Withering You

Noah

It was Colin, right? I was blind not to see that before. He was pestering you with those letters. He wanted you. He wanted you like that. It should have been him.

I sit up straight. I am going to school. No. Not school. I'll call him. I'll talk to him. I wipe my wet eyes. I'll find the person behind this Ava. I'll not let anyone who has done this to you slip away from this.

I stumble out of bed and grab my phone. I dial his number. I wait painfully for him to pick up. He doesn't. I dial again. There's no answer. He must be in class with his phone in silence. I'll get to school. I'll wait out till he comes. I'm shaking with rage. He should not have done this to you.

I stand outside school, impatiently. I can't wait to get my hands on him. How could he have the heart to hurt you? Your innocent smile would get any heart melting. I hear the school bell ringing. I watch as everyone pours out. I wait for Colin's car. I'm infuriated. You didn't deserve this scumbag. You didn't deserve me too. You deserved someone better than all of us. Someone who would have stopped whatever that had happened.

I straighten up when I see Colin's car. I stand in his pathway to stop him from moving forward. He gestures me in, asking me to get inside the passenger seat. I quickly scan inside the car. It wasn't filled with his football jocks. I jog around quickly and get inside. When standing outside I couldn't see his face but now, up close, I see he has been crying. His face was puffed up and blotchy.
He seems to be genuinely grieving your loss. I backtrack from bombarding him with questions. I don't know, Ava. Was it him?

"Where were you? Do- do you know?" he asks shakily.

I nod looking out of the window. It was hard to look at him with a straight face, I might start crying too.

"It was a shock," he sobs, "I need to go some place where I'm not reminded of her."

That gets me hard. There is no place in school that wouldn't remind us of you. Especially under that tree. I wonder how he even managed school. I nod though I'm sure he wasn't asking me. He starts to drive and I take the opportunity to look at him. His body language doesn't seem to be fake. His love for you must have been true. But you were disturbed seeing that letter. What was in that letter? I need to ask. My throat felt tight. I couldn't find the right words. I'm a coward Ava. Colin lets out a painful growl.

"Are you alright?" I ask. How do you comfort a crying man? That's awkward being a man myself. What would have you done to comfort Colin? Images of you holding his hand and leaning into kissing him flash in my mind. Disrupting images.

"I'm not, okay? Don't look at me like that. I cry too. I'm only human!" he screams back at me and I shrug my shoulders. Only if he knew I was in a worse state than him. Look at the depth of love people have for you. I'm moved by you because you even managed to get the love of Colin. Everyone who knows you can't go by without loving you.

"Everyone thinks I did it," he screams, punching the steering wheel.

I gulp. I thought so too. I still think.

"They think she did it because we fought last. What the fuck they even know about her? She is not a girl to kill herself over a boy," Colin gives out a laugh in pain. I am too stunned to even blink because all these while I thought he was after you for your body. His roots run deeper for you. You were talking to Colin last, no? How am I to know? Shouldn't I be doubting him?

"I know, okay?" he says looking at me away from the road.

"Uh?"

"I know that you liked her. I know you went everywhere she went."

I was too embarrassed to look at him in the eye. He was the one you chose above me. You must have had reasons to do so.

"I wanted to ask," Colin parks smoothly in front of the lake. My heart starts to beat up loudly.

"I wanted to ask," Colin continues from before, "if you know anything, if you had followed her yesterday?"

I don't look anywhere but at him. This bustard. What in the world did you even see in him?

"I went home straight. I - I didn't do anything," I stumble on my words.

He is suspecting me. I should have known better than to agree to drive around with him. He could have taken me anywhere but here. It was hard for me to not to look at the trees. Goosebumps run down my body at the thought. Which tree did you hang yourself?

"I only asked if you had followed her yesterday. Answer that," Colin's tone had turned harsh.

"No! No! I only follow her in school. I- I don't do anything outside. I mean I - I," I stumble badly in my words realising what I had just said. He would think I do things at school.

"I didn't do anything to her. I didn't mean anything like that." What am I babbling? It doesn't matter what he thinks of me, you know I caused no harm to you and that's enough.

"You knew I was with her and you still followed her around. Why? You were willing for us to break up, yeah?"

I frown at him. He is trying to corner me up, to turn all the attention from him to me. Make me look like the reason behind your death.

"You are trying to blame me for this, aren't you?"

I wanted to get out of the car, slam the door shut on his face but I was too strung up to move. He gives out a frustrated sigh.

"I'm sorry. It's just- you know. It hurts when they say it's me."

I strongly believed the man you were pleading to was Colin and he was the one behind all these. But now it doesn't seem like that. He seems to be innocent. Or he is really trying hard to look clean. I can ask Colin if it was him but that would only alert him. And I am alone here. He can easily overpower me.

"Let's drive home," I sit up straight. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be alone with Colin.

"That is the tree they found her on," he points behind me. My stomach drops. I don't want to look. Colin has lost it by bringing me here, maybe we were both suspecting each other. He must have thought bringing me here would spark up some reaction. I genuinely feel sorry for him.

I muster up my energy to look. Yellow tapes were secured around the area. My eyes fall on the tree. Images of you hanging flash in my head. I blink quickly, trying to clear my head up. I can't imagine you like that. There was no sign of you there. Obviously, they had cleared everything up. Can you see us from wherever you are right now?