The Comeback

Chapter 11 - Back To Normal

Chapter 11 - Back To Normal

I blink and I’m in a different place. Normally, it’s all white, emptiness and brightness. Nothingness. I’m always alone in this place when Liam is sleeping and it’s when I can show him memories —I’m getting very good at that, if I say so myself. When he’s awake I can see what he sees but it’s not like I’m him… it’s just like what he sees it’s also playing in my head, but I’m always here. Unless Louis appears.

However, this time I’m not in the white empty room, this time I’m in a place I know. It’s a little kids’ playground we found once in one of our outings. We used to go out and just drive until we’d find something new. We used to love this playground although almost everyone had forgotten about it.

Why am I here?

“Because you need to see something,” another voice answers although I haven’t uttered my question.

I roll my eyes when I realise who the speaker is. He’s the only one whom I can talk to since I died. Liam is not a good receptor. “Louis,” I say. Not exactly a greeting, to be honest, just a statement. “What are you doing now?”

“You need to see this,” he repeats standing next to me, showing up out of the blue there. I get a bit startled but I try to hide it.

“What? I don’t see—” but I get cut off when I see her approaching, walking slowly hugging herself to protect her body from the cold of that morning. Her eyes are locked on the floor but I don’t need to see her face to recognise her, to feel like I come alive. “Cass,” I say but she doesn’t hear me. Then I look at Louis with panic. “Why am I seeing her? This is not Liam seeing her!”

“Shh,” he tells me and then points at Cass again, so my eyes are on her once again.

Cass keeps walking until she reaches the bench and sits there. I remember we used to sit there together, just talking about everything and nothing. I smile unconsciously at the memories and I wonder what she is doing here.

She takes a deep breath and seems to sink in the bench. “Jake,” she whispers and I jerk, ready to run towards here but Louis stops me by grabbing my shoulder. “It sucks I can’t go to the cemetery, it’s so far away. But I guess this place works, right? No one will see me talking to myself,” she muses and I chuckle.

“I’m seeing you,” I reply but she doesn’t hear me.

“I miss you so much, every day. I feel very lonely without you and I’m still mad at you, you know?” She says, this time looking at the sky, as if I were there. “If you were here I would kill you for driving drunk. I really thought you had brains,” she says and laughs humourlessly. Louis gives me a look of I-told-you. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. I just wanted to tell you,” I say and I’d give everything for Cass to hear me. Just once.

“You just left me alone here, you didn’t say goodbye.” Her voice breaks and she looks down, her hands covering her face and I see her shoulders shakes. She’s crying.

I try to run again, but Louis stops me. “Let me go! She needs me!” I yell at him but he shakes his head.

“You can’t touch her, you are not even here. This happened already, I’m just showing you a memory.” I take a sharp breath, wanting to argue but I understand what he says. It’s what I do with Liam, showing him my memories.

She takes a deep breath and looks up again, wiping the tears away. “I don’t think one day this will stop hurting, like Nessa says,” Cass carries on and I sigh. Nessa is her roommate in the Uni dorms. They get along pretty well, but they are not best friends. “I think I’ll always miss you.”