#Chapter 41: Return to Normal

When I wake up the next day, I feel numb. Carved out. Hailey’s yells still echo in my ears. “What the fuck, Alex?! Why are you treating her like this, huh?! Do you know how long she looked for you? She was one of the only people who never stopped thinking you were alive! She even went searching in the forest for you! But this is how you treat her when you come back?! Fuck you!” She’d screamed it at lunchtime, skipping part of her class to help comfort me since her lunch period hadn’t started yet. I was sitting alone at the table Alex and I used to share with each other, but I barely ate anything. As we’d left, we passed by Alex and Rita, returning from eating lunch somewhere else. He’d ignored both of us when she tried to greet him. After the third time getting brushed off, and Hailey snapped. “You’re an asshole! I never want you to approach Cynthia again!” I stare down at my comforter, tears dotting the cloth as I cry first thing in the morning. The thing is, I could’ve