All in G♥️ode time

Chapter 8

"Grant what the hell?"Zach said as he stumbled back obviously surprised by his friends not very warm welcome.
"Zach? Is it really you?" Liz questioned, her timid voice raising almost an entire octave with every word.
"It can't be him, Zach died 8 years ago, so who are you?" Bex yelled in confusion. While everyone was yelling and trying to understand the situation I spotted Townsend from the corner of my eye, walking towards Zach. It was as if he thought if he got too close, Zach might break.
"October 2nd 2012, Zach and I were stationed where?" Townsend questioned. "Uganda, what does that have to do with anything?"
"Why were we there?"
"Chasing a lead on a human trafficking group"
"What was so significant about that mission?" Townsend was firing questions at Zach in rapid succession, waiting for him to slip up, but Zach answered as quickly as he got asked them. Zach finally sighed, "That mission was the first time I called you dad." He muttered under his breath. Finally Townsend stopped with the questions and walked over to hug his son, followed by everyone else.
After everyone was done hugging Bex slapped him only saying one thing, "How could you?"
Zach and Bex had been close ever since I went missing in senior year and when we thought he died, she took it almost as bad as I did. Zach sat down and explained to everyone what has happened and how he couldn't face coming back and facing everyone thinking that it was all his fault and that I had died because of him. By the end of his explanation everyone just stared in shock, Liz and Abby were both crying and Bex and Macey looked like they were going to kill him.
"So now that that has been sorted, why is it we are all here exactly?" Typical, straight to the point Grant. "You are all here because we need chaperones for the ball, Cammie and the girls can have their old room for the time you are all here and the guys can share Zach's," my mother explained. This sleeping arrangement was met by groans of disappointment from the boys and girly screams from all of use. "Just like the old times," Macey exclaimed, "minus the nose ring," and we all bust out laughing and lifted our luggage upstairs.
That night all us girls spent the time laughing about old times and talking about previous missions, basically just catching up stuff, after we were all caught up we decided to go to bed and I was happy, maybe everything can go back to the way it was.

*
I woke up to a bang and noticed that all the girls were still asleep, but the door was open a crack so I decided to investigate but before I made it to the door I felt a hand go over my mouth. My training kicked in and I tried to flip the person using their weight but they countered at the right time and I ended up being thrown over their shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
"Gallagher girl shush, do you want to wake up Bex?"
"Zach what are you doing!?!" I whisper yelled as he carried me down the hall of history.
"We need to talk,"
"Can't we talk, I don't know, when it isn't 3 am!?"
"Listen Gallagher Girl," he says as he puts me down, "I know I screwed up and I know it will be hard for you to trust me again, but I want to know why you guys are so upset!"
I said nothing only walked out of the main doors, towards my car and waited for him to get in. 5 minutes later we walk through the Roseville cemetery until I stopped in front of a headstone. I felt Zach walk up behind me and stop once he read the words on the stone.

Zachary Goode, lost but never forgotten.

"We waited 6 months for you to come home, but when you didn't, we decided the only way to let you go was to accept that you weren't coming back. We had a funeral for you, like what we had for my dad, everyone was crying except me, I was lifeless, emotionless, refusing to accept that I had to bury another empty coffin." I looked at Zach and he was just staring at the headstone with his name on it, all emotion drained from his face. " You lost me for a summer Zach, but I lost you for 8 years. 8 years of my life with an empty space in it. Everyone else getting married, having children and me constantly looking over my shoulder hoping you would show up." Then I remembered the words Bex had said to me senior year, " When you were gone, we would have killed to get you home, now that your back, it's okay for us to be mad. 8 years of emotion has built up inside them and they are all channeling it into anger, until they can forgive you for being gone for so long, it's how they will channel it. They will come around eventually, but until then just accept it could take time." I looked over at Zach once more, he was still concentrating on the headstone. Eventually, I saw a tear run from his eye. I turned away not able to bear what I was seeing and as I did I heard Zach's voice. It was barely audible.
"What have I done?"

The song at the start always reminded me of Zach, I have GCSE's coming up so sorry for not updating in ages will try and update more
-slán-