterics. She was so so drunk. Evan wasn’t doing too great himself. He looked so stressed out and frustrated. I staggered to the balcony, and I saw Katie lunge at Evan, trying to kiss him or something, I really don’t know what she was trying to do. He pushed her away from him hard and for some reason I got angry. So angry. All of that anger that I had been bottling up inside of me ever since my mother had an affair with Robert, ever since my parents got divorced, and ever since all of that shit happened, had come out in a way that I couldn’t even imagine. I walked up to Evan and yelled, ‘Don’t you ever push her!’. I kept walking closer to him, and he would keep staggering back. I don't know what I was saying, but I just continued to yell at him, taking out all of my frustration. He kept backing up, trying to get away from me, but I reached out and pushed him. When I did, Evan took a step back, only to lose his balance, and fall over the balcony backwards," Jonah stopped for a second and took a deep breath. "I made him fall, Jill. He wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t incoherent because he was intoxicated, he was trying to get Katie off of him because he loved you. I lunged at him. I killed him, Jill. It was my fault."

Jonah’s face was buried in his hands. I was already extruding sobs from my whole entire body as I looked at the boy I loved with so much shock and so much hurt.

“Katie saw the whole thing. She ran out as quick as she could, and so did I. I ran straight home and convinced myself to never look back. I remember, the next day, after seeing Evan all over the news, I decided that before leaving to go back to my mother's, I would go around town and ask around to see who you were and where you were located. I just wanted to meet the ‘Jillianne Montgomery’ that Evan had loved. Someone told me where you lived, so I walked to your house. I was planning on knocking on the door and telling you everything. Telling you the real reason Evan had 'fallen off of the balcony'. But when I approached your house and saw you sitting inside of it, staring out of your living room window, I froze. You looked up over at me, and I wanted to come up and say something, anything, but all I did was choke and walk away. I couldn’t confront you. I just couldn’t. It was too hard. I went back to live with my mom, hoping that Katie wouldn’t talk to anyone about what happened. I stayed there until I decided to come back here after I graduated. I wanted to make things right with her and I wanted to make things right with you. I wanted to say how sorry I was. But when I finally met you… the instant I met you… I fell in love with you. I needed to be near you. I needed you to think I was someone I wasn’t, because I knew that if you found out who I really was, or what I did, that you’d hate me. You’d hate me and would never speak to me again. And the thought of never being able to see you or talk to you just killed me inside, Jill. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

Jonah looked up at me and his eyes met mine. He was searching for something. Anything. Maybe some reassurance that what he had just told me was okay. But it wasn’t okay. It’d never be okay.

“How?” I asked in the quietest whisper I could manage. “How could you do all of this to me? You promised to never hurt me intentionally. You took my virginity, but secretly killed my boyfriend who I had loved with all of my heart. You took away the one thing that I was planning on giving to my first love.You knew who I was the instant you saw me but you never said anything!“

“You and Even never-"

“No, I never had sex with Evan, Jonah,” I said harshly. I furiously wiped all of the tears off of my face. All I had now was fury. I held so much anger and so much hurt. “You must be a really sick person to be with me, to kiss me, and to hold me and know that that is what Evan used to do. To take me to his fucking grave to get 'closure' about his death when you secretly knew all about it and how it happened! You’re fucking sick, Jonah! I hate you!” I stood up quickly, and Jonah followed suit.

“Jill, please.” He said. Tears were falling down his face now.

“No!” I screamed. Jonah stepped forward and tried to wrap his pathetic arms around me but I kept punching him in the chest over and over, “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! You killed him! You fucking killed him! What did he ever do to you to deserve that? I loved him so much. I loved him, Jonah!" I kept punching him harder and harder, my heart breaking even more with every punch. I finally just sunk into his arms, exhausted. I was hysterically crying and all I wanted was for this to all be a dream. I wanted him to punch me in the shoulder jokingly and say ‘Just kidding, Jill! I really gotcha there didn’t I?’. But nothing came out of his mouth. Not a word or hint that this was all some big hoax. And that is what killed me even more.