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THREE
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2024-10-29 19:42:5603: the things he hated, he destroyed.
×
A shrink.
They'll always find that way to sugarcoat- crazy.
Is it a disorder? Is it spiritual? Or is it a gift?
There're there to test the extent-- the vague boundary line between the normalcy of things and that crazy.
The truth is no one could ever tell. Except you.
×
THREE YEARS AGO
"Tyler"
"Tyler. Wake up" I clasped his arm, shaking him vigorously to wake him up whilst his blood smeared unto my hands and my clothes as I looked to father and then at his closed eyes.
The wild sirens blew alarmingly around the houses before it suddenly began to fade in my ears.
"Its all your fault" He spat as i looked to my bloody hands in terror and then at my father. "You killed him"
"You killed him!" His voice came piercingly to my ears, prompting me to jolt from my bed with sleepy eyes.
NOW
"Are you okay?" Regina asked, already seated beside me, haven heard my usual screams from the dreams i had--
"Its okay. It's just a dream" She whispered, knowing exactly what to say and what i needed to hear.
Zach was no stranger to these nightmares, the ones that involved the death of Tyler and his father, they were the ones that still haunted him-
-thrice, sometimes every day for a while. And he could swear their voices drew closer almost every time.
Like he was with them. Closer to them.
He pulled away the sheets from his body as he tried to stand, failing on the first attempt, but later stood.
He was quick to handle the bottles of pills he had by his bedside, just the ones that helped his heart this time and then the one for his anxiety, he swallowed with a sigh-
His eyes trailed the time on the alarm clock as he dreaded going back to that school for a second day. A second seven hours filled with terror.
And then there was a knock at the door. Obviously he knew who it was but still asked. "Who's there?"
She had left after he had awoken to probably turn off the whistling kettle.
"Bougeyman" She jumped inside with a smile that both transitioned into a laughter that they shared-
-before she sighed.
"I'm sorry for picking you up late yesterday" She said.
"I got really caught up in work. Had this drunk patient that wouldn't tell us anything. Resisted treatment and all that" Regina continued.
"Aren't you breaking patient confidentiality whatever" Zach asked and she snorted, with a shrug of her shoulders. "Although he sounds a lot like dad" He added and she sighed, pulling away from the bed.
This time, her identity card hung on the left side while wore her dark hair braided to fall on the right. She was never willing to let a single grey strand obvious in her hair.
"You need to get ready for school" Regina said, dryly. And you could tell what Zach said had brought upon her, a bunch of buried memories.
"Look. I'm sor-"
"No. I am" She nodded with a smile before walking away, revealing the mirror that had hung by the left.
Zach hated mirrors.
He hated a lot of things. But mirrors toped it.
Basically anything that made him look at himself, any goddamn thing that forced him to take in what he had become.
It was bad coming from his friends, worse coming from his dad, and even worst, coming from himself where he saw the new him as a hard challenge.
He did not know when his hands grabbed unto his belly fat, one that immediately slumped back with a pat against his lower skin and he exhaled.
He was miserable as he stared at himself. And was quick to shut his eyes and turn away to his sides.
But then his hands suddenly grasped the headlamp, almost knocking down the photo as he threw it against the mirror.
In a moment of anger, he smiled at the shattering glass, some of which even fell to his bare feet.
And as he could guess, his mother walked in at the sound of shattering glass to the ground.
"My God-" She exclaimed on sighting his blood that dripped to the wooden floors and then on sighting his smile.
Zach hated mirrors. He destroyed it.
He also hated himself after that night. He knew he would eventually self-destroy.
×
"Are you okay now?" Regina asked as she wrapped up the cut on his hands from the throw and his feet from the fall.
She had also packed away the shatters of glass on the ground before nagging of her aching joints. Some of it as a result of her age and the rest, stress.
He hated that he always put her through this as his hands grabbed on what was his second pizza that day.
"Isn't that enough?" His mother asked as she sat up.
He turned towards her with pretending eyes. "At a point, isn't it all enough?" She continued, facing away from him. She couldn't watch him.
She couldn't watch him ruin his life.
She would have tried not to give him, but he always had his way. "I can't. I don't want to go to school. Not like this" He panted as he pushed the pizza down his throat.
"But i have to go to work. Do whatever you want" She said as she stood to walk away, with the bundle of plaster in her hands.
"Are you angry with me?" Zach asked as she paused in her steps. "How could i be?" She flashed a smile that to be honest, wasn't from deep down her heart.
"It's okay. It's okay to be mad at me. It's okay to remember-" His voice cracked as he closed the pizza box with a sniffle.
"It's okay?" His mother echoed as her lashes stuttered for a second.
"You know why your dad was a drunk? Why he drove himself into that fence-" Her voice cracked a bit.
"Why he left?" Regina added.
"Tyler was his everything. And it didn't hurt me that if it had come to anything, that your father would have chosen to die that night. To save him"
"He saw in Tyler what he didn't see in anyone. Someone that was more like him. And that's why you felt he didn't love you-" She finally turned around.
"But he did. He loved both of you"
"Then why did he leave?" Zach asked and by the way she wiped across her teary cheeks and the way she cleared her throat, you could tell she was still keeping something from him.
"Your father had Tyler-" She ignored his question before she leaned toward his bed.
"And I have you. And that's all that matters. We have each other and it is us against the world-" She nodded.
"How could I ever be angry with you?" She whispered and soon, turned to walk away. "You can stay home if you want to" She shrugged her arms on her way out.
And Zach was left sitting in his bed, his eyes on the remnant pizza as he sighed in the silence. Which didn't seem to last much longer to him.
'why do you do that?' her voice quietly came back.
'sit there and self loathe and do nothing about it'
'who are you? I bet you're some have it all girl. And how am i sure you're not an old lady with nine cats?'
'how am I sure you're not an old lady with nine cats?' She sharply replied and a smile formed on my lips.
A smile that was quick to vanish once he noticed it-
'i do understand you. Because i can tell whoever you are, you're not happy"
"And I'm not too' she added, suddenly.
'is that why you won't tell me who you are? Are you a criminal? A magician? And why the fuck are you in my head?'
Zach was quick to anger, wiping off any trace of his existing smile.
'you're in my head-'
'-and I'm a lot of things. What i'm not is a have it all girl-' she paused for a while before she continued.
'i'll make you a deal'
'-i'll tell you who i am if you do two things-' she stopped, waiting for his actual answer as he paused, too.
'okay?' was his later soft reply.
'promise you'll never search me up or ever come looking for me-'
'and tell me who Tyler is' she was quick to ask, almost as if she had these intentions for a while-
-intentions that took him by surprise.
'how do you know t-' he wanted to ask before he realized that in his mind, she was in. And he knew he could give almost anything for those answers.
"Tyler-" He said audibly this time as he looked to that same photo he leaned against his bedside counter before taking it into his bandaged palms and noticing a slight crack.
"Tyler"
He was drawn into the last moments of that night once again, the night that he had dreaded for a lot of reasons.
"Tyler. Wake up" I clasped his arm, shaking him vigorously to wake him up whilst his blood smeared unto my hands and my clothes as I looked to father. And then at his closed eyes.
The wild sirens faded past my eyes as I fell back-
"Its all your fault" He spat as i looked to my bloody hands in terror and then at my father. "You killed him"
"You killed him-"
To be continued...
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