cliche as crap | zach herron ✓

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there they sat, on her couch, in her apartment. bathing in silence. nothing but the sound of their breathing. until zach decided to start a conversation.

"so, we're here now. are we gonna talk or?" he says, dragging the or.

"well, what do you want to know?"

"everything."

"from day one?"

"yes."

"well, get comfortable this is going to take a while."

"ok, so uh go on."

"wait, are you sure you want to hear this? because i don't want you to feel bad for me or anything."

"i want to hear your story." he says, "unless you don't want to tell me. then i totally understand."

"no, it's got nothing to do with trust. i actually do want to tell you. you jus- you cannot tell another soul. i told a friend once and he told a lot of people so like if you're not good at keeping secrets the-" she rambled, looking down, playing with her fingers until zach cut her off.

"look," he reassured her, as he grabbed her hand making her look at him, "i'm not gonna tell anyone."

"promise?"

"yes i promise." he replied, a small smile formed on his lips, "you're making it sound like you murdered someone."

"oh god no. i cried when fucking harambe died, i don't have the ability to kill anything."

"you're stalling, just tell the story."

"are you sure, sure?"

"jesus fucking christ ami, yes i want to know your story."

she sighed, sat up and began the very long night ahead of the pair, "i have this super odd memory from when i was an infant. it's of my mom and dad in their room."

"what's so weird about that?"

"my mother had one of those tubes that you put up your nostrils to breathe. i remember walking into their bedroom and seeing my mom crying with the tube thing up her nose."

"why'd your mom need something to help her breathe?"

"she had lung cancer."

"had?" zach asks, grabbing her hand instinctively.

"she died a month after i turned 3."

"oh, i am so so sorry."

"you didn't do anything. it's not like you can fucking bring her back to life. so don't say you're sorry."

"okay."

"no i- i didn't mean to be rude. it's just i- i- it's one of my pet peeves. y'know, saying sorry over something you had no control over, it's stupid."

"go on."

"for a while, when we were there we were loaded. like i swear we had so much money. i'm not trying to flaunt or anything, this is just kinda important later on. but i went to a fucking private school and my room was giant." she says, "but then, one day in kindergarten, i hear sirens outside my house."

"a fire?"

"no, like police sirens."

"oh... why?"

"because apparently, my neighbour's daughter went missing. sorta. well, like the daughter, meghan, had run away because of," she held her fingers forming quotation marks, "'abuse'. her parents said otherwise, all the times i had been at her house proved otherwise. her parents were far from how she described them."

"what the fu- okay."

"i know, right? their family was all sorts of fucked up." she said, laughing a bit, "so she came to live with us. she used to babysit me a lot so she knew her way around the place."

"how old was she?"

"honestly, i have absolutely no idea. she was in high school. but that's all i knew. she told my dad that she was nineteen though."

"nineteen, in highschool?"

"what a big red flag, eh?"

"no, not really. so, continue."

"so she had this weird infatuation with my dad. like she was psycho obsessed with my dad, who was like thirty-nine at the time." ami explains, "so she stayed in our guest bedroom until she started sneaking into my fathers bedroom at night."

"she snuck into his room."

"she claimed she was sleepwalking."

"that's fucked up."

"oh, hunny, that's nothing compared to the other shit she did."

-

written june 12, 2018
edited october 29, 2018