Chapter 2 2

At the end of the day, Nate had already gone home, according to our friends, so I decided I would head home too and then text him to see if he wanted to hang out. Really, I wanted to talk. I felt uncomfortable leaving him alone when I knew he was struggling with something. When he didn't answer like six of my texts, poignant irritation rose in me, making my eyes water and my eyebrows press down. I'll just have to go bug him in person, I growled to myself, grabbing my bag and heading back out towards his house.

No one answered the door and I made a noise of frustration before deciding to use the key he'd given me. I always carried it, but I never used it because he got mad at me one time, saying that he didn't want me to invite myself in when he wasn't home. At the time I thought I was just going to surprise him, but later I realized it looked bad.

I figured since he had been in a bad mood all day that it was urgent enough for the key. The feeling in my gut was telling me that something was wrong. If he wasn't home, I decided I would go for It was dark in his parents' dirty townhouse. A cat scampered out of my way, and it looked like his father was down in the basement watching tv as usual. He lived in the bad part of town so there were a lot of feral cats and gangs, but also his parents were weird. I skirted a garbage bag in the hallway and knocked on Nate's door. It never closed fully and the old 'keep out' sign hung crooked along with ripped remains of different pieces of art that he had taped on there and then tore down. I put my ear against it and when I didn't hear anything, I worried about if he had wanted to take a nap or something. I would be disturbing him. I decided to text him one more time and when I heard his phone buzz, I stubbornly pushed myself in. It was one of those doors that didn't open very easily because it didn't fit in its frame and the top corner rubbed the frame while the bottom didn't reach. The hollow sound of the door scraping its frame filled the room as I tumbled in to stand on his clothes. The first thing I noticed was that he looked so pale he could have been grey. The lack of sunlight in the room made it hard to tell. His lava lamp lent only an eerie red glow and his black curtains were drawn to block out the afternoon sun.

"Nate?" I asked, going closer to him as he lay practically frozen on his clothes next to the bed. I approached him carefully, waiting for him to wake up and yell at me. When he didn't, I opened the curtain and then dropped to my knees, landing in something wet. "No." I shuddered, barely audibly, my hands flying up to cover my mouth in pure shock. His wrists were slit.

After I took a moment to recover from the paralysis of shock, I jumped into action. First, I called 9-1-1 and as I held the phone up to my ear with a shaking hand, I bravely touched his cold skin. I knew he was close to dead, if he wasn't dead already. When a woman answered my call, hopeless tears streamed down my face as I crouched over him. I couldn't feel a pulse and his skin was pretty cold. My hands shook as I touched his pretty face and tried to find a sign.

"Wake up!" I whimpered. I could barely manage to breathe. "Wake up, baby! Please." I whispered into his ear cradling his shoulders and rocking back and forth slowly. I was waiting for him to look up and hug me back or move his fingers or blink. I wanted to tell him it was going to be alright. I wanted him to move, to do something, anything that would tell me he was there. Nothing happened. His blood had soaked his dark clothes on the floor and as I looked closer, there was blood on his bed too.

"9-1-1 what's your emergency?" the woman at the other end repeated. "My boyfriend's dead." My voice wavered out like a ghostly moan. I had gotten there too late. She told me they were sending an ambulance, but it didn't matter, because I was too late. My breathing was coming out like sobs and tears were gathered in my eyes as I shakily tied t-shirts around both his forearms with slim hope. He wasn't breathing and there was so much blood.

I didn't even know who to call. What would I say? My heart felt like it had been stabbed in the back and strangled and my stomach felt like it was full of ice. My breaths came in short sobs and my eyes leaked, ruthlessly. I felt destroyed and I desperately wanted this nightmare to end. I couldn't believe it was happening. My mind and heart wouldn't accept it.

I was jolted back to existence after I had attempted CPR when someone was tugging me away from him. It was Nate's dad and he seemed mad, but I didn't register what he was saying or screaming. Suddenly the room was full of strangers and I was pulled away by several different pairs of gloved hands. I stumbled back and looked into Nate's dead blue eyes as I was pulled out of the room. My heart was broken and the picture burned into my mind's eye.

"Nate killed himself," I said quietly into the phone as I watched them take the body away. How could he do that to me? My sulky, blond, blue-eyed boyfriend was dead. I was in total shock.

"What?" my mom's stunned, confused voice asked from the other end.

"What happened? Are you okay? Where are you?" she fired questions at me urgently. I could barely find the energy to answer. "His house." I answered slowly through a sob. His dad seemed like he was going to murder somebody or something. I wasn't sure if he was mad about the people in his house or upset about his son. The next few hours went by in a blur of tears and chaos. The police asked me a few questions that I was surprised I could answer and my mom picked me up in a panic. She knew I didn't want to deal with any more questions so she told them something and I was relieved when she drove me away from the mess, but I felt like I had left something important at his house.