After The Reasons

Tell me! Tell me now!

"Heidi..." Jessica gasps but quickly stops herself from saying anything more. "Why are you here?" I ask. My face is shocked, I know I look shocked and probably sad. Heidi's face falls when I ask her and tears start to pool in her eyes. "Clay..." she says in a hollow voice. "Why are you here, Heidi?" I ask again. "You wouldn't answer my calls or texts. I needed to speak to you." She says with tears falling down her face. Mom, dad and Jessica all sit at the table, confused and slightly intrigued. "There's a reason for that Heidi." I say bluntly. I'm not trying to be a dick but I can't handle this right now. "Clay, what's going on with you? This isn't you!" She exclaims, standing up from the chair to face me. I turn my head away from her, avoiding looking at her. "Look at me!" She says, clearly annoyed and hurt. "Heidi..." I beg. "No! No, Clay you don't get to say my name like that! You're not the one who's hurting here!" She almost shouts. I close my eyes and don't look at her. "LOOK AT ME!" She yells with tears falling from her eyes. I turn my head to her and open my eyes. Heidi looks at me with tears streaming down her face, she looks so broken. "I'm sorry." I say, trying not to cry. "You're sorry? Are you sorry that you have ignored me for the past five days or the fact that you broke up with me over voicemail, then left!" She asks, angry. Hearing her voice so hollow and hurt sends a shiver down my spine. "Are you sorry for packing your shit and leaving without so much as a goodbye?! Are you sorry, Clay?!" Heidi asks. I never meant to hurt her like I did, I never wanted to hurt her at all. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone and hits play on a voicemail, "Heidi... it's me, Clay. I'm sorry that I'm doing this but I can't do this anymore. I can't be with you, I just can't. I'm going back home. I love you Heidi and I am so, so sorry. Please don't try to contact me. Bye." My voice plays through her phone. Heidi starts tearing up more and I am so ashamed. "That was my goodbye?! Are you sorry for that?!" She sobs. "Are you sorry, Clay?! Because you don't seem to care!" She says putting the phone back in her pocket. "YES! IM SORRY!" I yell. Heidi gets a fright and I instantly feel guilty. "I'm so sorry..." I whisper. Heidi stands, shaking her head. "Clay... you packed up in the middle of the night and left me! I woke up and you were gone!" Heidi yells through her tears. "You left me!" She repeats. "Heidi, please just let me..." I begin to say but trail off. I don't know what to tell her. "Tell me why. Tell me why you abandoned me in the middle of the night! Please... tell me why I wasn't good enough for you anymore!" My heart aches and my face drops. She can't think that. "You are good enough! You're too good for me, Heidi!" I say, raising my voice slightly. "Then why didn't you stay?" She asks. "Because I had to come back here! I had to come back to my friends and my parents!" I exclaim slightly louder than I meant to. "And why couldn't I come? Or why didn't you just tell me that and I wouldn't stayed? Why did you leave me!?" She yells. "BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!" I shout. Heidi's bottom lip starts to quiver and I sigh. "I love you too much to let you come here! The Clay that you know — the Clay that you fell in love with — is not the Clay that lives in Crestmont!" I explain. Heidi looks at me confused. "Heidi... this town changes you! The kind of shit that happens in this place ruins people! IT RUINED ME!" I shout. "I left this town and I never looked back, Heidi... you know this! I rarely ever spoke about this town and I definitely didn't tell you half of the shit that I have done in this town!" Heidi wipes her tears away, which is no use because more just spill from her eyes, "SO TELL ME!" She yells. "You wanna know? You really want to know what I've done?" I ask. Heidi nods her head and I laugh. "Okay, where the fuck do I start? Oh here's a good place! The first girl that I fell in love with, her name was Hannah Baker. She killed herself and left 13 cassette tapes, explaining why. I was tape 11, I was one of the reasons she killed herself because I didn't love her enough!" I yell. "I listened to all the tapes, each tape was a different person, and I wanted revenge! I went to a rapists house to confront him because he raped my best friend and the girl that I loved and nobody else seemed to be doing anything about it! That rapists name was Bryce Walker, he beat the shit out of me that night but it was fine because I recorded him admitting that he raped Hannah! I then went and took a guy off of the streets, a guy that hated me and bullied me so much for the previous couple of years, and moved him into my house without my parents knowing. Little did I know he was addicted to heroin and I had to organise babysitters to make sure he didn't OD in my bedroom! But it was alright because my parents found out and I became really close with him, later to become my adopted brother! My other friend, Alex, also shot himself in the head but he didn't die! Then Hannah Bakers trial began... everyone lied and twisted the story! She lost the trial and then Justin was arrested as an accessory to rape! That's when we adopted him! My friend Tyler showed up at the spring fling dance with machine guns because one of the fucking jocks had raped him in a bathroom! Guess who covered that up? ME! I took the guns from him and dumped them in the lake! But then Bryce Walker went missing. Yeah, the rapist, and I was the number one suspect because I had showed up at his house with a gun not long before that and was going to kill him! If it weren't for Justin, either Bryce would've died that night or I would've. But I was getting the blame of his murder! Later I found out that it was actually my two beat friends who killed him, but we made up a story that blamed Monty De La Cruz because he was already in jail for raping Tyler! But Monty was found dead in his fucking cell! Then I lost my fucking mind! I literally lost my fucking mind, Heidi. And then, just as I was getting better, Justin died! MY BROTHER DIED!" I shout with tears falling down my face. "So I got the fuck out of this town and never looked back! So yes, I left you! I knew that I would never forgive myself if you got dragged into half of the shit that I am in and it killed you!!! EVERYONE WHO I LOVE DIES IN THIS FUCKING TOWN!" I scream. Heidi wraps her arms around my neck and holds me tightly. I fight her at first but then I burry my head into her neck and put my arms around her waist. I sob as she hugs me and tells me it's okay. She lets go of me and takes my face in her hands, "Clay, I'm not going to die! I am not going to die! Nothing you could ever tell me would make me stop loving you, Clay Jensen. I'm in this. Please, let me in." She begs. I nod my head and pull her close again. I kiss her head and calm myself down. She lets me go and we both wipe our faces and laugh at each other. "I'm sorry for just leaving." I say. Heidi smiles at me, "I forgive you, but don't ever do it again!" I nod and we both smile. "You two are weird!" Jessica teases. Heidi and I both laugh at Jessica. To be honest, I had completely forgot that my parents and Jessica were sitting there... that's not the best way to introduce my parents to my girlfriend. "Well... mom, dad, this is Heidi." I say and they both laugh, shaking their head.