Burning Ruins

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Six

Axel

I sat at the table feeling helpless. Barely talked to anyone, barely looked at anyone. Barely eaten any. Already ten pages into my sisters steps to her suicide and I feel drained and half dead.

"Axel! Pass the green beans." my mother said through her teeth.

I lifted up the bowl and handed it to her before looking down at my empty plate, still feeling sick in the pit of my stomach.

I heard the front door open and saw the Petersons walking in and then Elias following.

He sat next to me instantly and touched my shoulder.

"Veronica called me worried as hell, you left Delaney panicking." Elias whispered. "Let's talk upstairs."

I got up and walked upstairs feeling miserable.

"What happened?" he asked looking at me, waiting for me to tell him.

"Her room was  just down the hallway and I didn't ever see her upset. She fucking killed herself. She left me a note and journals. Titling each beginning, middle, end. And the end is complete shit." I handed him the journal.

He flipped through the pages and then set it down.

"Stop reading it, you hear me? Your gonna end up just like her if you continue."

"Don't fucking tell me what to do!" I yelled.

"Delaney's a mess right now Axel. I went over there and she's not looking too good." he shook his head like he knew something.

"What? Is she sick?" I asked.

"Get through dinner with your family and go home to her, Veronica's barely keeping her afloat. Leave that book here. Leave Rayne here, and get the hell away from it. This house and everything in these walls hold her and make you stay here mourning her. She's gone Axel and you need to be able to move on without her haunting you. You taking that book back there will cause chaos. Will make you fall down to her level. She wanted what was best for you, even I know that."

"She fell in love with someone." I looked at him before turning to the page and reading it aloud.

"You think love wouldn't kill you, turns out it does. But it first destroys you. Makes you think your happy, starts to feel like nothing could be worse until it does. You sit on your bed looking at the ceiling like nothing could hurt you, except him, but you know he won't.

I remember the phone call, I remember the scream and the glass shattering, and then the groaning. He told me to stay on the phone, told me that he wanted to tell me something, he told me he loved me. Told me that he'd miss me. Told me to be strong for the both of us. I heard the sirens, I heard his last breath and I screamed, and cried that night but I tried to make it silent. The line went dead, when I'd try to call him I'd get his voicemail until that disappeared too, he disappeared.

I couldn't move for the next few days, could barely eat, barely wanted to breath. I hated it here, hated the sounds, the voices, the taste of life.

It was first denial, and then it was the acceptance, and then the tearing of my heart, and then the ripping of my skin, and then the thoughts swarmed in. Last step was emptiness, feeling cold, dead.

I fell in love with a dead boy, a boy who stole my heart when death took his soul. I'm just as dead as he is. He deserved the world and I deserved him. Turns out life didn't see it that way. Turns out I deserved the pain and he deserved the afterlife. Now all I can think about is being with him again and stopping this pain.