𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 || 𝑀𝑎𝑥 𝑀𝑎𝑦𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑙𝑑

3. 𝙄 𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙮𝙤𝙪, 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙣' 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧.

Chapter 3~ I knew you, leavin' like a father.

"I'll think about it." Ziggy said before a high pitch sound pierced through everyone's ears, "could all students please report to the gymnasium. I repeat, could all student report to the gymnasium." The principals voice blared through the PA system all around the school, "I'll see you guys later." Ziggy smiled then began walking out, she wanted to get to the gym before all the other students started flooding in, "wait up." Chrissy's cheery voice yelled from behind her, "I'll sit with you."

~

"Thank you all for making it to todays assembly." The principal stood at the front of  the hall behind a podium, "last year many of us faced tough times and hard challenges when the incident at Starcourt mall happened." He started, causing Ziggy to sigh, the amount of times they had to hear this same old speech every single week- it was exhausting- "with the championship basketball games coming up, we must remember to honour the students we lost in the tragic fire. Jack, Heather, Billy, Melissa." As he said the last name, she felt that all to familiar numb feeling shoot through her veins. Max's head suddenly shot up to look at Ziggy who had her head down in her hands, she stared at her for a few moments, secretly hoping she would look down and see her but she didn't. "We are still offering grief counselling to any students that may need it." He trailed off, losing Ziggy's attention.

"Come on Ziggy! It will be okay, trust me." Melissa smiled, holding Ziggy's hand as they both ran into the gymnasium with the rest of the cheerleaders following behind. Cheers and whistles filled the room as the cheerleaders started chanting, "come on tigers let's go! Come on tigers let's go!" They repeated, Melissa glanced over at Ziggy and blushed when they made eye contact, "and give it up for the co captains of the Hawkins middle school cheer squad!" The principal came up to them, "Melissa Walker and Ziggy Buckley!" The crowd cheered as Ziggy's eyes wandered all over the crowd until she saw a group of people that didn't look enthused at all, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas and a girl that Ziggy didn't recognise.

"Hey." Chrissy suddenly tapped Ziggy on the shoulder as a tear rolled down her cheek, "are you okay?" She whispered, "yeah, of course." She quickly wiped the tear before Chrissy noticed and put on a fake smile, a smile that only Melissa could ever tell was fake.

~

As soon as the assembly was over, students were free to leave and Ziggy needed to get out of there as fast as possible- she obviously would never want to forget Melissa but she was sick of people just remembering her death and not her life and the fact they only cared about the championship game- they were all just a bunch of fake assholes who loved jumping of the grief train- Instead of waiting for Steve and Robin, who she knew would take ages since Robin was in band- she decided to skate home.

Her leg was still sore from falling on it yesterday but she was used to all the skating injures, even though she was a great skateboarder- she was extremely clumsy- the worst accident, well except for almost getting over of course- was when she was still in the party and thought it would be a good idea to stack two skateboards on top of each other. The boys all sat on Mike's front lawn watching as she started skating, then after a few seconds she got thrown off, one of the skateboards split in half and scraped along her leg as her arm got cut on the road and as a result, she needed to get ten stitches.

Ziggy was nearly at her house, as she rode into her street the last person she excepted to see got her attention. She abruptly stopped her skateboard in hopes that the girl wouldn't hear her but apparently that didn't work as she turned around and furrowed her eyebrows at the sight of Ziggy, "what, are you stalking me now?" She let out a sarcastic laugh making Ziggy roll her eyes, she was getting seriously fed up with the red head now. "Don't flatter yourself. I live up the road." She pointed to the two story house that was a few doors from Max's, "that's Robin Buckley's house." She narrowed her eyes but the realisation visibly kicked in, "wait, you're Robins sister?!"

"Well considering my name is Ziggy Buckley." She folded her arms, "you just look...different from what Robin described-" Max mumbled- what did this even mean- and she found it hard to believe that Max didn't know she was Robin's sister.

