Story Time! (Part 4)

After Jennifer had woken herself, we travelled downstairs, where I sat her on the sofa,
“I know why you did it,” I said, “I read the conversations; those people are dangerous, they make people kill themselves for fun! Nothing they said was true, nothing!”
“There’s another reason…they just brought it back, I figured they were fake after a while,”
“Let me guess, someone did what you nearly did to me a while back, and you want to be with them,”
“That was out of order Robert!” She stood up, eyes watering,
“What?!” I knew my guesses were lucky, but this was impossible, surely…
“Go home, I hate you!” She threw her inappropriately placed schoolbag at me; tears were streaming down her face,
“I’m sorry…I didn’t know!”
“I don’t care Robert!” She walked towards the door, “I’m going,”
“Where?!” I was slightly hysterical at this point.
“I’m not telling you Robert, just go home! And if you follow me I’ll call the police!” That worked.

I waited for her to exit her road before sitting on her doorstep, clutching her bag, trying to think of any place she would go to. Normally it wouldn’t have taken long but my thoughts were clouded by what she might do to herself and my own personal failure. It hurt to think that I could cause so much damage by getting so close to the cause of the problem, it really did. I couldn’t imagine what she was going to do; she didn’t appear to be thinking at all! After what felt like an age, it clicked.

There was this park not to far away from Jen’s house, with a graveyard next to it. She’d always seemed attached to it but I never knew why. Obviously, it all made sense now. I began to run, which isn’t something I normally do, my dignity no longer mattered. What had seemed to start as an accident had suddenly become a matter of life and death.

Death was the one thing I was most afraid of, more than heights, more than spiders, more than anything. I don’t mean my own death, I’m not that selfish, I mean anyone’s death, I want to prolong any life for as long as possible. I was four or five streets away from Jennifer’s house when I received a text. Nobody apart from Jennifer knew how to text me, so it had to be her. I whipped my phone out of my pocket, “Can you bring me my bag? I need something out of it” I guessed she thought I’d already figured out where she was and turned into the path that led to the park.

She was on a swing, facing away from the gate, she obviously wasn’t expecting me any time soon, so I called out to her,
“I want you to show me your friend,”
“Okay…but first, my bag,” She’d calmed down a fair amount since I’d last seen her, so I passed her the bag, not expecting any immediate danger. She caught the bag with her free arm, put it on her lap, took some silver coins from her jeans, and placed them in the side pocket. She then jumped off the swing and walked towards the gate, I assumed I was to follow.

Final part