Tattooed Mistakes (Are Gonna Fade Over Time)

Chapter 5

(Keira's coming into the story now! And Zach gets a Moment. But everything's still very sad. In fact, I almost cried writing the last scene. Let's do this)

Every one of the zombies was a nervous wreck on the first day back at school, and, as it turned out, with good reason. The news had spread quickly, just like Alonzo had predicted, and a lot of the human students were suddenly less willing to talk to them. Some at least had the decency to make excuses as to why they were turning away their former friends, but others refused to even speak to them, instead shuffling away and whispering among themselves. The way they had a year ago.

The patrol was there. It wasn't exactly unusual for an officer or two to be spotted around the school but there hadn't been this many on guard in months. And every zombie who entered the building was stopped to have their bands checked before they could go about their business.

Zephyr trailed along behind Zach and Roz, feeling far less confident than he usually did when Al had been by his side. He was barely listening to their conversation, though he picked up that it was something about Keira. Roz hadn't seen her girlfriend since before the incident; the patrol and hammered down on the restrictions on leaving or entering Zombie Town for the time being, until the case had been fully investigated, and what's more was neither of them had had much time to call or text the other. They had barely spoken over the last week. The three zombies came to a stop and Zephyr lifted his head just in time to see Keira shut her locker and turn around to face them. She seemed surprised for a split second.

"Keira...?" Roz took a step towards her, slightly unnerved by the lack of any readable expression on Keira's face until she came to wrap her arms around Roz's neck and kiss her lips before hugging her tightly. Roz relaxed in her arms but it was too much for Zephyr and he looked away, walking past them to his own locker.

He hadn't even been able to kiss Alonzo before he was snatched away from him. He didn't even get to say a proper goodbye. And their reunion wouldn't be for a long, long time.

"Zeph?" the sound of Zach's voice came from behind him and he threw him a brief look, "You doing OK?"

"I'll be fine," Zephyr went back to rifling through his locker. He wasn't even looking for anything, he just wanted a distraction.

Zach rolled his eyes and cocked his head, "That doesn't answer my question. I'm asking if you're fine right now, not if you'll be fine."

"I don't know!" Zephyr sounded frustrated, and it surprised Zach. Before the incident, he had always been so calm and now it was like he could never find a moment of peace, "I'm stressed, I'm scared, I'm irritated, I haven't seen Alonzo in a week and now I'm back at school without him, how do you think I'm doing?"

"Pretty bad."

"You figure that out on your own?" The sarcasm was relatively normal for him, though.

Zach sighed, "They're gonna let him have visitors soon."

"Great, I'll get maybe an hour at a time to talk to my boyfriend through a window while he's in zombie containment."

Zach placed his hands on Zephyr's shoulders before he could go any further, "Zephyr, you need to chill! You can't do anything about this right now," he let him go and Zephyr looked down, chewing the inside of his cheek and avoiding looking Zach in the eye, "Come on, take a step back and find something to get your mind off of things. What about football tryouts?"

Zephyr was quiet for a moment, "... I'm kinda having second thoughts about that..."

"What? Why?"

"I dunno, man, I just... I can't pretend like there's nothing wrong."

"It's not pretending there's nothing wrong, it's living your life," Zach insisted but Zephyr said nothing, "Look, I know you love him but you're more than just Al's boyfriend. You can keep going to school and you can play football and still care about him."