What If He Didn't Die?

Chapter 5: The First Message

"Yes, we planned it when we were 5 and we're not gonna break it until we complete the list."

"Baby-" Mom struggles to find words to put it as sensitively as possible.

"It's fine mom, really. I understand that it happened and it always happens. You too lost your sister last year. Everybody loses their loved ones. People die." I feel my throat warming up. Heat rising from somewhere inside of me, trying to stop me, but I continue.

"I lost him and it tore me apart. And- and I'm gonna always be bruised. But I cannot stop living. So- I'm gonna live." I say standing up from the table.

"And we're doing that cruise party on my birthday. I'm not settling for anything less." I announce in an authoritative tone.

"On it, sweets," Dad replies and winks at me making me erupt in a genuine smile.

I soon feel a warmth building up inside me that makes me want to believe that can live again. I can if these people help me. I've lost one lover, but I still have so many others. I can be happy again, in fact, I feel happy again. Not as happy as the bubbly Easter Brown always used to be, but much happier than I've been in many days now.

"Look at you. You look popping pretty." Bella exclaims as soon as she spots me in the hallway. I raise an eyebrow in thanks.

"Breaking news! The cruise party is on." Jack announces banging Bella's locker shut next to me.

Bella doesn't say anything for a second. She looks at me. I agree with my eyes, without saying anything.

"Right." She says calmly but I can hear her eyes shouting in excitement. The wide grin makes her look brighter than she's been in weeks.

I can agree to a hundred such parties if it makes these people happy I think to myself. They really love me, they're worth living for.

"Did someone say Party?" Jacob appears with his cousin Hannah. Jack soon snakes his hand around her waist. All three of them looking like some high street models walking down the New York fashion week.

"I'll come to your birthday party!" Hannah informs loudly making it sound like I should be very much obliged for her act of kindness.

"With me." Jack points out without wasting a moment and pulls her against his chest in the middle of the hallway. She, as always, moans to make it more of a PDA show.

Bella rolls her eyes at the drama and I smile when she looks at me, our eyes talking in understanding.

"Hey, Easy, as you don't have a date, I won't mind going with you," Jacob suggests making me groan on the inside. "Just as a friend's favour thou." He points out, tossing a cigarette between his lips.

He totally doesn't realize my boyfriend died a few days ago. He can't stop behaving like I dumped my boyfriend or he dumped me and now I'm a hopeless case.

"No, sorry, but I'm her date." Bella saves me in time and I instantly look at her with extreme gratefulness.

"Are you sure about that?" He said in a confused tone. "I mean aren't you going with Eric."

Eric's face turns stiff. He dares not to look at Bella. Bella thou, keeps a straight face, pretending that she didn't get affected by his careless statement at all.

"In case you've forgotten Jacob, Eric, and I aren't together anymore." She states very clearly, without stuttering or hesitating.

"Um- I think we'll be late for the class." I decide to interrupt the tension that started from my dead boyfriend and somehow reached my brother's broken relationship, and fortunately, we soon depart to our classes.

When I finish my lunch, 20 minutes early by just drinking a cold coffee, I put my AirPods on, although without any music and decide to walk around the teacher's parking lot alone. It's behind the school building and always stays deserted during school hours. I discovered this place for my own peace and secret business when I was in grade 8.

I always went there alone. In fact, I was always sure as hell I will never share that place with anyone until I met Dan. However, after meeting him, it became our place. Now, is the first time I'm walking in there after Dan, and the anxiety I'm feeling is beyond explanation.

"Wow, this place is like a diamond in a coal mine. It takes a special kind of eyes to find something like this."

He'd said when he entered the place for the first time. This was the first time he seemed to have opened up to say something and when he finally exposed his voice, I was mesmerized. He sounded soothing and attractive. A voice that one would want to listen to while going to sleep.

His first reaction comes to my mind as soon as I step foot in the area, and to my surprise, it doesn't make me feel weak, in fact, it feels good remembering him. Hence I walk ahead, knowing that this won't be bad because if anything, it will only make me feel closer to him.

I pull my phone out to play something but there's a notification on the face of my phone when I unlock it. 'Yours'. I realize it's the same notification that buzzed on my phone last night. And just like earlier, a voice in me tells me to not open it. I move my finger on the screen in circles for a minute and then decide to postpone it even further.

I slide the notification away and start my favourite playlist, or I almost reach for it. When the pop-up appears again, saying the same word 'Yours' bold and bright. I do not know why, but it gives me an uncomfortable feeling, just the sight of it, but before it corrupts the peace of my mind, I shake it off and decide to get down with it.

The AirPods are still in my ears when I click on the 'Yours' and it takes the deafening silence away at once making me realise it is a voice note. The moment the first note hits my ears, it successfully steals all the peace of my mind and my soul away and my lips fall apart in the search of any air at all, only to meet failure.

The phone starts shaking in my hand and a sudden urge to pull the Airpods out and throw them away boils inside of me.

I cannot be mistaken about this. What I hear is exactly what it says. This cannot be true, but this isn't not true. It is a voice message and the speaker is him. Dan.

It's his voice.

The same, soothing therapeutic voice. A voice that one would want to listen to while going to sleep and when they wake up.

Except for the fact that it wasn't soothing to hear it just now. In my phone as a voice message. After all this time. An obvious question forces its way up to my head.

How can it be?

But there is no mistaking it. It is him, clearly, saying a certain set of words that just don't sound right.

Hey Easter Eggs!Thought you'd start missing me by now.But you're hard huh?(Chuckles)