Lost

Chapter 23 (Ally)

Chucking my shirt and shorts back on we grab our skateboards from behind the bush and start riding home, cruising along the quiet road we finally reach our destination, the church, walking on foot the short distance into the bush till we find the place where we both ran to on that awful day. Neither of us know why but it has become our place to go for the last couple of weeks since his passing. The memories are still there, still a tear in my heart but it's bearable. Zac comes up from behind grabbing my waist making me squeal, he lifts me up, kicking my feet, "Put me down!" he obeys. I have been hanging around with Jasmine, Carla, Tyler and Ben but somewhat it's better being with Zac because it brings me back to my childhood and times with James. He looks over at me, "I'm moving schools." "Where to?" "Yours, I want to go to school where James went, find out a bit more about what it's like, where he went to school." "Great! I'm guessing you will be starting in Year 9 though?" "Yeh." I notice the sun lowering through the trees "We should go." He turns his head and nods, I run through not being able to wait from the flying feeling, as soon as we get on the boards I smile, "Race ya!" He smiles in reply, jumping on the board, in a matter of minutes we are back at my house, leaving our boards outside Mum greets us with a batch of freshly baked choc chip cookies "Thanks Mum!" "Thanks Tanya!" "You're welcome kids. Zac do you want to stay for dinner?" "Let me just check with Mum" "The phones in the lounge room." As Zac exits the room Mum turns to me "How are you going sweet heart?" "I'm fine, we saw Alex today." "How did that go?" "Not good, I'm not ready to talk to him," "You will have to eventually." "But he cheated on me and then got mad at me! And angry at James, he killed himself!!!" The tears roll down my face, she lifts my head up, wiping them away with the pad of her thumb "Hush, hush, no need to cry, I know it feels like your completely lost now but things will get better." I know she was talking about Dad and this she was right. I jump off my chair "What's for dinner?" "I'm not actually sure, I was going to see what you guys wanted." "Okay." On this, Zac comes walking back into the room, "Mum's fine with it." Mum smiles "That's great! What would you guys like for dinner?" Zac and I look at each other "Pizza!!" When we were younger we would go to each other's houses and if we had a choice we would always make pizzas, we never really knew why but we just did. Gathering anything and everything out of the fridge we ended up with 3 pizzas and a lot of mess! But it didn't matter because we were all happy and that's all that ever matters to my Mum, that's why I love her.
*1 month later*
Zac had been at school for a while now and was really enjoying it, sometimes he sat with his friends or our groups joined, my group only consists of Jasmine, Carla, Tyler and Ben we no longer sat with the others; including Alex, he was well and truly dating Talia, they were always together, you would never see them alone. When we told Ben and Tyler we all had to hold them, including calling for Zac and his friends to stop them from beating the living daylights out of Alex.
My locker and phone were continuously plastered and full of sympathy message for James, the teachers offered to exempt me from work but I said no, after all it's not going to help. When I first came to the school Tyler and Jasmine were the first ones to be friend me, it was just the 3 of us for a while and then the others came along. I had always had a close friendship with Tyler but I always thought he was closer to Alex turns out not so much, ever since the incident with Alex he doesn't even go near him, it makes me smile.
One Sunday afternoon I lay in my room scrapbooking memories of Mum, Dad and (now) Toffee together, when Mum enters my room, "Zac's here." I couldn't help but smile, skateboarding time! I grab my skate board and bound down the stairs eager to get on my board, it had been a while with school since this has been able to happen with Zac, we roll down the hills on our board, my hair flicking in my face. Afternoons with Zac were always the best. He smiles at me "How's life?" "It's good, getting more bearable." Smirking he replies "Of course it is! I'm here!" I smile, shoving him lightly so he loses his course, regaining it quickly. After our skate we begin to head home parting our separate ways, I wave "See you tomorrow!", he smiles that smile, the same one he shares with James "See you then!"
*The next Day*
I get to school looking for Ben and Carla, not finding them, in 10 minutes Jasmine should be here. Nope. Where are they?! As I'm waiting alone beneath the Oak tree I scroll through my feed seeing picture of Carla, Jasmine and Ben away, Hawaii? Hearing footsteps in the background I quickly wipe the tears away but it's too late, Zac has already seen them "Thought I might find you here," "How'd you guess?" "No one around, the photos on Facebook" "Yeh." "Come and sit with me today," "Okay." I see Tyler and quickly inform him, he joins us, we spend the day with Zac and his friends. This is why Zac is my best friend, he never abandons me.