Tears of Sorrow

Part 9

Okay, just so you know this is a pretty heavy chapter, so make sure you have something to cheer you up once you read it.

-Mle Mle's POV-

My heart sank, now I had to confront the thing I had been avoiding for ten years. Unlike the councillor, Bek had a right to know and I could not deny her that. I took a deep breath and could feel the tears already forming in the corners of my eyes.

"Well, we were all distraught when you left but at least we had each other for comfort. Then a few weeks after you left Jasper found out that his parents were going back to Belgium and he had to go with them. This made things even worse because we were still upset over losing you. Jasper left at the beginning of 2011, the worst year of my life.

School started and everyone missed you both. We got a new principal who was pretty horrible and much worse than your Dad. Rex was expelled in the first few weeks, and heaps of others were expelled over the first few months. So school was pretty crap to say the least.

But Bethany, Vanessa, Bella, Olivia and me still hung out together which was about the only good thing about going to school. Oh, and you remember Mrs Hodge? You were right she was really nice, when she was on duty she would always come and check on us and make sure we were coping okay and she wasn't so hard on us about our hats either.

Anyway, so we were all hanging on together when the unimaginable happened. Vanessa as you know had her L's and was a very responsible driver. Well, one evening she was driving in her car with her mum and Bethany, when a truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and swerved into the lane they were in. The truck hit them and the car swerved of the road and into the big rock walls at the edge of the road killing all three of them instantly." By now the tears were streaming down both their faces and Mle Mle had to stop and compose herself before continuing, "No one could believe what had happened, It only added to the grief we felt over losing you and Jasper. I almost couldn't bear going to the funeral.

Olivia started taking drugs to escape from reality, and Bella started spending more and more time with Toby. Eventually Olivia's drug use got so bad that she was hospitalised on several occasions, her parents agreed that she needed to go to rehab. Olivia's whole family moved with her to support her, but her parents were still separate.

So that left me and Bella, and we were so depressed that we barely talked. We hung out at school, but she was still spending most of her time with Toby. With all the time she was spending with him I suppose it isn't that surprising that she got pregnant. Still, it obviously surprised her parents who banned her from ever seeing him again and made her get an abortion. Toby and Bella couldn't live without each other so on the night after our year 10 formal they ran away with each other.

Now I was alone.

I retreated inside my shell and rejected all social interaction.

I just managed to pass my school certificate though and so went back to school the next year to do my HSC.

It was then that I met Jim. He had just started at our school and was in the same year as me. I just ignored him as I did everyone else, and sat in my corner at the back of the classroom. But for some reason he kept trying to talk to me, which was really annoying and strange because most people ignored me. I would ignore him, insult him and try to get him to leave me alone but he wouldn't stop pestering me, and trying to be nice to me. After weeks of this I finally gave in and started talking back to him. He was really nice and didn't seem to care that I was emotionally unstable. Jim thought that my cereal killer eyes were beautiful and that I was the prettiest thing he had ever laid eyes on. Soon we started dating and I realised how much I loved and cared for him and how I couldn't live without him. He was the main reason why I got my HSC and as soon as we left school we got married.

Not long after we married I got pregnant and had Liam, my son. But even after I married Jim and had Liam I was still extremely depressed, and have been to this day. Most days I can't even get out of bed. Jim had finally had enough and I was on the way home from the councillor when I met you."

Mle Mle looked across at her old friend as Bek tried to digest all that she had said. She couldn't believe that Bethany and Vanessa were dead. The two women hugged each other and shared in the pain they had suffered for so long.