{Did You Notice?} COMPLETE ✅

~Day 19~

Jace POV

I don't know why, but when I walk into school the next day, I'm shaking with nervousness. And it's not just because of the exam.

I'm sitting at my desk as I usually do, a biology textbook splayed out in front for me for last minute revision. My knees bounces sporadically and I don't know what's coming over me.

You should of told Jack. You should of told Jack about that night she cried herself to sleep in your arms. You should of told him Jace.

It's eating away at me, I can't think. It must of meant something that night, but what did it mean? I didn't know. I tried to calm myself down. 

It probably meant nothing, just forget about it. If it gets too bad, tell him and just say you forgot to mention it. It's fine. It'll all be fine.

Jack walks in a while after me and after his eyes meet mine, he automatically trails his eyes to where she normally sits. She isn't there. Jack reads my thoughts and worry flashes across his eyes before he tries to compose himself. "She's probably late," he assures me, but it sounds like he's also trying to assure himself. I nod.

He sits down beside me and when the bell rings to signify the start of school and she still isn't there, my heart drops with a painful pull in my chest. 

Breathe, I tell myself. It's going to be okay. 

She still doesn't show up when we walk into the exam hall for our exam. The teachers seem to notice, and the exam head goes to call home. Throughout the exam I try not to think about her as I answer the questions, but my mind keeps drifting to her like black waves. Black waves that consume the vulnerable. Black waves that are taunting me and calling me, sending my heart into a shockwave of hap-hazardous missed beats. Black waves going in and out, in and out.

I pat Jack on the back after we exit the exam hall with everyone cheering after completing the first exam. He shoots me a relieved smile but his forehead is creased with worry. He must of had a rough exam too. "Come on," he ushers me gently. "Let's go back to tutor until break yeah?" 

I nod absentmindedly. We begin to head back to tutor before a lady who works in the office stops us both. "Are you Jace and Jack?"

We look at her quizzically before nodding. "Yeah," I answer. "That's us."

She looks at us gravely. "Alright," she breathes. She looks like she's going to drop the weight of the world on our shoulders. "Come with me boys please."

We look at each other before nodding solemnly, and following behind. We knew it was going to be something bad, we just didn't know what. Jack gave me a look and it spoke my inner thoughts loud and clear.

Was it about her?

We finally reached her office and we both sat down on customary cotton blue chairs. She looked us both in the eyes and she must of noticed how desperate we looked because her strong resolve began to crumble away. She sighed, looking down at the table. "I don't have any other way to tell you this but to tell you straight." Her voice was heavy, and she finally seemed to pluck up some courage to look us both in the eyes. My heart was hammering in my chest like it knew what she was about to say. Then it comes.

"I'm sorry to tell you that Alexa Bowden committed suicide last night." She paused and swallowed before choking out her last sentence. "She drowned herself. Her body was found washed up on the beach this morning."

The room was silent.

The air became toxic to me and it was like I forgot how to breathe. It was just silence, deathly silence until a horrible sob echoed from beside me.

Jack was bawling. My heart sank in horror as I watched him cry his soul out, keeled over making noise that no one deserved to hear. I blindly struggled over to comfort him, my legs like dead weights. The walls were closing in; the ceiling centimeters away from my face. Then it hit me.

She's gone.

She's really gone.

The girl that we loved so deeply, who made us who we are was gone.

The girl that sung songs like an angel and held us close like she never wanted to let us go. That girl that made up our memories, that comforted us when we were lowest and rejoiced with us when we were soaring was gone.

The girl that I needed the most was gone.

And now it was all too real.

I didn't want to think about the way people's faces would drop at the news. I didn't want to think about someone finding her cold and lifeless body washed up on the beach like a piece of litter. I didn't want to think about the silence that would hang over us when it was announced in assembly that a prized year 11 had taken her own life. I didn't want to think about throwing dirt over her as her body began sinking into the ground... 

So I didn't. But I cried.

Because my friend was dead.