Modern Heathers

Chapter Twenty-Three: My Ex Is Crazy

A/N: this chapter includes like a million mentions of suicide. Massive trigger warning from beginning to end. To be fair this entire book is a massive trigger warning but just proceed with caution.

"Knock knock."

I jumped as JD picked the lock on the window and climbed in. "Sorry for coming in the window, dreadful etiquette. But I was thinking maybe we get back at Heather Duke. After all she's the one who made Macnamara want to kill herself. Want to go slit her wrists? Babe?"

"Get out of my house!" I screamed.

JD grabbed my arm and dragged me down the stairs. "Come on, it'll make the world better. For us."

He led me into the kitchen and he started going through my drawers. He pulled out a knife.

"It's filthy. Heather would never use that," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Oh, well that can be fixed," he hissed, polishing it on his shirt. "There, can you see your fucking reflection?" He held the knife up right in front of my nose. I could see my own eyes filling with fear.

"Wow Veronica, look at what you've done," I heard and I spun around.

"Heather?"

She nodded, smoothing out her red, silk pajamas. Blood and drain cleaner dribbled out of her mouth and she coughed before speaking again. "I'll be coughing up drain cleaner for eternity, thanks to you."

"And us." I gasped, Kurt and Ram approaching me, blood dripping from Ram's neck, blood falling from Kurt's side. "This is what you did, Veronica."

"And this is what will happened to Heather, and who knows who after her," Heather hissed in my ear. "Is that what you want?"

"No!" I screamed, gripping my head. The voices kept growing louder and louder.

"No!" I gasped, falling off of my bed.

My ears were ringing. It was a dream. It was a dream.

I swallowed, looking at the clock. It was almost five o'clock in the morning. And I knew JD would probably be here soon, if he wasn't already.

Just as I had this thought, I heard his fingernails tapping at the window.

I ran into the closet, slamming the door. I leaned against it with all of my weight. I heard a snap and the window opening and I assumed he broke the lock.

"Veronica?" He said, knocking on the door. "Babe, I have plans for us, at the pep rally. Come with me."

"Get out!"

"Don't be like that. Trust me."

"Why the fuck would I trust you?" I screamed at him.

I could hear him sigh through the door. "Don't you even want t know what the surprise is?" I didn't answer him and he apparently took this as a yes. "You chucked me out like I was trash, for that wine you should be dead. But then I thought isn't it the fault of the assholes at school? Isn't it their fault all of this happened? I got Heather Duke to pass around a petition for a tribute for the... ahem, suicide victims. What they were really signing was this..." he cleared his throat. "'We the students of Westerburg High, will die. Our burning bodies will finally get through to you that your cold, uncaring society turns out slaves and blanks. To that bullshit we say no thanks. We will be a school that self destructed not because society didn't care, but because our school was society. Signed the students of Westerburg High. Goodbye.'"

I pressed my back against the locked door, struggling to breath. "You're sick, you demented fuck. Get out of my house!"

JD rattled the doorknob. "Babe, tonight is ours. Get the marshmallows, we can make s'mores! What you call 'sick' I call 'inventive.'" The doorknob shook again as he tried to twist it. "Veronica don't make me come in there. I don't want to hurt you, I would never hurt you, just please come out."

I slid to the floor as silently as I could, reaching for an old box of different shit that I never used. I was pretty sure there was a rope in there.

"Veronica," He said quietly through the door, "please. I love you and all I want is to be with you. I can't do that if you don't help me. This is for us. We are crazy. We are chaos. And chaos is what killed the dinosaurs," he said, echoing what he'd said to me what felt like forever ago. Back when I believed he was good. "I-I need you to help me, let's finish what we've begun. I can't do it without you."

I took the rope and quickly began tying a knot, a large loop at the bottom. This isn't something I ever saw myself doing. This isn't something I ever planned on. Even now I was panicking but I couldn't stop now.

"I'll give you till the count of three!" He called.

I stood, tying the rope to the bar at the top of the closet.

"One!"

I put my head through the loop.

"Two!"

I pulled the rope back, lifting myself off the floor. I stepped onto a box and swung my feet off of it till I was hanging from the rope around my neck.

"Fuck it."

I closed my eyes, going as limp as I could. The door was kicked in. I tried to keep my breaths shallow so he wouldn't see my chest moving.

"Oh my... Veronica..." I heard his knees hit the floor. "Please don't leave me... I can't believe you... don't leave me, please Veronica, I can't do this alone I can't I—" he swallowed. "I have to. For you."