all fall apart act one
chapter one ⋆ life and death

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On Monday morning at 7:27 AM, Heather decides that sunglasses are probably the greatest item to ever have been invented. Like seriously. At this time of the day, the sun shines brightly through the windows of her dad's car as he continues down the road towards her school. With her hair dropping messily over her shoulders, she slides a dark pair of sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose and winces at the sudden shift in color.

It should be noted that Heather is not a fan of sunglasses, not in the slightest. She thinks she looks like a bug in them, like her face isn't the right shape to even be wearing such a thing. But her head is throbbing, and the sun brought about this constant thump, thump, thump as the blood rushed to her forehead. The sunglasses, she had decided, had the ability to take away the freaking sun. Crazy, huh? She understands what Sarah has been talking about all these years now.

Granted, Heather is totally wrong about the technicalities of how sunglasses work, but that's beside the point. Heather feels like she could sleep for another thirteen hours straight. She wants to go home, close her curtains, and sleep the day away. Her dad would never allow her to do that, though. Plus, he has her literally locked in the car as he speeds towards their destination. She can't do one of those fancy duck-and-rolls from the movies.

"Are you going to tie your tie today, or just let it hang around your neck like that?" he asks, glancing briefly from the road to his daughter slumped in the passenger seat. He's sported in a pair of khakis and a button-up shirt — his usual attire to go teach students biology at the local university. Heather doesn't understand his attraction to the sciences. She very much prefers history or even math over the subject of science. Chemistry? So not her thing.

She slides down in her seat, using her hand as a further shield from the sun. Her seatbelt slides across her neck when she does so, and she uses her free hand to swat it away. "I'm thinking of leaving it. New fashion and all, you know? It's all the rave these days."

"Huh," he breathes out. He turns down the street her school is on. Vehicles and students litter the grounds, laughing amongst each other and eating a quick breakfast before the bell rings and they'll all have to venture indoors for the next eight hours. "Well, could you tie it for me?"

She tries to give her dad a look, one that reads I would rather die than tie this around my neck, but her sunglasses do not allow her such a response. Neither does her headache. She just turns to face him and looks at him blankly. Staind plays faintly in the background, and, on any normal day, Heather would blast this station while shoving a McDonald's hashbrown in her mouth but today just wasn't the day. Apparently. Fuck her, man. Routine's all goofed up now.

"I'll give you ten bucks," he then adds.

She ties her tie.

This is how Heather obtains a steady income into her life savings (AKA an old shoebox stashed deep in her messy closet). It's a simple set of three rules: 1) do something her mom would not favor, something that would "further damage the familial image" or whatever, 2) make sure her dad notices, and 3) get her dad to bribe her so he doesn't have to deal with the wrath of her mom. Easy peasy. She does this almost weekly.

One could say she's being stingy, but Heather thinks she's saving up for college. This is a good way to do it without getting an actual job. Take notes, ladies and gentlemen. Works like a charm.

"Nice doing business with you, per usual," he says and puts the car in park. Unbuckling her seatbelt, Heather grins at her dad despite the pounding in her head and grabs the cash from his hand. She was going to tie it anyway, duh. She would never walk into an all-girls school looking like that, but her dad didn't need to know that. And before, she was simply too lazy to tie it.

She puts her backpack over her shoulders as she steps out of the vehicle. "Bus home?" she turns and asks. Her dad sips on his black coffee, hissing when he burns the roof of his mouth.

"Yeah. I'll be home to make dinner tonight after my office hours," he says. He smacks his tongue around in his mouth to relieve the pain. "Burgers, I think."

She hooks her thumbs around the straps of her backpack. "The usual, of course. There's a new episode tonight. I would never forget such a thing. The audacity."

"Good, good," he adds. "We haven't missed an episode since you were born, and we will not start tonight."

The morning sun starts to burn brighter on Heather, like it peaked out from behind the trees to annoyingly welcome her to another day at school. Only this morning, Heather feels it. She pushes her sunglasses further up the bridge of her nose and wobbles on her feet.

"Get to school, kiddo," her dad then says.

Nodding her head, she wishes him a farewell and spins clumsily on her feet to face the entrance of the school. All around her there are girls in uniforms grinning and chatting with their friends, soaking up the little amount of time they're able to spend outdoors. Today, Heather doesn't join them. Today, Heather sighs and slowly walks up the steps and into the building. The chatter surrounding her as she walks to her locker pounds against her temples. Thump, thump, thump, it's like she can feel every ounce of blood flowing through her head.

She rests her hand on her forehead as she approaches her locker, deciding that the heat from it will relieve some of the intensity of the headache. Wrong. She twists the dial on her locker and pulls it open. On the inside of the door are pictures of her and Sarah and her and Katie taped messily beside some fake flowers and a small mirror. Heather can usually see her eyes in the mirror, but today she sees her sunglasses staring back at her. She doesn't really want to remove them as the lights of the hallway are just as bright as the outdoors.

"You look like shit, man," she hears over her shoulder. Heather jumps at the sudden sound, wincing beneath her sunglasses. She had previously tuned out the noises from the hallway. Unfortunately, Sarah can't feel what she's feeling and thinks it's any normal day. Heather thinks she's still coming down from Friday night. That's got to be it; she can't think of any other reason to have a headache so severe that she's wearing sunglasses inside.

