Remembering Sunday ( A Zack Merrick Fanfic)

23). Graveyard Blues

"Zack pull over!" Thea shouted suddenly while they're driving back to his place. The dinner was a somewhat success, Zack's family loved Thea. Although there was the whole Zack's Mom thinking Thea was pregnant scare. Also his parents wanting to know every detail about her which caused alot of lying. Thea was still grateful; they had accepted her like their own.

Pulling over on the side of the road, Zack gave Thea a concerned look, he knew she couldn't see. It was dark out, dark enough to not to see your own feet.  The wind was howling, shaking trees, and causing a bitter coldness what not even the car's heater could fix

Swinging the car door open, Thea clambered out. Not leaving Zack enough time to register what was happening. "Wait here." She muttered, wrapping her coat firmly around her body and disappearing into the dark.

"There is no way I'm waiting here." Zack muttered, before getting out of the car after her. He had a vague idea where they were. He had made the journey to and from his house to his parents many times. She had gotten Zack to pull over beside the graveyard, in the dark just for his enjoyment. Zack hated graveyards, for the obvious reasons;

You walk where 6 feet under someone's corpse is rotting
Creepy groundskeepers
Getting buried alive
Zombies.

"Thee." He called out, walking up the path trying to avoid tree branches and falling over. "Thee?" He repeated again, almost stumbling over a headstone. Apologizing under his breath to the owner of the grave he kept walking.

Zack had no idea where she had gone. He regretted not staying in the car, where it was warm, and had light. Walking up the graveyard path, he searched trying to find Thea. The search didn't go well, the darkness hid everything under a layer of black like the sky went through an Emo phase every night.

About to give up and return to the warmth of his car, Zack spotted a light in the distance. Hoping it was Thea using her phone light to see the headstones, Zack jogged up the path. Ignoring the cold wind tearing through his body, he searched for Thea.

He knew why they had stopped. It's a graveyard, the graveyard where her sister took her final resting place. He knew that the graveyard had to be somewhere near, but he never suspected here. The graveyard, he drove past almost everyday.  He had always admire this graveyard, the tall evergreen trees that grew around it's borders, standing tall like protectors of the dead. It was a standard place, but it always seemed sunny.

Zack had asked Thea once why she hadn't moved across states. Somewhere where no one knew her name, where she could start again. She just smiled at him, shaking her head letting a brown veil of hair cover her face. "Because, I have promises to keep. Also it's for the same reason I didn't completely change my name, I can't let go."

It had taken him along time to learn what she meant. The reason she stayed was because she liked the pain. It wasn't so much keeping the promise to her dead sister. She thought she deserved the pain, the pain of her past and everyone it effected. The pain she inflicted on her parents, she inflicted on herself.

"Thee?" Zack called out again to the figure standing beside a headstone. The lady turned around at the sound of him calling out but it wasn't Thea. She was much older, dressed in warm clothes. She was only around the age of his own parents but age hadn't been well to her.

"Sorry,  I'm not the person you're looking for." She says, giving him a sad smile. She must assume, I'm calling out to a dead person  Zack thinks, returning a smile. He could of sworn the middle aged lady was Thea but that was most likely  an effect of the dark.

"Who are you looking for?" He blurts out, curious to why she was in a graveyard in the dark. Especially for someone who looked so ill.

Shining her flashlight onto the headstone. She replies with a shaky voice "My daughters"