The After Effects Of White Roses and Spider Lilies

Chapter 16: June 22nd and July 10th

Wednesday, June 22nd

Avery

The others and I were getting worried. I texted them the second Benji hung up. We haven't been able to get him to answer our calls. It's been an hour. I turn to the group.

"Finn, Hailey, y'all go check his house. There is a chance Benji just fell asleep at Noah's grave so Zephyr and I will go check there." Finn is terrified and can barely move. Hailey guides him to her car and tells me that she'll meet us at the graveyard afterwards. I nod and head towards my own car, Zephyr following.

I pull up to the cemetery. Zeph follows me out of the car and towards Noah's grave. I stop halfway and my hands fly to my mouth. I turned to Zeph but he didn't stop. He was running towards Noah's grave. I snap myself out of it and follow him.

Benji is pale, paler than normal. His skin was droopy and he smelled like shit. Zephyr looks like he wants to check Benji's pulse even though we know what we'll find, or what we won't find. The pills are right next to Benji, he smells dead.

"Does, does he have a note on him?" I ask, from behind my hand.

"If he does, I'm not looking. He smells awful."

I fall to my knees and start sobbing. Another friend, gone. Another friend I couldn't save. I don't know how long I sit there, sobbing, before someone sits down and hugs me. It's Hailey. I lean into her and start sobbing harder.

Monday, July 10th

Zephyr

It's been weeks since Benji killed himself. Last week Avery told us the truth about Noah's death. She told us how Noah lived like that for months with petals and thorns tearing up his lungs and slowly killing him. She told us how Noah knew of the cure and still decided to leave us.

I want to be mad at him but I can't. Noah was scared and didn't want to leave us but he did. I can't blame him though. I would've done the same thing. Besides he wouldn't want us to blame ourselves.

Benji's funeral is today. I was never close with Benji but I know he loved Noah. I know that he was there for Noah as Noah died. I'm glad they were able to be there for each other in their last moments.

It's hard to think about how we all could've prevented Noah's death, Benji's death, just by saying something. We could've saved Noah and saving Noah would've saved Benji. Even if we didn't save Noah we could've saved Benji, if we had been just a bit faster.

But we didn't. We didn't say anything, I left them, we were too slow. We could've saved them but we failed.

I was sobbing. I sobbed harder than I ever have. "We could've saved them." I mumbled brokenly. Someone softly grabbed my shoulders and pulled me against them.

"Hey, hey, we did everything they would let us do. It wasn't our fault, okay?" They, Ashley, said.

It wasn't our fault.