Ch. 2

***TW: mention of self harm. ***

Jason

I don't know where I'm running to.

My lungs are on fire and I'm hoping an asteroid will come and take me out. I don't want to live this life without her. What am I gonna do without her now? We had plans. We had hopes. She had dreams. Now she won't be able to live them. I'll never get to see her smile again. I'll never get to hear her laugh, or hear her voice. She's now just a memory. My ghost. My shadow.

The next thing I know, I get tackled to the ground.

My brother is straddled on me, pinning my arms down.

"Jason, slow down. Please." He says out of breath.

He lets go of me.

We're about a mile away from the hospital in front of a 24 hour convenience store.

I sit up and pull my knees up and hyperventilate and cry and scream.

"Why didn't He hear me?" I scream.

"Who?" Kyle asks.

Another set of feet came running over to me.

Cody slides over to me and puts his hand on my knee.

"God. I prayed to Him but He didn't hear me."

Cody drops his head. Kyle stands up.

"Come on, bro. Let's get you home," he says quietly.

"But Ellie..." I say through tears.

"I know, come on." Cody says.

Cody and Kyle work together, each of them taking one of my hands and pulled me up.

Cody and Kyle put their arms around me to steady me as I walk.

I can't see.

My eyes are burning.

I'm shaking.

I can't breathe.

I couldn't get my words out. My tongue felt dry.

I couldn't even look straight ahead.

I didn't care where we were going. I don't have anything left. Ellie was my life. What am I going to do now?

"Why didn't she just talk to me?!" I yelled.

"I don't know, bro. I truly don't think she would do that." Cody says.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Cody? I saw her wrists!"

My brother and Cody kept quiet. They just listened to me ramble on as we walked down the road together. I'm staring at the ground, unable to walk straight. My eyes are still blurry. They're still burning. I collapse once more on the road and Kyle and Cody pull me back up.

I forced us to stop feet away from the hospital parking lot and I repeated my question.

"Why didn't she just talk to me? Why didn't she call or come over? Why?" I ask.

Cody shakes his head and shrugs.

"I don't know." He says, barely above a whisper.

Mom comes running over and grabs me out of Cody and Kyle's grasp. She reaches up, and holds me tight. She puts my head on her shoulder. My mom is 5'3". It was awkward for a guy that's 6 feet tall.

I hugged her back. I sob into her shoulder, and I collapse with her on the ground. She holds me in her lap, putting her hand on the back of my head, shushing me. I felt like a four year old boy that got hurt on the playground. I wish I was crying over scraped knees.

It was sunny out today. Ellie loved when it was sunny. She loved the spring. When flowers would bloom and that fresh spring scent was in the air, she was the happiest. Summer would be near. But she wouldn't be able to enjoy the summer this year. We wouldn't get to go to the beach, or have a bonfire. We wouldn't get to go to barbecues or watch fireworks together. All the things we'll never do come rushing in and I just break down.

It's been a week. I spent every day crying. Her funeral came and went. I couldn't leave her side. But I watched the lid on the casket close and my heart sink and I couldn't breathe. I took four people to get me off the ground and away from Ellie's final resting place.

Ellie's everywhere. I can't leave the house without a memory. We've been everywhere together in this town.

At the park, I'd see her smile by the lake as she fed the ducks. In the field, I'd hear her laugh as she ran through the flowers. In my backyard, I'd see her excitement as we saw a shooting star shoot above us. Ellie always knew when a meteor shower was going to happen. She had this app on her phone that would tell us when peak hour was. We'd go outside for hours and lay on a blanket and watch the sky and just talk.

We'd talk about life, our goals... Now I'm doing it by myself. Laying on that blanket, watching the sky. Hoping to see a shooting star zoom past. Hoping it's her giving me a sign.

"You left your room. I was wondering where you were."

Kyle comes and lays next to me on the blanket.

"Is that the Big Dipper?!" He asked with excitement.

"Yeah." I mutter.

It's silent for a beat.

"How are you doing?" He asks.

I shrug.

"I'm worried about you," he adds.

I say nothing.

Kyle looks up at the sky.

"Ellie would want you to do things in her memory." He says.

"I can't. I don't know when I will. I don't know if I could."

"Come on, Jay. You have to try."

"I don't want to, Kyle. Not right now." I sternly say.

He sighs.

"Will you at least go back to school on Monday?" He asks.

"We'll see. I can't imagine what people are saying about me."

"Maybe wondering if you're still alive? You haven't been active online, no one's seen you... have you even checked your phone recently?" He asks.

I shake my head.

"No. I turned it off the day after Ellie died. I don't wanna talk to anyone."

"Well, come Monday, you gotta show your face." He says.

He's right. I should go but it doesn't mean I want to. Ellie won't be there. She won't be at her locker. She won't be meeting me in front of the school in the morning. I won't be able to walk her to class. The realization stings and buries itself deep into my chest.

3am I'm still awake. I turn on my phone and wait for everything to load. Notification after notification comes in as I sit staring at my phone.

Voicemails.

Facebook messages.

Instagram D.M.s.

Snapchat.

Texts.

iMessages.

All of them basically asking if the rumors were true... did I kill Ellie... is she okay. Will there be a funeral... am I okay... excetra.

I clear the notifications out. I go on Facebook. Her face floods my entire feed with memorial posts and my heart sinks down to my feet. I'm breathless. My beautiful girl. She was so lively. And now she's not. Now she's six feet under.

I think of that day.

Flashbacks of her sending me photos of her bleeding wrist. Texting me "goodbye". Her not returning my calls. I begged her to. I begged her to answer. I didn't know what to do. So I called Cody frantically.

