The pact

I let go of Vic and looked him in the eyes. A mixture of happiness and sadness was visible in them. It was such an intense mixture of emotions, I could get lost in them.
Even though seeing him again felt like coming home, there was something different about him. And I didn’t mean the bruises on his face.
No it was just something about his aura, something about him. Maybe it was because I had changed. The things I have been through gave me another look on the world perhaps. It was like I had put in new eyes.
Vic raised his hand to my face and traced my cheek. It was like my muscles relaxed when he did that. Then he traced the cut on my face. His expression changed immediately when he realised what must’ve happened. The flashbacks suddenly came rushing back to me. The knife, the salt, the tears.
I think Vic saw the fear I felt, because he said: “You’re save now. They won’t be doing that to you anymore.”
I took his hand away from my face and held it in mine for a while. I looked down at them and noticed that both our arms were covered with bruises. I chuckled of the irony. We definitely weren’t a normal couple anymore.
I looked up and suddenly realised that there were more people here. It was like I wasn’t aware of them before. My eyes fell on Casey. What was she doing here?! She could be expelled from school. She had come here for me even though we hadn’t talked for at least a month. The most intense emotions came over me, I was so grateful for her.
I let go of Vic’s hand and rushed to Casey, falling into her arms. She gladly expected the hug and threw her arms around me. Her head rested on me, she had always been way taller than me. “Thank you for being here, Casey.” I said, inhaling her familiar sent. It’s weird when you’re locked up, you’re even going to miss things like people’s smell. You’re suddenly thankful for the smaller things in life.
“For you always, doll.” She said and her voice broke. She was crying. She barely cried. Like never. It might sound weird, but it was comforting to know she cared so much about me.
We pulled back and her cheeks were wet of the tears. I wiped them away with my thumb, but that only made them rush faster down.
“You could be expelled.” I said casually. It was what went through my head. I didn’t wanted her to have thrown away her future because of me.
She let out a small chuckle and put her hand on my shoulder. “You’re way more important, silly.” She said and her voice sounded small and breakable.
“I’m sorry I never called.” I said. I wanted to say all the things to her and the rest of my friends, because for a few days I thought I wouldn’t have been able to.
“It’s okay, Luna. I’m sorry too.” She said. “This should’ve never have happened. We are best friends for life and nothing will ever come between that anymore.”
I just responded by hugging her again. When I let go, I looked around the group. I wanted to give a little bit of attention to all of them. First one next to Casey was Mike. Just like Vic and Casey he looked a bit beaten up. I thought about the things Ryan told me two days ago. The fights in school.
I looked in Mike’s eyes and I saw some sort of softness in them. In that moment it felt like every fight we had ever had, which were a lot, had faded away. I threw myself into his arms and he hugged me back. I realised that whatever would happen between us, he would still be one of my best friends.
When I pulled back, I put my hand on his shoulder and said in a weak attempt to make a joke: “Try to stay out of jail the next time you save me.”
He let out a small chuckle and I saw that he was trying very hard to hold the tears back. He knew he didn’t have to play tough with me, but I guess it was just in his nature to try.
I looked to my right and saw Jaime standing next to Mike. His hair was not spikey, like usual, but was just hanging in front of his face. He looked tired and around his left arm was a casket. Ryan hadn’t been lying about everything then. Poor Jaime. My hyperactive puppy. He got hurt because of me.
He smiled at me when I stared at his casket. “You can still hug me. It just have to be a side-hug.” He said in his usual funny way, but now there was emotion hearable in his voice.
I chuckled and hugged him from his right side. He threw his right arm around my shoulder and I let my head fall on his shoulder. “I’m sorry you got hurt because of me.” I said softly so only he could hear.
I felt his chest go up and down underneath my arms. “I’m sorry you had to go through this at all.” He said softly and it was comforting somehow.
I let go of him and looked to Tony how was standing next to him. I had never noticed how young he was until now. He had yet to have his growth spurt and his features were still a bit boyish. I probably noticed it now because he looked particularly young now, now he looked tired and scared.
I ran towards him and threw myself in his arms. God, I had missed his hugs. “It’s going to be alright, turtle.” I said softly and I felt a sob go through his body. I don’t think anyone ever noticed when Tony was sad, mostly because he was always a bit in the background. I made a promise to myself to pay more attention to him. I cared so much about him.
He let go of me but his hand remained on my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re back, Luna.” He said and he shot me a weak smile. I smiled back at him. “me too.”
Then I walked back to Vic and took his hand. I felt like I could fall apart into a thousand pieces any minute and he was the only one keeping me together.
