Chapter One: Seven Days Later
March was the most unpredictable month in the northern states. There were days when it went fifty with the sky so clear, followed by zero-degree weather the next. March 13th, 2017 was one of those days where freezing rain takes over, creating this bleak atmosphere. The dated school lights made Eagle High School more depressing with the rain inside as all happiness dies.
During the first period, the cooking room in the eleventh-grade wing was missing a student. A girl has been absent since March 6th. There was no hope that she was coming back. She hadn’t changed schools. The seven classmates felt weird without her presence because she was not a school skipper. She only stayed home when she was sick. She was not severely sick. She was gone.
It’s been a week since Ash Berbraush died.
Mostly, the teachers who had Ash as their student were impacted due to her kind-hearted and mature nature. Her smile made their days easier. Her family was devastated that their great, quiet middle child had left the world long before her parents. Their Maine coon cat, Smit, notices her sad loss. She often slept on Ash’s purple bottom bunk bed, hoping she would return one day. She wouldn’t.
The sole reason why Ash’s death was so widely known at the school was that it was suicide. Whenever a suicide or a popular teacher’s death occurs, teachers suggest that students impacted by the death should go to the counseling office and that suicide should not be taken lightly.
But the cause should also not be taken lightly!
Ash only had two best friends during her sophomore year, Alexa and Jaymie. Her friend’s sudden death took Alexa aback. She had no words to muster when Ash’s demise was first revealed. She would hide and sniffle whenever someone wasn’t looking. She wondered why and who made her end her own life. She didn’t have social media to figure out the reason behind it. She knew she wasn’t the culprit because Ash seemed relaxed and carefree when right by her. If she didn’t like Alexa, she would stay away from her. The school was not a place to keep your enemies closer. Alexa’s other friends talked with her about Ash’s death. They were not the ones either because they only made small talk with Ash. As the week passed, Alexa started thinking that underlying mental issues threw Ash’s life in balance. Ash never talked about any diagnosis. She couldn’t be open about it, or they were hiding. Her only hope was that Ash was much better than in the afterlife.
Jaymie Holtenger, on the other hand, knew who pushed Ash over the edge. It was Jacelyn Weslan and her bitch friends, Lola Masko, Heather Ruthe, Nona Hickleson, Laura Umburgh, and Maddie Amlet. When Jaymie strolled by the hallways with the windows to the cafeteria or hallway filled with lockers and classrooms, she would see Jacelyn primarily focusing on Ash. They constantly looked at her while Ash was eating alone at lunch or overhearing their conversations while pretending to have her headphones in. She was mad at herself for not stopping them in time. If she didn’t have a busy schedule that kept her from Ash, she would have saved her, believing it was her fault too. Ash and her would mostly text or meet up for any upcoming collaboration on Wattpad. She only had Instagram, and she was rarely active on it. If she ever figured out what the group did to her, she would break her fighting sobriety and kick all their asses.
She was also experiencing the hard grief of losing her best friend of three years. She could not focus on her classwork. Everything was too bobbed together. It was hard not to pull her long blonde hair out. Students only looked at her when she put her head on the table or saw her cry. She was doing this for a week. “Hey, Jaymie, you good?” Zander, her partner in Chemistry, asked. “You’ve been doin’ this all day.”
Jaymie furiously nodded, wiping her tears. Mrs. Kim was watching this the whole time. All the classmates were looking at her. She had a gut feeling that Jaymie was close to Ash. She walked away from the projector, which displayed their latest homework assignment and headed to her desk, signing a pass for Jaymie to go to the counseling office. “Jaymie, counseling,” she said while handing it to her.
Jaymie didn’t say no and just took the pass. She headed to the office. She wasn’t paying attention as much. The counselor gave her consoling words while Jaymie sobbed, saying he would help Jaymie through this. Jaymie always found it odd that the counseling office was near the elementary school area. The only difference was the office looked like an office with little colorful decoration, unlike the elementary classrooms. Mr. Gomen’s office was the farthest office of the room to the left. He always kept the lights off while he worked on his computer. It was a small office with only a window showing the parking lot. He was a chill man. He was not concerned too much because Jaymie expressed no suicidal tendencies. Her tendencies were unknown. It wasn’t until the counselor slipped out, “Do you know why Ash committed suicide?”
