Young Writers Society

The Boy Who Broke Mirrors

(Chapter Two)

This isn’t real, this isn’t happening. All of tonight is a dream. It has to be. Robbie’s frantically blabbering on the phone but I can’t hear a word he’s saying because the blood rushing in my head is too loud. Aiden’s staring emptily at Zack, who's progressively looking worse and worse. Robbie’s muffled voice rings in my ears, and I slowly turn my eyes to him. I lock them onto his face for a few seconds before wavering back to Zack, who’s still lying lifelessly on the ground. I exhale a lungful of air.

“No…” I mutter to myself. “No.” I say it louder this time.

This is a joke, isn’t it? The two most heartless idiots known to mankind thought it’d be hilarious to fake something as serious as this, and they figured it’d be even more hilarious to fool two strangers they’ve never even met before. I clench my teeth. The anger that had settled was bubbling up all over again. This isn’t funny. This is really not funny.

I’m going to beat them at their own game.

I bend down and kneel next to Zack with the most convincing distressed expression I can muster up, and lean in closer to him. He’s a pretty damn good actor, I’ll give him that. Our previous encounter in the bathroom replays in my mind and I tense every muscle in my body. I’ll show him what’s funny, I’ll show him that he can’t scare me and get away with it. I breathe in as I slowly move my hand towards his face, and pause briefly. Then I smack him as hard as I can, right across his cheek.

And he does nothing.

Not even a twitch.

“What the hell are you doing?” Robbie snaps at me.

I ignore him.

“Hey!” I hiss at Zack. “Hey, quit it! You’re not bloody funny, give it up!”

“Eff, what are you doing?” Aiden grabs my arm and tries to pull me back up. I shove him away.

I shake Zack. Nothing. Robbie’s back on the phone, muttering an apology to whoever’s on the other side. Has he actually called emergency services? I shake Zack again. Still nothing. This is all a joke, it has to be. I hiss Zack’s name. No response.

What’s happening?

“Is he still not breathing?” Robbie hastily asks me, Aiden’s phone still pressed against his ear. I don’t respond, I just stare. “For God’s sake, is he? They need to know!”

I place my ear by his mouth. More nothing. I turn back to Robbie and shake my head as a stammer escapes my mouth. He’s not. He’s actually not breathing. He could be holding his breath, right? He must be, this can’t be real, he has to be breathing.

“Shit, Eff, we did this at school, remember?” Aiden’s voice makes me jump. He’s kneeling beside me. I hadn’t even noticed. “First aid, recovery position, y’know all that. I don’t remember, I can’t… I don’t know.”

He begins panicking and grabs Zack’s arms. He moves them around in different directions, none of which are anywhere near correct. The music blasting from the house is deafening me, and the smell of the humid summer air is intoxicating my brain.

This is happening. This is as real as the flesh on my bones.

I shove Aiden aside and recall as much as I possibly can from the countless first aid lessons we were made to endure at school. Robbie's finished his phone call and he practically dives onto the ground with his. He starts frantically shaking Zack.

“Stop! Don’t be violent with him, it’ll make him worse!” I shout.

“You’re the one who just punched him in the goddamn face!” Robbie growls back.

While he has a fair point, now is really not the time to be arguing. I turn back to Zack. He’s even paler. I figure we should do CPR but the mention of that to Robbie makes him squirm, and I can’t say I’m too eager either. I turn to Aiden, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful for his obsession over dickheads with quiffs because he has no arguments whatsoever. If there wasn’t an eighteen-year-old dying in front of us, it’d probably make me laugh.

“Ah shit… Shit, shit, shit,” Robbie mutters. “My folks are going to kill me. What if his parents sue me? Can they do that if he dies?”

Is Robbie kidding? His best friend is dying in front of us and all he can think of is how much of an inconvenience it might be. Jesus. Aiden’s in the middle of the CPR, which he’s doing surprisingly well, when we hear a splutter. Zack. Aiden pulls away and we all turn silent. Zack splutters some more, but his eyes remain shut. The music from the house is giving me a headache.

“Check if he’s breathing,” I order Aiden.

He does what I tell him to. “I think so, I don’t know… I mean, I can’t really hear because the mus--”

I shove Aiden aside again and check for myself. It’s hardly distinguishable, but as I lower my ear to Zack’s mouth I feel hot air gently blow against it. He’s breathing. It worked. The CPR actually worked. All of a sudden, I become my father and develop an intense need to tell everyone exactly what to do.

“Robbie, get everyone out of your house. It’ll be ten times easier if they’re all gone when the ambulance gets here, and turn the bloody music off while you’re at it. It’s awf--”

“I’m not taking orders from some--”

“Just do it!” I snap before turning to Aiden. “The ambulance won’t be able to get into here because of the electric gates, so go and open them, we can’t waste any time.”