I heard footsteps come closer to us and my head shot up. I don’t know why, but for a minute I thought it was Ryan. It was just a police man. “Luna, you’re allowed to leave, if you want to.” He said with a low voice while my heart was still beating from the scare of a few seconds ago. I swear his footsteps sounded just like Ryan’s. Or did I imagine it?
I nodded and remained silent.
“If you decide you want to let us know what happened all these days and especially today, then let us know.” He said and shot me a smile full of pity.
I didn’t want to though. I didn’t want to ever think about it. I just wanted to go on with my life like nothing had happened. Although I knew I couldn’t do that. My life would never be the same again and I had to live with these experiences for the rest of it.
The police man walked away and I looked around the group. No one moved or said anything. I guess now they had found me, they didn’t know what to do.
Then Mike spoke up: “I’m sorry Leah couldn’t be here. I tried to call her all morning, but she didn’t answer.”
I felt the colour leave my face. My heart was ripping itself in pieces right now. That was what the pain in my chest felt like. Blood, empty eyes, kicking. All the images flashed through my memory like I was watching a movie. Every nasty detail of it.
My breathing speeded up and I couldn’t do anything about it. “Are you okay?” Vic asked. His voice sounded distanced, like he was under water. It was like I was back in the shed all over again.
I was thrown out of my panic attack by a load groan of a man. I looked up to see Leah’s father walk in our direction. My breathing had slowed down, but now I was trembling through my whole body.
“Hello Mr. Whitmore.” Vic said polite yet confused. From Leah’s father’s face I could see that he was very worried.
“Where’s my daughter?” he asked through his teeth. I just stood there not able to move. I wished I could make this moment end.
“Excuse me?” Mike asked, who apparently hadn’t heard what he had said.
“WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?!” the man screamed out, the emotion in his voice pierced through the air and made the tension thicker than ever.
I was the only one here who knew what happened to Leah, yet I was frozen in one place. I was just praying for this moment to stop.
The police man who talked to me a few minutes ago walked towards us. “Sir, you need to calm down.” The police man said.
That wasn’t a good idea to say though. “CALM DOWN?! Where’s Leah?! Where is my daughter! I need to see her!” Mr. Whitmore said.
The police man’s face turned pale when hearing Leah’s name. I looked around my group of friends and saw them all looking very confused. I’m sure the truth had gone through their head at least one time already. They just tried to convince themselves it wasn’t true.
“Mr. Whitmore, you can see your daughter. You just need to calm down. We can’t let you near her like this.” The police man said and he had a surprisingly soothing voice. That must’ve come to use in his job.
“You can’t tell me what to do! We need to go home!” Leah’s father yelled. It was weird to see him this way. Normally he was always a very sweet and calm man.
The police man took a deep breath and put up his face full of pity again. The one he had given to me earlier. “I’m sorry to bring you this news, sir. But your daughter passed away this morning. I’m sorry for your loss.” The police man said.
It was like a bomb had dropped in the near area. I felt Vic squeeze my hand and I was afraid to look at him. To be honest I was afraid to look at all of them. Because I would see the intense pain in their eyes I had felt for the last few hours.
Mr. Whitmore shook his head. “No.” he just said softly. “You’re lying. She is not dead.” I heard a certain tone in his voice I had never heard in ever in anyone’s voice before. A tone full of desperation.
“I’m sorry, sir.” The police man repeated and he took off his hat out of respect.
The realisation appeared in Mr. Whitmore’s eyes and it’s a look I would never forget in my entire life. He fell to his knees in despair, his hands on his head. That’s when he broke down in sobs. The sobs were mixed with some sort of screams. No one stopped him, we all just let him. Probably because everyone felt sad for him. He had lost a child, which is probably the worst things that could happen to a person.
“I’ve nothing anymore! First my wife, now my daughter!” he cried. I suddenly remembered that Leah’s mother passed away a few years ago.
If I already felt like this, so empty, so lost, how must he have felt? I didn’t think I even wanted to know the answer.
Then a stretcher appeared in sight. Two ambulance people rolled it away in front of us, in the direction of the ambulance. There was a grey blanket draped over whoever was underneath it, but every single one of us knew who it was.
The pain in my heart became heavier again. They couldn’t take her away! She was all alone! It would all be so definite if she’d leave now. They couldn’t just take her away…
Mr. Whitmore followed the stretcher at the same moment as I started screaming. In pure despair I threw my soul on the street. I wanted to run towards her, but Vic threw his arms around my waist keeping me on place. I tried to struggle myself out of his grip. Couldn’t he see that they were going to take her away? In my head all I could think about was that she couldn’t leave me. I wanted to stay with her.
The screams that came out of my mouth sounded like they weren’t mind. Like someone else voiced my screams. Deep inside myself I was scared of myself, but at that moment I pushed it away.
It took a long time, but eventually Vic was able to calm me down. Although I wasn’t really calm inside. Everything inside me told me to follow her. Some parts of me even told me to follow her to heaven.

