You're face to face with the man who sold the world.
~~~
Calling this a love story would be a lie. But, that would be simpler, wouldn't it?
Or
When a Shadyside...
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Day 30
She was finally starting to move on.
Ziggy was finally moving back home after almost a month in the hospital. She still had a ways to go when it came to her healing process, but she was finally cleared to leave.
A part of her was scared to go home though.
She didn't know what it was going to be like without Cindy there, she could count a thousand things in her house that would remind her of Cindy, one of the biggest reminders, the fact that she was alone with just her mother now.
But Ziggy's Mom had taken down just about everything that reminded her of Cindy, to help both her and Ziggy, but Ziggy thought it just made everything worse because it made it even more noticeable that something, someone, was missing.
But Mom wasn't home much anymore, so she didn't have to have to deal with it as much as Ziggy who had practically turned into a shut-in.
Her Mom had started working again, her sister's death seemed to finally give the woman the push she needed to start being a proper mother to her daughter.
She didn't talk about Cindy, and when Ziggy tried to her mom would just change the subject. She didn't know if it was because she was still mourning or because she didn't care anymore.
As her mother viewed it, they had mourned over Cindy, and now it was time to pick up the pieces and heal. To move on. But Ziggy wasn't sure if she was ready for that yet.
It had only been a month since everything happened, she couldn't imagine just moving on so quickly... She didn't even know if she wanted to move on so quickly.
But what she hadn't expected was the biggest reminder of that night, showing up on her doorstep that morning.
A knock on the door of the Berman residence pulled Ziggy out of a certain daze that she found she kept falling into. Taking in a deep breath, she took her time getting off of the couch before making her way to the front door.
Unlocking the multiple locks she had requested her mom to put in the house, she opened the door and was shocked to find Nick Goode.
Nick stood in front of Ziggy's house awkwardly, with one hand stuffed in his pocket and the other awkwardly resting behind him.
His car and himself stuck out like a sore thumb in the trashy neighborhood of Shadyside.
"Hey, Ziggy..." That was all the boy said after a moment of silence once he realized the girl in front of him wasn't going to greet him.
"Goode."
She was still upset with him, over so many things but the most recent and the one that hurt most was about Sidney.
She never got the chance to see Sidney's body. She wasn't even able to attend her friend's funeral. She was living in denial that her friend wasn't really gone. She couldn't move on without her closure.
"I heard about the renovation." Ziggy didn't know why Nick had the nerve to show up at her home unannounced, so she figured she could talk about another thing she wasn't happy with that pertained to him and his family.
The Goode family had purchased the land that Camp Nightwing rested on, and instead of leaving the camp there to rot, they wanted to renovate and build a shopping mall.
That was just another thing that made Ziggy hate the boy in front of her. A fucking mall? Is that how he and his family viewed her's and everyone else's pain and trauma?
Sure the project would take years to complete, and maybe a majority of them would have healed by then, but it still disgusted her. It felt wrong. It was wrong.
But Ziggy knew deep down that the reason the renovation upset her so much was because it would mean Sidney really was gone.
That she couldn't go back to Cabin 5 and find the girl waiting for her. She was gone.
"Yeah, it's crazy. Thought it would be nice to turn the bad into something good." Nick explained with a small smile, her question seemed to calm his nerves.
"I guess you could call building on top of a murder scene something like that. Isn't it bad luck? Building on top of multiple graves."
Nick rolled his eyes and scoffed at the girl's words. Of course, she had to bring the conversation back to that.
"They aren't buried out there? What would you rather we do? Let it sit out there just to rot?" He questioned her with a quirked brow and an edge in his tone.
"That's exactly what I would do." Ziggy stated plainly with a shrug.
Nick stayed silent, her response seemed to annoy him just a little bit more, and almost regret coming all the way to Shittyside.
"What are you even doing here Nick?" Ziggy finally asked the question she had been itching to ask since she opened the door.
"Thought you'd want this. Well, I thought she'd want you to have this." Nick handed her Sids torn and battered-up copy of The Haunting. The sight of the book caused Ziggy's heart to stop.
"No need to thank me." Nick quickly added in, wanting to take pleasure in watching the girl scoff in the annoyance of his words but instead he was greeted by nothing.
She was too busy taking the book out of his hand to care about his arrogance. She didn't think she'd ever see it again. Sid's mother had let Ziggy take as many things of Sid's as she wanted but if there was one thing Sidney cared about more than anything it was this book.
"You kept it?" Ziggy questioned softly as she felt one of the pages in between her fingers in an attempt to make sure it was real and not a dream.
"Well... I promised her I'd finish it." He explained quietly, looking down at the book sadly.
He didn't want to give it away, he would have rather kept it for himself and the memory of Sid. But he knew he Ziggy needed it more than he did.
"You know... If she was still here she'd make us debate over King and Jackson." Ziggy started slowly, thinking over what her friend would do next but it wasn't that hard for her to guess.
"She'd have this whole speech prepared about why King is "just so obvious" while Jackson knew what "real horror was." And she'd probably win against us too."
"It's just a book about a haunted house."
"It's more than that... I didn't realize that until now." Ziggy's clutch on the book tightened as she stared down at it.
"You wouldn't understand." She muttered out before mumbling her goodbye and shutting the door in the boy's face.
Ziggy Berman wouldn't have to see Nick Goode for another sixteen years. But that didn't mean he was out of her life for good. Because just like Cindy and just like Sidney, there were constant reminders of him and his family everywhere.
