The Wrong Address | COMPLETED

26. Haunted

⚠️Trigger warning: We will be entering Zion's thoughts which may be heavy to some readers. As he is a character struggling with depression, anxiety and thoughts of self harm.

Zion

It had been a week since I'd heard from Ashlin. My team won the game on Tuesday but I didn't get a congratulations from her. Not even a single text. At first I understood that she didn't have her devices, which sucked. Yet I wanted to talk to her so bad.

Taylor and Arielle had hit it off at the party. So I hardly saw him anymore and he was the only person I had to talk to other than Ashlin. I mean of course there were loads of people who would want to talk to me. The only problem was their motives, they wanted to talk to me because I was popular.

They wanted to be friends with the star athlete, not the real person behind it all. If they knew the struggling person I was behind my skills and good looks. They'd laugh at me. They'd all turn on me in a heart beat.

It happened before and I wasn't going to let it happen again. I had to keep my circle as small as possible. So Ashlin and Taylor were enough. If only Ashlin lived right next door to me. That would be perfect, I'd get to see her everyday.

Now with her mom hating my guts. I felt it was going to be hard to keep in touch. Which meant more time of me isolated from socializing. Leaving me to my overthinking.

I could be a hazard to myself when I was alone. I was aware of that, which was one of the reasons I had enjoyed talking to Ashlin everyday. She made me feel less alone, she made me feel seen and heard.

So a week of not talking to her was making me anxious. I could tell I was slowly slipping back into that dark place of depression. Everytime my thoughts would become sinister.

The voices in my head kept telling me that her not being able to talk to me was a reminder I was destined to be alone. They kept telling me I was making her life harder. Telling me no one loved me, that I was just an extra face to the people around me. That the world would be better off without a guy that caused his Dad to be in the hospital.

If only I'd been an obedient child. If only I'd listened to my mom and stayed home that night. If only I'd stayed home and study. Yet I just had to please Penelope.

She wanted to go to that stupid party and I had to go with her. I had to get wasted and then get caught by the police. They had to call my Dad to pick me up at the station.

Poor Dad must have been in such a rush wondering why I had been arrested. That he rushed out of the house immediately. He must have been so worried on his way to get me that he hadn't seen the truck coming.

What did you do this time Zion?

That must have been his last thought before the world became dark. Before all the light drained from his life. Now he was all alone in the hospital, still clinging unto his life. A life that I took from him by being a hard headed teen.

Deep down I knew I was the reason mom really left. It had been a long time coming. I had been mixing with the wrong crowd, causing her to stress about me. Then I took her fiance from her. Now he was going to wake up to a broken family. Which was all my fault.

They had been picture perfect and in love. I ruined that, I separated them. Now I knew how much it was going to hurt for him to wake up and not find her by his side. It was going to tear him apart. Especially when he heard she was now married to his boss.

She had moved on and none of it was his fault. It was all my fault, I was the bad guy in this story. I was the real villain.

I was the one separating people from their loved ones.