Cody was calling her parents by my request. I was hoping she was okay. I was hoping the cuts weren't that deep. I was hoping she'd text me the next day asking me to bring her some Neosporin to heal them quicker. And then once they were healed, we'd go get some scar cream or find tattoo ideas on Pinterest to cover her scars. She's done this twice before, but never this deep. She's refused help. I begged her to get help. I cried to her. She cried to me. She promised she'd stop. She promised she wouldn't do it anymore. But she did. She broke those promises. She lost that battle. And now I'm just living with her ghost.

Ellie was beautiful. She was 5'3". Green eyes, brown hair that went down to the middle of her back. She had a beautiful white straight smile. She didn't do any sort of drugs. I did... occasionally. It's high school after all. I wanted to live a little. But I promised her I wouldn't do anything that would get me into trouble. Until I broke that promise.

Ellie wasn't your typical loud mouthed girl. She was quiet. She was good at drawing and painting. She was free spirited, until she wasn't. I wasn't anything. I wasn't good at anything. I wasn't a jock. I wasn't on any sort of debate team. I wasn't a captain of any sport. I didn't care. Not anymore at least.

I played baseball until Ellie came into my life. She'd come watch me practice. She'd come to my games and cheer me on. And then I quit so I could put my entire focus on her. My dad hated me for it. He resented me. He beat the shit out of me when he found out why I quit. When my mom found that out, she threatened him with divorce, until he threatened to hurt her too. So now Mom's stuck.

Kyle was always the perfect son to him. He never made any mistakes in his eyes, even if he did. If Kyle didn't wanna do something, Dad was okay with it. But if that were me, I'd get a black eye. Dad always took his shit out on me. Ever since I was 8 years old. I tried to be the perfect son but everything I ever did was wrong. So I stopped going to him when I needed advice, when I needed help, if I needed anything at all. Kyle witnessed Dad beat me to a pulp one summer.

It was the beginning of summer. Kyle found me on the floor of my room in a puddle of my own blood. I was twelve years old. Because I struck out in that day's baseball game. I had blood all over my uniform. Dad told the coaches I tripped on a tree root and got a bloody nose. If only they knew the truth...

Ellie saw me with plenty of black eyes. Plenty of broken and swollen ribs and limbs. She and I started saving our money. Our allowances. Any money we found on the street. Lunch money. She knew I was saving my money since I was eight. I was mowing people's lawns to earn cash. I wanted to move out by the time I was eighteen to get away from my dad. No one knew my plans except Ellie. She died with my plans. My secrets. Secrets Cody and Kyle don't even know. Ellie knew how miserable I was at home. School and her house were my only safe places.

Dad grew up wealthy. He inherited his dad's company and both of his brothers and him run it together. Some accounting firm that I know nothing about. I don't care to know about. He's trying to get Kyle into it too. Kyle said he'd give it a shot while he went to night classes at the community college. Kyle would give me 10% of his paycheck so I had some money in my pocket. He thought I'd spent it on food or some other bullshit, but I was saving that for my 18th birthday plan.

On nights dad would beat me bad, I'd run to Ellie's house. She lived a block over. I'd leave my car and just run over. I would text her that I was outside and she'd sneak me inside and take me to her room and take care of my injuries. I felt like a little boy when she did. But she loved me. And I loved her. I had big plans with her. I wanted to marry her. I wanted her to nurture my children. And that almost came true one day...

Months prior to her suicide, Ellie came up to me in school smiling and whipped out a positive pregnancy test. She was only 16, but she was excited because it was ours. Until two months ago... Ellie had a miscarriage. The gender of the baby was unknown. She was too early into her pregnancy. We cried together. We accepted it as fate that it wasn't our time to be parents yet. We vowed we'd be parents in the future. Until Crystal found out. That's where the bullying started.

Crystal is a blonde haired, blue eyed girl that has no liking for anyone. Crystal had overheard Ellie talking to me in the hallway about the miscarriage. She took that information and ran to her groupies and the internet to make fun of her for it. Names were called. Things were said. Ellie was already distraught, but Crystal's bullying made it worse. I took it upon myself to talk to Crystal in school and asked her to back off. Crystal acted like she understood... so she went and faked a iMessage conversation between us. She made it look like I was trying to cheat on Ellie with her. No joke, the messages looked legit. But I know she just edited her friend's contact to my name and sent screenshots to Ellie.

Ellie was already at the end of her rope with the miscarriage. She didn't tell her parents about it because she wanted to avoid the safe sex conversation. Dad told me that if I got a girl pregnant while I was in high school, he'd chop my dick off.

Ellie got those messages from Crystal. Ellie didn't believe me. We were both crying and screaming on the phone at each other.

"Ellie, why would I cheat on you?" I asked.

"Because she's the captain of the squad and I'm nothing. She's beautiful and I look like a troll." She says.

"That's not true, babe. I haven't even looked at any other girls. That's not even me! That's not how I text. You know that."

"Maybe you were just trying to show off. You know what? I'm done."

And she hung up.

I called and called and she never answered.

I texted but she didn't answer.

As I was doing damage control, she texted me a picture of her wrist... bleeding. Multiple cuts down the veins in her arm.

Ellie: Goodbye, Jason. I'll always love you

I zoomed into those pictures, praying it was just makeup and fake blood.

I texted her again.

Me: Elena, those better be fake. Please tell me it's makeup..

No answer. Not even read. Marked as delivered.

Me: Elena! ANSWER ME!

I called Cody frantic. I asked him to call Kristin to check on Ellie.

Until the truth was that those cuts weren't fake. It wasn't makeup. And the blood wasn't fake. It was real.

Kristin called me crying. Ellie cut herself for real. It looks bad this time. Without thinking, I just ran. Ran to the hospital with no thoughts in my head.