"Do you skate?" Max pointed to her Madrid skateboard, changing the subject, "no, I just like carrying the board around with me for no reason." She replied sarcastically, "what is your problem?" Max snapped, "pretty sure it's standing right in front of me." Ziggy scoffed before picking her board off the ground and placing it under her arm. She headed to her house without looking back at Max.

"Robin!" Ziggy yelled as she walked through her front door, the front door was unlocked so she assumed Robin was home, "how did you get here before me?" She asked but no one responded, "also you didn't tell me Max lives on our street." She said but once again, there was no response which started to worry her a little,"Rob?"

"Yeah." She finally heard her answer in a weirdly quiet voice that came from the kitchen. Ziggy wandered in to see Robin sat at the table with her face in her hands, "hey." Ziggy rushed over to the table, "what's happened?!" She removed Robin's hands away from her face. She looked up with tears streaming down her cheeks, "mom called." She whispered making Ziggy more concerned, "dads not coming home." She let out making Ziggy's face immediately drop, "what- what do you mean?" She questioned through a cracked voice, "he doesn't want to be a dad
anymore...could've figured that one out seventeen years ago." She let out a sad laugh, "I don't understand- where's mom? Why didn't she come back and tell us?!" A million thoughts were rushing through Ziggy's head, her parents were assholes and never came home anyway but this was way worse than anything they'd ever done before.

"She doesn't want to come back to all of the 'memories' yet." Robin explained, "wow." Was all Ziggy could let out without bursting into tears, "um- I'm gonna go lay down." She whispered.

~

Ziggy was laying in her bed just staring at the ceiling, it's not like her parents were going to win some 'parents of the year' award or anything but, she never imagined her dad permanently leaving and she couldn't help thinking it was something she did. Losing all your friends is one thing but your dad? Was it her fault that no one wanted to stay?

Hours had gone by without Ziggy leaving her room. The sound of talking and moving around took Ziggy out of her thoughts. She slowly got out of bed and walked along the hallway to hear the sound coming from Robin's room, "no!" She screamed making Ziggy jump, without hesitation she ran in and saw Robin was still asleep, she stepped closer to the bed and saw her sister looking like she was in distress.

Since the mall fire, it was a usual thing for Robin to experience nightmares, some nights she didn't get them at all and other nights, they were so bad she didn't want to sleep for the next couple nights, "hey- it's okay." Ziggy whispered, not quite knowing how to comfort her, "mons-" Robin mumbled, tossing from side to side, "monster." She repeated causing Ziggy's eyes to narrow in confusion, "no!" Robin screamed again, this time she shot up, struggling to catch her breath, "hey! Hey it's okay, it's okay." Ziggy pulled Robin into her arms and kept reassuring her, "you're okay, you're okay."

~

The next morning arrived and Ziggy was feeling the affects of staying up all night, she was so focused on Robin that she almost forgot what had happened earlier that day. Her dad was never coming back which made her feel even more depressed than she already was. She was fully prepared to stay in her bed and never leave but unfortunately she couldn't. Instead, she set her alarm the night before to wake her up at 6am before Robin woke up so she could make her some breakfast, although, it's not like she needed to set an alarm when she didn't even sleep. "hey, are you okay?" She asked as Robin stumbled into the kitchen, her eyes were puffy from crying and her hair was all over the place, "I made you breakfast." Ziggy transferred the eggs from the pan onto a plate and walked over to the table, placing it in front of her, "thank you." She whispered.

"Was it really bad?" Ziggy asked, sitting down next to her sister who just nodded, "was it similar to the other nightmares?" Robin nodded again as Ziggy sighed- she knew she needed to bring up the fact that she was saying monster in her sleep, she had been thinking all night about what it could mean but got nowhere, "in your sleep...you said something about a monster..." She admitted, causing Robin's eyes to widen, "oh- I'm not sure, maybe I was talking about the fire or something." Robin stumbled over her words. Ziggy just took a deep breath and decided to just leave it for now, talking to Robin after one of her nightmares was like trying to get blood out of a stone, "I can't imagine how hard that night must have been, you just went into work thinking it would be a normal day then that all happened..." Ziggy empathised, knowing she would bring it up again.