*

The rest of the day was horrible. We went to Vic’s house and I was quietly staring ahead of me the whole time. I felt like a walking corpse. I saw my friends shoot concerned looks at me or at each other from time to time. Although I was sure they didn’t know I saw that.
They had tried to get the story out of me. How I was kidnapped, what they had done to me, how Leah had died, but I didn’t say anything. Deep down I knew I had to tell them or the police, but I was too traumatised.
I didn’t even notice they were there anymore. I was that deep in my own mind, trying desperately to keep everything together. Trying to switch off every little piece of emotion I had.
After a while they just gave up. “She’ll talk one day. She just needs time.” Mike said soothingly to Casey and he placed a light kiss on her lips. Normally I would be super excited at the fact that they were together, but now not even that could get me exited.
“Do you want to stay here or go home?” Vic asked me, kneeling down in front of me sitting on the couch. He gave me the same look full of pity that the police man had given me. For some reason I despised that look.
I looked away from him and shrugged. In the corner of my eye I saw Vic exchange looks with Tony, who looked just as clueless as Vic.
Eventually Vic decided to take me home. He had said that my dad had missed me very bad and that I probably needed my own bed right now. To be honest, yes I wanted to sleep, but did I care where? No. I just wanted to do nothing.
Vic led me to his car and on the way to my house he kept talking to me, reassuring me, saying sweet things. I didn’t really hear them though. I was so tired.
When I got home, my dad immediately dragged me into a hug and thanked Vic. It was weird, when I saw my friends again I was so happy and now I was just empty. It wasn’t like I didn’t love my father, It was just that the trauma’s and the depression kicked in now. Now that she was really gone.
My mom was suddenly really nice to me now too. She acted like nothing had ever happened between us. She offered me something to drink and something to eat, said she missed me, gave me hugs…I just went through it without saying anything. In all honesty, the last sound that had gotten out of my mouth were the screams on the crime scene.
Vic stayed with me until it got late and I went to bed. He even wanted to follow me to my bedroom, but my dad said that it probably wasn’t a good idea right now. At one hand I agreed with him. I didn’t really wanted to see anyone, not even Vic. At the other hand, I knew I would feel unsafe tonight and someone lying beside me would probably help preventing that a little. But I didn’t argue and just went up to my room.
Even my familiar room looked different through my new eyes. Like it wasn’t really my room anymore, but the room of another person. The person I used to be. Maybe I didn’t trade in my eyes, but my heart.
I just went to lay underneath the covers and closed my eyes, but I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Leah laying in a puddle of her own blood.
When I woke up the next day, I had only slept two hours. I just stared in to the ceiling for a while, not really wanting to move. When I did, I walked over to the mirror. I wanted to look at myself.
And as I expected, I didn’t even look like the person I was anymore. My eyes were still the same colour and shape, but they were empty and sad, with huge bags under them. My cheeks were hollow and my skin had a weird grey colour mixed with my natural skin tone. My hair was messy and my lips were bleeding from biting on it. In the corners of my lips were red places, from the piece of fabric. And then there of course also was the cut on my cheek, I say cut not scar, because it wasn’t healing yet.
My arms were covered with bruises. Some were blackish, some were greenish. And overall, I was just extremely skinny. Not in a good way though. It was scary.
I sighed and sat back down on my bed, my head against the wall. And I sat there for hours until my mom walked in, helped me into the shower and into clean clothes. I couldn’t help but think that it seemed like she had a handicapped daughter right now. The only thing was, that I was normally in a state to do those things myself. Just not now.
Vic had come an hour later and he tried to talk to me. I made it hard on him though, I was only giving him short answers. I didn’t realise back then how hard this was on him. How much he tried to get through me. How much he wanted the girl he loved back in his life. But she was gone. Ryan had beaten that girl out of me.
