Stuck With You (Boy x Boy)

Chapter 4

Previously: "Do you remember this?"

Now:

【Zack】

Genuinely confused, I shook my head.

"You gave this to me when we were eight. We weren't friends at that time, and even if I was angry at you, every interaction we had was somewhat precious to me."

Memories flooded my mind. I remembered our school organising a camping trip. I remembered getting lost in the woods, hearing someone sobbing and finding Henry by a creek, injured. I remembered patching him up. He asked me to sign his band-aid, and I did, albeit a bit reluctantly.

"Do you remember now?" Henry asked, bringing me back to the present.

"Yeah," I whispered softly—something coiled in my chest, making it feel tight.

Henry nodded and carefully placed the band-aid back in the box. He then took out a crown made of dried flowers.

"This?" He asked. I shook my head again.

"This was from when we were five. You had learnt to make flower crowns from your mother. You gave me the first one you made. My mom suggested I keep it safely since it was so precious to me. That's how I started safeguarding the things I loved in this box."

Memories resurfaced again. I quietly nodded.

Henry put the crown back in the box. He picked out a small box. It seemed like a ring box. He opened it, and inside, four-leaf clover was glued onto a cheap metal ring. The ring in itself wasn't eye catchy, but between us, it spoke a million words.

"This was the ring you gave me. On that day, we were lucky enough to find two four-leaf clovers and made rings out of them. We gave them to each other to-"

"Signify our promise to be best friends forever." I finished for him. Henry looked startled but nodded a moment later.

"Why are you showing these to me?" I asked, barely audible.

"I-I don't know. I saw you crying, and instinctually, I just took this out and showed it to you." Henry replied. In his voice, there was uncertainty. I didn't reply, but numbly reached out inside the box and brought out a crumpled paper ball.

I straightened it out, and Henry shouted,

"No!" as he snatched the paper from me, but I'd seen enough. In that paper, three words were scrawled, bold and ugly:

Just Kill Yourself

Henry realised that I had seen what was written on that paper. He crushed it back into a ball and threw it somewhere behind him before rushing towards me.

"Don't worry, it doesn't hurt."He said.

"Not anymore." He whispered to himself.

A large lump formed in my throat. The tears threatening to fall had finally overflowed and trailed down my cheeks. They fell on my hands as I mumbled,

"I'm sorry." A shocked expression replaced the hurt on Henry's face.

"I'm sorry!" I yelled this time. The tears fell uncontrollably from my eyes, but I couldn't care less about them. If I don't apologise now, then I never will.

"I'm sorry for all the things I did to you. You don't deserve any of them. I was a massive idiot. I never understood what I felt, so I never handled them properly. My emotions controlled me, and you took the brunt of it all. I know there is no way for me to prove myself and that I'm irredeemable. I understand if you still want to hate me."