Chapter 4The Ghost of Seventeen

Eight years have passed, and I still can't forget that day.

I sat up in bed, checked my phone. It was only 4 AM.

Staring at the empty room, I whispered, "Dad, Mom..."

Just like always, there was no response.

八年...

They haven't come to visit me in my dreams even once.

My dreams are only filled with Tyler Cole, that smirk on his lips, that mocking look in his eyes, laughing as he asks me:

"Have you no shame, Maya?"

Every time I scream back that I do, I wake up.

I couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up and started packing.

After numbing myself through their funerals back then, I left that town.

I went to a new city, working and studying at the same time.

Working to pay for tuition and life was brutal.

But I didn't dare let myself stop. If I stopped, I’d cry.

I went to a hospital, and the doctor said I had severe depression. He said I needed someone to help me pull myself out of that day.

But there was no one like that...

After being gone for eight years, the urge to go back has grown stronger lately. I want to see that river where they jumped.

I want to jump in and ask them why they were so heartless.

I’m just so tired...

Since I was going back anyway, I decided I wasn't against seeing my old classmates.

So when the class president asked if I was coming to the reunion, I was the first to say yes.

I haven't spoken in that group chat in eight years.

I’d deleted all their contacts, too.

Including Tyler’s.