Aiden nods, and unlike Robbie, does exactly as he’s told. He jumps to his feet and sprints down the long driveway. Robbie still hasn’t moved. I give him orders again and he mutters something under his breath, but eventually heads towards his house.

“Zack?” I gently shake the limp body in front of me. “Hey, can you hear me? I will be so pissed off if I never get the chance to tell you how much of a dickhead you are, so don’t you dare die on me, okay?”

There’s no response. I check again that he’s still breathing. He is. I exhale heavily. I continue blathering on as I grasp onto the belief that it’ll actually help him at all, but there’s still a part of me that can’t accept this as reality. This is Zack Maddox, and Zack Maddox can’t just… He can’t just die. He’s invincible. He’s on every social networking site known to mankind, everyone and their dog has heard of him, and you can’t miss him from a mile off. People like this don’t just die. I shake my head. No, he’s not going to die, I can’t let him. No matter what he did to me no more than two hours ago, I can’t let him die.

I rest my palm on his forehead. I didn’t even notice before but he’s freezing. He’s sweating an entire ocean though. I whip my jacket off and drape it over him as I try to cover as much of his bare skin as possible. I gently shake him again, and as I’m about to speak the music emanating from the house comes to a sudden stop. I must’ve forgotten what silence was because as it crashes down on me, it stuns me. My heartbeat has never been so loud. I’m about to try and rouse Zack again when I notice his eyelids fluttering slightly.

“Zack?” I shake him. “Zack, hey, wake up!”

His eyelids flutter again, and his lips part. He takes a strained breath, and speaks.

“I… I don’t, it--it was an accident. He’s.. I don’t--he’s bleeding, I can’t stop him bleeding, why won’t he stop bleeding? I--”

“Is that Zack?”

I whip my head around, and about ten feet away from me stands a young girl with blonde hair. She can’t be any older than thirteen. Before I can respond she shouts in the direction of the house.

“Shit,” I mutter under my breath.

A few more people emerge and stand next to the blonde girl. More follow, and before long there’s a small group beginning to form. They begin gossiping, some begin laughing, some look like they’re on the verge of crying, and some even pull put their phones to take a photo. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. This isn’t a show. 

As the group expands even more, some come forward and kneel next to Zack, just as I’m doing. I’m suddenly shoved aside by a frantic girl wearing the shortest dress imaginable, and before I know it I can’t even see Zack anymore. I stumble to my feet and look around me. Shit. Almost everyone who was in the house now seems to be crowded around Zack. Robbie did a cracking job then.

“Oh my god, someone call an ambulance!” one of the younger crowd members yells.

Already done that, kiddo.

“I just found him here! No one was around to help, it’s disgusting!” someone who’s now kneeling beside Zack shouts.

I don’t think you did though, did you?

“I swear I just saw him, like, five minutes ago!”

“Where’s Robbie?”

“Has anyone called an ambulance?”

“He’s dead!”

As I shove people out of the way to try and get back to Zack I notice the first girl who appeared earlier, who’s now kneeling beside him, harshly moving him out of the recovery position I placed him in.

“Stop!” I shout at her, but she can’t hear me over the chatter of the crowd.

I charge forward, eventually reaching Zack again, and move the girl out of the way. As I place him back into position I hear sirens. An enormous sense of relief washes over me, and I check that he’s still breathing. It’s shallow, but it’s there. The second I see reflective jackets emerging through the crowd, I step aside and hide myself amongst the mass of teenagers gathered in Robbie Morrissey’s front garden.

#

It’s strange seeing somewhere that was once so full of life so empty. There are deserted cups spilled all over the kitchen floor, and next to the fridge lies a packet of pink marshmallows. There’s an uneaten pizza just lying on the marble counter and it feels like it’s staring at me, like it’s questioning where everyone disappeared to. I’m staring back at it when I hear Aiden’s voice for what feels like the first time in forever.

“There you are! Holy mackerel Effie, I’ve been scouring the garden looking for you, almost filed a missing person’s report and all! Have you been in the bloody house the whole time? You don’t half know how to stress a guy out.” He pulls up a chair next to me. “This is insane, can you believe it? Like, it’s bad and all that and I hope Zack’s fine, but how exciting is this? I tweeted about it and literally got about thirty retweets, I’m practically famous.”

Is he serious?

“I can’t wait to tell everyone about how we were Zack’s saviour, I mean how good will that make us look for when we start college next month? And hey, I technically kissed Zack Maddox. If anyone questions you about it just say I did, oka--”

“You’re just as bad as them!”

