Teenage Dilemmas [UNDERGOING MAJOR EDITING]

Chapter Thirty || The Boy who Died, the Girl who Cried

Chapter Thirty || The Boy who Died, the Girl who Cried

Bridgit

"We're family, different DNA, different friends, different beliefs, no matter what, we're still family."
Unknown

I swear on the tuna sandwich that I am going to have for lunch today that our house phone is a banshee. If you don't know what a banshee is, google it.

I read the phone ID and noticed it as the hospital's number. Thinking that the call was about James, I picked up with a concerned "Hello?"

"Is this Autumn Anderson?"

"No, this is her step-sister, Bridgit." I fold my arms nervously.

"Can I please speak to Autumn Anderson?" The lady asked, her voice a concoction of nervousness and sadness.

"Sure." I sigh. I pull the phone away from my mouth and shout loudly "AUTUMN! IT'S FOR YOU!" I revert back to speaking to the lady on the phone "She's coming."

Autumn walks into the kitchen, her eyeliner only being half done and hair already starting to frizz even after straightening it.

"It's for you." I say, rolling my eyes and Autumn snatches the phone from my grasp.
I walk up to my room and bury myself in homework that's due tomorrow. I impatiently tap my pen on my desk as I look at the math problem, the equation looking like a foreign language to me.
Not bothering to look for help, I open up my tablet and shoot the teacher a lousy e-mail, excusing me from doing the rest of the chapter for tomorrow.
I roll my eyes and hear someone storm up the stairs. I get up and open the door, seeing Autumn storming off to her room.

Immediate concern fills my mind and I get up and rush over to Autumn's room.
"Autumn?" I ask with a knock.

I hear Autumn crying, no wailing. The sounds that came out of her mouth were of pure sadness. I hadn't heard a sound like that for a very long time.

"Autumn?!" I almost shout, pounding my fist onto the door.

"Go away!" Autumn shouted.

"Let me in!" I pounded again on the door, becoming very scared after the James incident "Autumn?" I pound some more.

"Leave me alone!" Autumn yells at me. I could hear that her statement was from one that was crying, I could hear the saliva gathering at the back of her throat, constricting the chance for correct pronunciation of the word 'alone'.

I stop pounding on the door and rest my forehead on it. "Please Autumn." I close my eyes, feeling her grief from the other side of the door. "Please let me in."

Autumn opens the door and tears still make their way down her face, half of it being covered in black mascara and eyeliner. "Why?"

"What's the matter?" I ask sincerely, now genuinely scared.

"Jack's -" she buries her face in her hands.

"What is it?" I ask, getting more nervous as Autumn continues to leave me hanging.

"Jack's dead."

A hole forms in my stomach. "What?"

"Yesterday, Jack was in a car accident and he died on the scene." Autumn stumbles "Jack's dead!"

"No," I whisper in disbelief.

"Yes, Jack's gone."

I let out a short sigh and close my eyes. I didn't cry, I don't know why I didn't cry "I'm so sorry Autumn."

"That's what they said." Autumn cried "That's what the doctor said! But they don't know!" A gob of spit sprayed from her mouth. "They don't know what it feels like! They do-o-" Autumn cried into a crumpled tissue that was drenched in snot and tears.

"Please, Autumn don't cry-"

"Don't cry?!" Autumn yelled "Don't cry?! Bridgit, I feel so horrible. You don't know how I feel-"

It's my turn to become angry "No I know exactly how it feels! When someone dies, it feels so horrible, like a block of lead is in your stomach, a sickness you can't get rid of. You feel sick, you feel sorry and sad... It feels like your body is decomposing. And I know that..." I heave, tearing up "because I had to go through that same thing twice."

"I'm-"

"And you know what the worst bit was?" I cry "The guilt. The guilt was the worst. For James it was the fact that I told him to kill himself and for Mum..." I wipe a tear "It was the fact that I stopped her from checking the engine of that plane before it flew into the sky and came back down too fast." A gob of spit flies off my lip But I attempt to ignore it, wiping my lip with my thumb "I stopped her from checking that engine for her to braid my hair. I haven't let go of that guilt, I think of it everyday. Everyday."

"I didn't even say goodbye." Autumn mumbled "She last thing I said to Jack was that he was a coward. I told him I hated him but I didn't."

There was silence. It was just silence, I didn't cry, you couldn't hear Autumn cry it was all just silent.

"Look," I begin "Autumn, I know I can't away anything to make you feel any better because there isn't anything that can make you feel better." I sigh "but I promise, one day you'll wake up and you won't feel as sad as the day before. All that I'm going to tell you is that it takes time."

"I don't have time."

"No," I sigh "you have too much time. It seems like forever but it isn't."

"For me it will be, I am bad luck Bridgit." Autumn sighed "I have the worst luck in the world. My Mum and Dad broke up, my boyfriend died, my best friend is a human torture device and my step sister hates me."

I fall silent. "You have bad luck, but there's nothing I can do to change it. That's up to you." I lick my lips and suck on my teeth.

"He's not coming back." Autumn days "the worst thing is that he's not coming back. I never thought that I'd say it, but I loved him totally, infinitely and with all my heart."

"You didn't love him." Autumn grits her teeth in anger at my statement "We can't love, not totally, entirely and with all our heart. I know now I'm going to sound like Victoria but we're only teenagers, our brains aren't fully developed so we can't feel true love."

"I thought I loved him, our love was so true."

"I thought the same." I say not talking about Jack and Autumn. "But I don't know, I'm sorry, so sorry for your loss. And I know words don't do much but that's all I can do."

Autumn arises a question that I never thought I'd hear "Did you like him?"

"Who?"

"Jack."

All I tell her is the full and complete truth. "I never liked Jack. He bullied me when we were younger, I can't love someone like that."

Autumn nods "I liked James."

"I don't care." I spit, obviously hurt. "It doesn't matter anymore because James is as good as dead as well." I smile in emptiness, happy that I finally accepted it. "All because of me."

Autumn didn't speak an nor did I. I wish I could think but I just stared at the floor, as empty as I was the day that I got James' last phone call.

"Truce?" Autumn asks.

I sit in silence, after all this time, A kiss, a hug, a death all leading up to this small, insignificant moment, Autumn Anderson and I sitting on a bed sharing more in common than we originally thought.
I decide to tell her the truth, totally, infinitely and with all my heart.
"Of course." I smile.