Toxic

Toxic: Chapter #55 | On the Mend

Zach's Past

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⚠️ Warning: ⚠️

This chapter contains mentions of past abuse, reconciliation, revelations, mentions of past cheating, bad parenting, apologies and brief sexual themes. Take care!

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After earning My Sunflower back and reminding her every day just how much I loved her, I knew it was time to apologize to the other person that I had hurt on Valentine's Day. That was the first order of business for me and then next on the list was a conversation with Addie, followed by a conversation with Mrs. Morrison. Gosh but I was nervous about all three of them. Regardless of the fact that I had never been in love with Lu, I did love him, and he was right. He was my friend and in life good friends, like actual real honest to God friends were so very hard to come by. I would have found a way to be happy with Giana being back in my life just as a friend but that was no longer something I had to worry about. I could only hope and pray that I hadn't lost Lu for good.

I paced back and forth, probably wearing a groove in the floor of my dorm room while Giana remained sitting on my bed, waiting patiently with my phone on her lap.

"How am I going to do this?" I exclaimed, looking at her with wide eyes. "Like what if I call and he ignores the call?" I gasped and froze. "Wait or even worse yet what if he does actually answer? What am I supposed to say? He probably hates me, and I wouldn't blame him for it either I—Oh I don't know what to do. I have to fix it because he's Lu but like..." I raked a hand through my hair, resisting the urge to yank at it harder.

Giana tilted her and said, "Zach? You did amazing at what you planned for me. Think about Lu and what he likes. You know him and you know how to reach him. Take a moment, take a few breaths and then call him." She thought for a moment and then made another suggestion. "Perhaps you could text him and ask if you can call him? That way if he's busy, he can let you know a good time to call when he's free."

Finally, I stopped pacing, slowly nodded and took a deep breath to steady myself. I swallowed back the nausea at the thought of how very wrong this could go, but at least I wouldn't have to see Lu's face when I did it. "That could work. Okay. I can do this."

With a reassuring smile, Giana handed me my phone and then took her own phone out to give me an air of privacy. I took the phone, pulled up a blank message to Lu and began composing a text. It took me several tries to get it right and my hands shook so bad that at first there were so many spelling errors it looked more like gibberish. I took another deep breath and told myself to slow down and take it one word at a time.

[Zach]
Hey Lu. It's um...It's Zach. Listen I was wondering if you would...If I can maybe call you quickly? Like whenever you have a few minutes? I-I won't take too much time. I just need to ask you something. So yeah um...just shoot me a text when you can. Thank y-you.

After the text was complete, awkward dashes and dots included, I hit send and tossed my phone to Giana. She gracefully caught it and set it aside, the brief hot potato moment over. With a heavy exhale, I plopped down on the bed next to my fiancé and buried my head under my pillow, wondering how long it would take to pass out from suffocation. "He's so not going to reply, Giana," I said, my voice muffled by the weight of the down pillow.

"We'll see, My Penguin," she replied. "We shall see."

It turned out that I was wrong about him not replying to my text. Not even ten minutes after the text was sent, my phone chimed with a notification. "I can't look, Giana. What did he say?"

She pulled the pillow away from my face and there went any chance of passing out due to lack of air. "Zach?"

I glanced at her sheepishly and pouted.