Aiden stammers. Zack could be dead. He could be dead, and all anyone seems to be interested in is gossiping about him. The boy made every last inch of my body tremble with anger and fear just hours ago, yet I seem to be the only one who’s even the slightest bit considerate of what’s happened to him. I know how engrossed Aiden can get into this kind of thing, but this is just wrong. I sigh and shut my eyes.

“Sorry,” I mutter. “I’ve just… It’s been a pretty crazy night, and I’m just a bit fed up of everyone around me mindlessly gossiping. It just doesn’t seem right, y’know? Not after what’s happened.”

Aiden scratches the back of his neck and nods apologetically. We’re both silent for a while, and it gives me time to think. The ambulance must’ve gotten here close to half an hour ago now, and most people have left. I’ve no idea where Robbie has vanished to, but right now I don’t really care.

“Hey, what was wrong earlier?” Aiden’s voice brings me back to the present. “When you wanted to leave, before we found Zack?”

After all of the hype tonight, what happened in the bathroom has taken a backseat in my mind. Zack wasn’t well then, was he? It was so obvious! He was deathly pale, his eyes were so bloodshot that the veins in them were almost popping out, and he was all over the place. A trickle of guilt gnaws at my mind. I should’ve spotted it then, I could’ve helped him sooner.

I shake my head. There’s no point stressing over it, it’s done. To be frank, he should be grateful I helped him at all after the way he treated me. It’s pretty obvious that he overdosed on who knows what, so if this does end badly for him then it’s his own fault. I shouldn’t feel guilty.

“Effie?”

“Oh sorry,” I say, remembering Aiden’s question. “Just some guy is all. He was creepy with me, it freaked me out a bit.” I pause. “You don’t know him.”

Aiden says something else, but I don’t hear it. I’m just desperate to go to bed. I’ve sent a text to Mum explaining what’s happened so she’s on her way to pick me up, and she can’t come soon enough. I’m staring at the pizza again when I hear a voice that isn’t Aiden’s.

“D’you mind leaving? I need to clean up.”

I turn to the doorway to see Robbie standing there.

“Sorry for being snappy earlier, I was kinda stressed, so yeah, uh, sorry.”

I nod before getting up from the kitchen table, and Aiden follows. It’s only now I realise that Robbie is clearly still very drunk. He’s leaning against the door as if he’ll crumple to the floor if he doesn’t, and he’s blinking at an unnaturally frequent rate. There’s a trickle of sick running down his black shirt.

“That pizza needs eating,” I mutter as Aiden and I leave the room.

Once we’ve left the house, we sit on the steps outside the front door. They’re freezing against my legs. It’s silent again, and I realise that this is the quietest I’ve ever known Aiden to be. What I said earlier about everyone gossiping must’ve really hit him, and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

It’s not long until Mum arrives to pick us up. The second I step into the car she overloads me with questions. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest because her voice is enough to soothe me. It’s not long before that calm is shaken again though.

“Your dad’s not too happy with you,” Mum says softly. “He’s angry you didn’t tell him you were going to a party, especially one with… well, drugs and all that.”

A tsunami of nerves crashes into my stomach. Dad’s going to kill me tomorrow. I didn’t necessarily lie to him, I just didn’t tell him the details of where it was I was going tonight… or that I was going out at all. In my defence, he always wants to know every detail on every single thing I do, and it’s just better not to say anything. Otherwise he finds a handful of things to complain about.

“Don’t worry though, sweetie,” Mum continues. “I’ll make sure to soften him up when he gets home from work.”

Mum winks at me and smiles. Ever since I can remember, that exact smile has always had an incredible ability to stop me from crumbling completely, and tonight is no exception. She’ll stop Dad from going to town on me. God knows how she does it, but she always manages to. I’m just glad he works nights because the last person I want to face when I get home is him.

As we drop Aiden off at his house, a thought hits me. Zack spoke… When he was lying on the grass, he spoke, didn’t he? Before that first girl arrived, he said something. I hastily scan every detail of every memory I have from tonight in an attempt to recall what it was he said. It was weird… Something really weird. What was it? Something to do with blood? Bleeding..? Yeah, that was it; he said that someone was bleeding, that something was an accident. I know I should shrug this off, that chances are it was just something he said in a complete delusion. I can’t though. I don’t know why, but all I can think about for the rest of the journey home are the words Zack spoke as he was dying.

* * * * *

So considering this is the first thing I've written in over a year, I'm aware it's not the best. This chapter wasn't originally planned to be in the novel, but I felt it needed it and I wanted to start writing again, so I figured I'd start with this! I actually started writing this novel in 2012, and so all the chapters I've written so far (there are ten all together) are available in my portfolio, if anyone wants to take a look at them. 

Any reviews are appreciated, I sure as hell need them!