Jaymie froze and looked at him blankly. She went silent, deciding whether to turn in these girls or get revenge, ruining their lives. So much so that she clawed her thighs in her anger. She already made a deal with two people who knew her troubles and would gladly help take revenge on these girls during Ash’s funeral. They stood in the back, whispering to her. She could also get sweet punishment for those just like Jacelyn and her friends. Their words brought Jaymie’s anger to her face, “I don’t care,” she told them, “I hope their lives get fucked up beyond belief.”
The couple smiled at her answer. The following day, all she felt was hunger for pain and blood, as if she turned into a vampire while sleeping overnight. No recollection of any dreams or memories. She didn’t burn in the sunlight. The target towards Jacelyn and her group had only grown as days passed. Looking at them would make her lose it. She knew their punishment was drawing closer and closer. She would see the couple close by, telling her about it. She would always smirk. Were they messing with her thoughts or making her get consumed by her rage? She didn’t know, and she didn’t care.
I know who did, Jaymie sneered inside her thoughts. I will deal with them later. No need to, Mr. Gomen.
“No,” she lied point blank, “I wished to.”
“We wished so as well, Jaymie,” Mr. Gomen replied solemnly, “we could have stopped it.”
Don’t you have cameras? She criticized in her mind. Her mind pointed the eerie finger at him. You could’ve figured out who did it in the library, the hallways, and the cafeteria! She clicked her tongue.
He signed her pass to go back to class. “You’re free to visit me anytime to vent or to cry.”
“Thanks.” She took the pass and left. Since it was close to the end of the eighth period, she went to her locker instead, so she didn’t have to drop her binders and books at the end of school.
Ash, I am going to avenge you, she screamed and seethed simultaneously. She wanted to scream that out loud with her fists clenched, but the school would get concerned by what she meant by that.
Ninth-period study hall in the Spanish classroom had some of Ash’s bullies, Jacelyn, Lola, Laura, and Nona, at the same table. Laura and Jacelyn were doing their homework, Nona was doodling in her binder, and Lola was on her phone on Facebook. “Damn, people were still talking about Ash’s death on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. No memes about it.”
“It’s just been a week, Lola. Give it one more, and they will move on,” Nona replied, not even looking up to gaze at the red-wavy-headed girl. She had short brown hair, not going past the shoulders. She had blue, brown, and white flannel over a black shirt.
Jacelyn laughed. “What an attention whore too. After what she did, why are people sad about her death?” She was the smallest of the group, below five feet. She had a tan complexion with dead, straight blonde hair that was more golden than Jaymie’s.
“Too weak to handle her exposure,” Lola commented.
Laura paled at their lies. What started as an assumption or unnecessary commentary became a false rumor that ruined Ash’s image. She was a stranger to Ash, but she felt her friends were taking it too far. She asked nervously, “Do you think it was our fault?”
Jacelyn shook her head. “She decided to do that.”
Nona joined in, “Yeeeaaaahhhhhh.”
“Okay...” Laura looked with her head down, still in a sad dilemma. Her math homework on the table turned blurry in her eyes. She had the color palette of a snow globe-- pale skin and dyed blue hair slightly lighter than her blue jacket. Her tears were possibly snowflakes if they escaped.
Lola noticed Laura’s guilt. She reached out and touched her hand. Laura looked up at her while Lola reassured, “If authorities investigated Ash’s items, they would see what she does off school time and how fucked her mind is. It’s not our fault, Laura.”
Laura didn’t feel better. Her gut and head knew that in time, all of them and her would get caught and tried. She didn’t want to go to a female prison and see how bad it was there, but she had no choice. She was a criminal now.