The other guys and Casey came too. They told me that the entire school got the week off and even Casey got permission from her own school to stay here for the funeral. They said that the police had questioned them and that they were now after Ryan, Peter and Justin. Even the sheriff saw now, that his son had been wrong. The whole city knew about it now and everyone was in a state of mourning.
The next day every single one of them visited me again. I had tried my best to catch up with their conversation, but part of me didn’t really care anymore. My mind just kept wondering back to the dream I had had that night. It was basically a short version of everything that had happened to me in the shed.
That day, a shrink came to my room to talk to me. She had been recommended by the police my dad said. It was all part of the process. I didn’t say much to her, but she said it didn’t matter. She assured me my reaction was perfectly normal after everything I had been through. How would she know? Out of books? Books couldn’t possibly describe how I felt.
I also saw her talking to my mom and my friends. She was probably telling them how to handle their mentally unstable daughter and friend.
On the third day was Leah’s funeral. I didn’t want to go at first, but my mom said I would’ve regretted it later if I didn’t go. I guess she was right, although I didn’t feel like this would ever end.
The funeral was kind of beautiful I guess. I was just trying my best not to let the memories rush back at me. I had spent the last days pushing them back. I know I should’ve actually talk about it, let them out. But I would’ve done everything to keep away the pain.
Everyone on the funeral wore black. Vic held my hand the entire time. There were a lot of roses. That was everything I could remember.
The day after the funeral, the fourth day, Casey came by to say goodbye to me. She was going back to England. That was the only day I let out a tear. I didn’t want her to go. I had hugged her and even asked her if I should’ve gone with her to the airport, but she assured me that she was going to be fine and that Mike was going to drop her off.
On the sixth day, Vic came by again. It was the day I realised I was pushing him away, I was pushing every single one of the people in my life away. But I was too trapped inside my mind to care. Although I was sure that something deep inside me something screamed to hold on to them.
On the seventh day, the guys went back to school. My parents had told me that I could stay home for a little while more. They said that I needed to tell them if I was ready to go to school again. The only thing was, I didn’t feel any different than the first day. Wasn’t time supposed to heal all wounds?
After school the guys came by to my room. They had told me that the whole school had changed. Everyone seemed sad, even though some didn’t even knew Leah. There was no hierarchy in the school anymore. I guess now even the popular kids saw that this had gone too far. It’s sad that someone had to die for them to see that. It shouldn’t have gone this way.
I didn’t catch any more of the conversation.
It took a long time before I went to school again. In the days before I went back I was just sitting in my room doing nothing. I didn’t sleep much, because otherwise I’d just wake up screaming. The guys came by less and less. I couldn’t blame them. They were mourning too and I wasn’t exactly someone to cheer them up.
Vic came by every day though. On the last day before I went back to school he had said to me: “Luna, I know you’re in there somewhere. I miss you so much. I have no idea what you’ve been through in there, but you’re not there anymore, no matter what your mind says. You’re save. And even though you won’t ever be the same anymore. You have to carry on living, for Leah. She would’ve wanted that.”
I shot him an angry glare. He couldn’t have known what she would’ve wanted. She probably wanted me to stay with her. She is so alone now. Six feet under the ground.
He sighed and took my hand in his. “I love you, Luna. Please.” At that moment I was broken out of my spell for a little while. I was waiting for all of this to go over, but I did nothing to make it go away. I could give it a try.
That’s how I decided on May fifteenth, sixteen days after Leah’s dead, that I needed to go to school again. Not for me, if it were for me I would just stay here until I died, but for Vic, because somewhere deep inside of me I could feel that I still loved him.

Notes

heeyeyy

wow, this chapter is a whole other level of depressing. I promise there will be a few upbeat chapters on their way. I keeo getting ideas for this story jesus. The plan was to make this story 35, then 40, now I am at 43. It probably will get more.

But i can't wait to hear your comments about this chapter :) I actually can't believe that I wrote this in one afternoon :'D btw I'm sorry it took me so long to update

xxxx

Nicky