Who We Were | Book One

44. Look To The Stars

The photo of Jackie and Ben sat grinning on the bedside table, and I couldn't seem to look at anything else in the room. I struggled to understand why Jackie Robertson did what she did. When I was alone in my flat, I wanted to know who caused it all, I wanted someone to be angry at. But, when she was in front of me grinning, I couldn't bring myself to hate her.

The voices of Will and Ben through the floor were only distant murmurs as I lay back against his bed. My curiosity overcame me as I looked to the drawer beside his bed. Pulling it open, scraps of paper were sprawled inside. I pushed a black hard drive to the back and scribbled pieces of art revealed themselves beneath. There were more than I wanted to count, some he'd clearly spent more time on and others he'd quickly scrawled. My eyes landed on a portrait of Will which took up half a page. He'd got all the detail; the expression, the wrinkles, there was nothing about it that wasn't Will.

Beneath the portrait poked the corner of a familiar red book. The cover was tattered and scratched but still recognisable as my fingers brushed against the binding. The words that filled the pages were still my own but past them, what filled the blank spaces were more scrawled drawings. Some of the Infected, the different parts of their face; their blank eyes and their lifeless stare I'd seen too often, the mouths that lurch, snap and growl. The last drawing on the page was the most surprising, it was of me.

"You find anything good?" Ben cleared his throat as I dropped the book back to the drawer.

"Sorry," I shook my head, feeling the pounding of my heart in my chest, "I couldn't help myself."

He cocked his head as he caught what I'd dropped. "Those are just... scribbles," he scratched the back of his neck.

"These are really good... I didn't realise you kept this?" I gestured to the red cover.

"Yeah..." He grimaced. "Sorry, I probably should've just left it."

"It's alright..." I pulled on the corner of the last page I'd seen, the one of me. "Why did you draw me?" I asked, my forehead creasing.

He inhaled and looked to the drawer as he hovered in the doorframe. "You looked peaceful..." he trailed off. "Seemed such a contrast to what's happening around us at the moment." His eyes were blotchy and red, and his eyelashes still showed evidence of the tears they'd recently encountered.

"You want to go for a walk?"

*

"Are you okay?" I asked as we strolled through Carnelian. The smell of smoke still hung in the air, clinging to whatever life it could. "I didn't expect you to say anything at the service."

The night had cleared and the air was cool. Glittering dots scattered the black expanse above us and everything else seemed insignificant. I began to shiver and Ben shrugged off his hoodie and handed it to me, welcoming the cold air against his skin.

He looked up from his feet and his curls danced in front of his eyes. "Yeah," he breathed. "I mean no," he corrected. "I have no idea anymore. I just feel like a mess... I feel like I've put people in a mess that can't be fixed," he added, a raspy tone to his voice. He lifted his arm to scratch the back of his neck and the dark lines of his tattoo revealed themselves from behind the sleeve of his shirt.

"How's Will?" I asked. "Him and Zoe must've been close..."

He didn't meet my eyes. "Will is Will... He won't let anyone see him upset." I only nodded. Will didn't seem the type to put his emotions on everyone else.

"I'm sorry for pushing you before," I muttered. "I really shouldn't have."

Ben shook his head. "It wasn't you... I just really thought Liz was bluffing when she was standing there." He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and shrugged. "It's one thing to hold a knife to someone's neck, it's something else to actually do it."