SAVING ZACHARY TUCKER

1. ZACHARY

|ZACH|

I have never been in love.
Never.
But if there's one girl that I especially like, it's Olivia.

She's almost to good to be true.

Light breaths wash over my face, bare body pressed to mine, soft hands rubbing up and down my chest, Olivia laid next to me.

"Tell me you don't think about it." I challenge.

She tries to stay in the moment the best she can, drawing out patterns on my chest with her small fingers.

We weren't looking at each other, me staring up at the ceiling and her nuzzled into my neck.

She sighs, "are we back on this, really."

There's a pause. It's Sunday, 10 at night, and she's got exactly 15 minutes until her curfew.

It's not how she wanted to spend the last 15 minutes or our weekend but I just had to hear it. I had to.

"I think everyone does, Zach. At some point, everyone wants to die. There's just a fine line between the people who really want it and the people who really don't." She explains.

She shrugs like that's the end of it.
But she knew it wasn't, I wouldn't- I couldn't just leave it there.

"What's the fine line?" I ask timidly.

"The boiling point." She answers almost instantly, the patterns she had been drawing out on my chest came to a stop.

I knew she was about to break it all down, like she did everything.

Just to make a point- or to get her point across, either way she was about to go all "Know-it-all-Olivia" on me.

I really liked know-it-all-Olivia.

"The degree of no return, the last straw, if you will. The fine line between the people who act on the thought of killing themselves and the people who don't is the capacity at which a person can be pushed. Many people contemplate suicide but of those many, only a few are at their wits end, only a few would pull the trigger or jump off a bridge. As for the other few, it was just a thought, a thought that will be pushed back into the dark corners of the mind and won't return again until 2a.m. or the next time something bad happens. It'll keep returning until that person reaches their boiling point at which- they become some of the few who act on the thought."

She had an answer for everything. Always.

I nod, "Why are you so intrested?" She asks. The world was Black&White with her, everything was simple.

I sit up, "is this is about Hector?" She adds. It had to be about something, that's what she was thinking.

Olivia is always right.

Sitting up as well, clutching the sheets to her chest, her eyes bore into mine.

"ZACH. IS. IT." She demands to be answered, the seriousness in her voice is motivating but I shouldn't- I wouldn't answer her.

I scratch the mess of bed hair on top of my head, she signs.

"Zach, he did what he did because of him." She assures, latching onto my arm.

"No, yea, I know." I say all to quickly.
People seem to believe that. That Hectot- that anyone would do what he did because they WANTED to.

I thought otherwise. I wouldn't object, though.

looking over to the alarm clock next to my bed, I put on a fake stretch and yawn. "10:09, you should probably get going." I say.

Olivia's eyes narrow, "you kickin' me out, Tucker?" She shoots, a slight smile on those small, bow shapes lips.

"Never," I say, leaning in to kiss her. Before I can she rolls out of bed, "See you in the morning." She says gracefully, picking up articles of her clothing.

I watch her, she skipped around my room in nothing but underwear. Lace underwear.

Blondish-red hair falling over her freckled shoulders and a tattoo of a single balloon on her right hip, this was Olivia.

"Don't be late in the morning." She says sternly, slipping on her clothes.

"I won't." I assure her, laying back in my bed. "And shot gun." She adds quickly.

"You can sit anywhere you like." I say, staring back up at the ceiling.

She's looking at me, waiting for it...

"My face, being the most reasonable option." I joke.

She rolls her eyes before slipping out of my window.