Before you go

Chapter 22

Ben.

I ran out of the assembly hall. I felt sick I couldn't breathe properly as my head clouded with memories and emotions. I kept running until I'd ran to the back path and slumped on the fallen tree. My head dropping into my hands.

I couldn't stop the tears that escaped my eyes, i didn't want to either, I wanted to feel everything I was feeling right now. How could this of happend? How can someone that was so full of life just be gone?

Sitting back I thought what she would do right now so I lent a back and lit a spliff I tried to smoke away the feeling of emptiness. But it wouldn't budge, I just wanted her back I needed her.

"Thought I'd find you up here." A voice from the path called.

Shifting my gaze from the floor to the voice I saw James.

Did he know?

"I came i to help Mr Richards with his year 10 art class, I was gonna see if I could steal Lily for day get her to help but." He didn't say anything after that as he blew the smoke away.
"I should go talk to Wanda. Better her to hear it from me than some random." He said clapping me on the shoulder.

"James?" I said as he stared down the path.
"That bench, is there room on it for lily too?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah there is. She's safe now back with Ronnie." Was the last thing he said as he disappeared. It sounded like he was trying to reassure his self more than me.

I'd never known anyone that died before I didn't know how to act, how to feel. Lily came back into my life and changed it. She changed me, But now she's gone I don't know how to be me.

"God damit greenfield." I said as I flicked the spliff into the ashtray before walking back to school.

The whole place felt empty just as empty as her house did, it was the same emptiness as when she left last time. But the crushing feeling was knowing she wasn't going to float back through the doors, it hurt in a way I never thought possible.

I felt was like I was autopilot as I walked through the hallways, going from class to class. Not that I was focusing on anything, I couldn't.

I could feel people's sympathetic eyes on me, I tried to ignore the whispers but I couldn't.

"That's her boyfriend." I heard a fifth year girl whisper to her friends.
"Poor guy." One of them replied.

Fuck this.

I looked up at stared at the group of gawking fifth years. They stiffened up under my gaze before quickly shuffling down the corridor.

"Ben!" I heard my name echo down the now empty hallway.

But I didn't stick around to find out who called it. As I walked towards the reception and out of the main door and down the drive.

I didn't know where I was going, I don't think I had a destination. I just walked and walked until my feet ached and the sun had set.

It must of been hours since I left the school, not that it felt like it.
As I arrived at the lake.

The water was still, there were no birds, no breeze in the trees. It was just still an lifeless, like it died with her.

She died. She's gone.

And just like that every confused and mixed up emotion that I couldn't decipher crashed together all at once. As I collapsed in on the bank of the water.

A painful sob ripped out of me as the tears fell continuously. Curling my knees up to my chest I rested my head on top of them as my body shook with each sob.