Purgatech: Jess' Horror

Chapter 20

Almost 3 weeks later, Jess had gotten into a somewhat normal routine. Actually, she didn't really consider it much of a normal routine by any stretch of the imagination...because how could anything be normal after what she had gone through?

Still, she was doing everything she could to put Purgatech and the insanity of that week behind her. The first thing she did after getting out of there was to toss her phone. To be honest, she ran over it with her car a few times just to be sure no trace of them or their stupid app remained.

She'd only started sleeping through the night again. She tossed every piece of clothing she'd brought into the Ridgely Estate and was living in her old sweats until she felt normal enough to go out and buy new things. She knew it was a bit extreme, but she didn't want to bring back anything that had been in that place. For all she knew, the evil spirit of Sarah Ridgely lingered, and there was no way she was going to bring that into her house.

Speaking of which, being back at home wasn't exactly comforting. She was alone now, completely alone. Gram's house had sold while she was gone so she didn't even have it as an escape any more. Being back here without Erica was more devastating than she could imagine, but she had no choice right now.

She hadn't even given any thought to going back to school and she wasn't sure if she would. It would be the same without having Erica there. Nothing would.

Jess looked down at the frame should been holding all this time and tried to hold back her tears. It was her favorite photo of she and Erica. They taken it the day they'd first moved into this place. They were so excited to live off-campus. It was their first place together and held so much hope and promise. Now that was gone for good.

She sat on the couch in the house she'd shared with her best friend, a wool blanket pulled up around her. When she heard footsteps coming down the stairs, she turned her head to the doorway. Kyle stopped at the front door, putting down a suitcase and a couple of boxes before turning and looking toward her.

Jess stood, taking the blanket with her and padded over to the front door. Seeing her best friend's things all packed up that way only made everything feel so final. She would never be coming back. Jess would never hear her voice; she would never again laugh so hard at Erica's jokes that she would cry. Her tears now weren't happy ones.

As Kyle stood there, looking anywhere else but in Jess' direction, she didn't know what to say to him. No words could make up for what they'd been through. She wished she could find some way to apologize to him for everything but all those sentiments just seemed so weak now.

"So, I guess that's it," Kyle finally said.

Jess nodded. She clutched the photo to her chest one more time and then held it up to Kyle. He smiled sadly and shook his head.

"I think you should have it," he said.

Jess bit her lip and blinked back tears. Him being nice to her was the worst part of it all. Maybe if she had just listened to him things would've turned out a lot differently.

"Are you sure? I mean, I can get another one printed."

He shook his head quickly. Jess wasn't sure if it was just too painful for him to see her the fact that she was in the photo with Erica would be too much of a harsh reminder.

"Kyle, I'm –"

He held up a hand to stop her. "Don't. I'm sure we both did things we wished we could take back now. But we can't look at things that way. Otherwise neither of us will ever get off the couch."

He was right. She had barely been able to get out of bed these last few weeks. The only reason she'd done so today was to see Kyle. Now, she kind of wished she'd rescheduled. Anything to post-pone the inevitable, their goodbye.