Forgotten Love

2. The Spider Is Proof

The following days my parents sat at my bed like it was my deathbed, while bawling their eyes out and not making any sense.

There was also a therapist that would ask me how I was feeling every goddamn day without telling me anything. Afterwards some of these weird men would visit me and ask me all kinds of stupid questions.

When I was finally released from the hospital and returned to college, everyone was giving me these fucking stares, like I was some kind of freak.

I had almost reached my dorm-room, when Seth approached me with a scowling face.

"Zombie," He muttered under his breath, walking past me.

I turned around and watched the idiot walk up the stairs.

That dude was clearly brain-damaged.

"Ethan!" I called frustratedly the moment I stepped into our dorm-room.

Tossing my suitcase next to my bed, I closed the door and banged on the bathroom door.

"Tell me what the fuck is going on already!"

I waited for an answer, but I got none.

"Dude, come on. I know you're in there," I said. "Why was I hospitalized? And why is everyone acting so damn strange around me?"

Surprisingly the door opened and I took a step back to let Ethan through. He plopped sluggishly down on his bed, and I sat down across from him.

He was fiddling with his hands.

"So?"

"So," He cleared his throat nervously. "You... You were dead."

"Dead?"

He nodded reluctantly.

I felt weird inside. Kinda sick.

But it did make sense to me. That's why everyone was acting this way.

"I must have hit my head pretty hard then," I joked uneasily.

"You committed suicide, you moron – jumped off a bridge!" He exclaimed.

"Suicide?" I asked incredulously.

"Dakota didn't sleep or eat. She locked herself away! Your parents were about to die from a broken heart and I was drowning in alcohol and those sleeping pills!"

"I would never do that kinda stuff, Ethan!" I told him defensively. "I have no fucking reason to!"

"Well you did," He retorted. "You killed yourself and you were dead dead. Real dead, brain-dead, buried dead!"

"Dude, what are you talking about?"

"I created a life-serum, and here you are. It took me a while to bring it to perfection, but I did it."

"What?" I asked, convinced that my best friend was going crazy. But I honestly didn't wanna hear anything anymore.

"Yeah, don't underestimate me."

"My face looks pretty good considering that I jumped off a cliff," I humored him.

I still wasn't buying it.

"Bridge," He corrected. "The life-serum heals all injuries that were caused by your death."

"Dude," I rolled my eyes. "Will you stop this already?"

Of course I knew that Ethan was a genius and that he would come up with these weird inventions, but this sounded like something straight out of a science fiction movie.

"I'm not surprised," He answered, getting up and walking over to his desk. "You didn't believe me the first time either."

I stared at him in confusion, trying to register what he was saying, while he unlocked the drawer.

"You're just confusing me more..."

He pulled out a test tube with a little bit of liquid in it.

"You put some Gatorade in that thing?" I chuckled, pointing at it.

"Sure," He gave back sarcastically. "Very effective Gatorade. Hold this," Ethan said, handing me the test tube.

I took a closer look at that stuff and shook it a little bit in my hand.

Ethan was kneeling in front of his bed, searching for something.

"Aha!" He said and scrambled back onto his feet with something in his hand. It was a little spider.

"Dakota's right. We need to vacuum this place more often," I noted.

He put it on his nightstand, then squished the spider with a book.

"It's dead. Come take a look and see for yourself!"

He said it like he was performing a magic trick.

I walked over and took a look at it, then nodded. "Yeah, it is."

"Now drizzle some of that Gatorade on the spider," He told me with a smug look on his face.

I did as I was told and the spider rose to its feet. The one leg that had been torn out by the impact of the book, attached itself to the spider like a magnet.

Fully recovered, it crawled away.

I laughed, not believing my eyes. "Woah, dude! That's sick!"

I couldn't believe it. I was holding so much power in my hands. A list of people I wanted to resurrect came to my mind.

Then it hit me.

I had been dead, but thanks to Ethan I was alive again. The question started dawning at me – why had I killed myself?

"Do you know why I did it?" I wondered quietly, looking at my best friend.

Avoiding my eyes, he snatched the tube from my hand. "I think it had something to do with a girl..."

I pulled my eyebrows together. "I wouldn't kill myself over a chick! Hell, I would never kill myself over anything. You know I'm not the type to give up on life like that."

Ethan gave me a weak smile. "I know, that's more my thing."

I chuckled softly, punching his shoulder. "You can have the title of the suicidal dude back."

"Try again, dude. I'm the brain, you're the... idiot."

I shrugged. "Fair enough."

Beat.

"Hug?" I offered.

Ethan rolled his eyes, but embraced me briefly.

I had the best fucking friend in the entire world.