In A Week I Will Be Dead

Chapter Twenty-Five: Bygones

!!!TW!!!

Mentions of suicide, SH

IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING, CALL THE SAMARITANS ON 116 123 <3 <3 <3

Myself

I know that as I type I'm faking myself. It's not going to happen.

I left because I couldn't handle the prospect of attachment. Seeing a person everyday who knows everything about you isn't exactly the way forward with me. I just walked out of the gates of the school and didn't turn back. I went anywhere and everywhere, sending various emails from my parent's email account saying why I wasn't in school. I used their joint account, the one that they thankfully do not use very often. I kept up with the school gossip using my year group chat, which told me everything I needed to know and more. The number one topic was always sex, but recently it had been about Noah and Josh.

Where is Noah. Where is Josh. Have they eloped together. Has one killed the other. Are they in court. No, they're not is court you idiot that's next week. It was in the knowledge that Noah was away (either killing or fucking Josh who knows, maybe both) that I returned to school and decided to send him another email to reassure him that I was alive.

Even now sat back here in my room I forget why I was away. What excuses did I use? I've had people wishing my Aunt a swift recovery, my cousin a happy honeymoon and myself a pat on the back for going to a creative writing day. Lucky me.

The thing is, I've known about Josh Patiens for a very long time. Even before his dictionary collided with Noah, it's been really really obvious. I gate crashed his party once because I felt in the need of some free booze, and I saw him sat in the corner.

He was half asleep. As they say, a drunk mind tells a sober soul or something like that. I prodded him to make sure that he hadn't died in his own vomit, and was greeted with a mumble. He repeated a babbled sentence a few times before bursting into tears, before eventually settling back into a forgotten slumber. Feeling the urge to hit him across the face, I raised my hand, poised for the attack.

'Thankyou.'

It was the weirdest statement. I hadn't even cracked my hand across his face before he smiled.

'Please, thank you.' He sounded like a toddler just learning his manners, but I was determined to get revenge for all the bullying he'd dished out. And then I hit him hard across the face.

His eyes snapped open fully, and he swivelled his eyes around to meet mine. His ducts were welling up from the hit, five marks appearing across his face. One for each sin.

'Thankyou.'

And that was that. He thanked me for hitting him across the face with the palm of my hand at 1:45 in the morning.

I got up, and was about to take my leave before some part of me instinctively asked the question that I always ask.

'Are you okay?'

It sounded hollow. It sounded empty. It sounded like a recording of a person who really didn't give a shit, and if I'm brutally honest, at that moment in time I really didn't.

He opened his mouth and formed his mouth into different positions, like he was trying to find the right words.

'Don't worry, I don't plan on going to hospital.' I took it immediately as an insult. He was trying to downplay the smack. He was trying to make himself look stronger. He was being the bully again.

As I turned around and headed towards the door, I just heard him mutter a statement under his breath.

'I don't plan on making it there on time.'