"I feel like shit, too," Heather mumbles, grabbing her math textbook from her locker and resting it against her chest.

Sarah laughs and leans against the locker beside Heather's. Heather closes her locker after stuffing her backpack inside of it and leans her back against it, closing her eyes. "What the hell happened to you?" Sarah asks with a soft chuckle following close behind. She's amused, and Heather can't blame her. The roles have definitely been reversed before and Heather reacted the same way.

"That party I invited you to? You're lucky you didn't go," Heather decides to say. A locker slamming to her left startles her momentarily, and she shudders at the sound. She wants to go home.

Sarah pouts, puffing out her bottom lip in her usual dramatic fashion. "What? I wanted to go so badly. Being grounded is ass. Besides, what does that have to do with anything? That was Friday, and it's Monday. What's going on with you?"

Heather shrugs. Thump, thump, thump. "Hangover? I don't know."

Sarah literally laughs. "You've never had one of those."

"Dude, bite me, Sarah. This isn't funny."

"It's pretty funny," Sarah deadpans. She releases a giggle from behind her coffee cup before taking a sip. "The roles are reversed, and I now understand why you enjoy my suffering so much. What did your parents say? Did they have a meltdown? God, I wish I would've seen it —"

"Can you please stop talking?" Heather cuts her off, breathing deeply. Thumpthumpthump.

"Oh, you became some troubled James Dean character over the weekend, huh?" Sarah has the audacity to laugh at this like Heather hasn't held her hair while she quite literally vomits into a stranger's toilet. "Do you want my coffee?"

Momentarily, Heather thinks about accepting the coffee, but she also thinks that she may be just a tad bit dehydrated, so she declines the offer and hugs her textbook to her chest. Girls continue to walk by in groups of loud laughter, and Heather kind of wants to call her dad to come pick her back up. Fake throwing up or something. He would come if she called, she knows this, but she also knows that her mom would throw some sort of hissy fit if she misses school. So, she throws the idea away. It was a nice idea while it lasted. Heather could have slept the day away, after all.

"Bro," Sarah emphasizes. She pulls her eyebrows together this time, stepping in front of Heather and squinting accusingly at her. "You just declined the one thing on this Earth that you love more than, like, fucking hashbrowns and Alfie Enoch. Are you OK? What happened on Friday?"

Heather feels like she's being interrogated all of a sudden as Sarah looks at her like she is, but she knows she would never judge her for her actions or make her feel as if she was doing anything wrong. So, Heather sighs and closes her eyes. "I met this guy —"

She gasps loudly. "A guy —!"

"Sarah," Heather groans. "Not like that. Like, not at all. He was like twenty-five...ew." At that fact, Sarah nods, agreeing with the statement. She mocks sticking her finger in her mouth and gags but says nothing more. "I — I took acid."

Sarah blinks, staring at her blankly. "Excuse me?"

Heather looks around to be sure no one is listening to them (high school girls do this, she's learned her lesson before). "I said —"

"No, I heard you. Very clearly," Sarah says. "Why would you do that?"

Heather shrugs because she doesn't know how to respond to the question. She knows why she did it, but she doesn't know how to put it into words. She thinks of her sister and how this drug brought about the end of her life when she was sixteen, and she thinks of how the community has talked about her since, and she thinks about how her parents reacted to the situation...but really, she doesn't have one solid reason. Not a good one, at least. She doesn't think so.

For the record, Heather has never done anything bad in her life, not of significance, at least. Yeah, she's taken a single piece of candy from the gas station without paying and rode in a car without a seatbelt, but never has she ever done any sort of drug. It was unlike her, really, but at the same time, she thinks it's not that unlike her. She's the exact same as her sister was and her sister did the same thing. They're basically the same, right?

"For Katie," Heather decides to say.

"Katie?" Sarah echoes. "She's dead, Heather...What are you talking about? Katie would not have wanted you to —"

"Look, OK," Heather says. "I just think that Katie's life and death shouldn't be defined by the one unfortunate time she actually did something bad. I mean, she got straight A's and was a star athlete and volunteered at the freaking humane society but she does one single drug and everyone has something to say about it? Bullshit."

Sarah gulps and purses her lips. "So...you did it for Katie?"

"I don't know..." Heather mumbles. She bites her lip and rests her chin on the textbook that's clenched tightly to her chest. Her sunglasses slide slightly from their position and she scrunches her nose to push them back up. At this action, her head fights back with a thump. "I guess...maybe...I wanted to see what would happen? Like...proving something to myself?"

Sarah raises an eyebrow. The clock ticks down the minutes before class behind her. "What would that prove?"

Heather shrugs because she really doesn't know. There was a short period of time after her sister died where she agreed with the things people were saying around her, that her sister must have been some sort of addict or troubled teenager, but then she realized that that was crazy. She knew her sister, and she knew her well. Katie Conway would never jeopardize her place as team captain. "That Katie's not what everyone thinks she is. This wasn't some drug that ended her life...she wasn't an addict."

"She had a bad trip, Heather. She was so paranoid, and she didn't have anyone there," Sarah mumbles. "It happens to some people..."

"I didn't," Heather says. Sarah has this look on her face like she's about to question her for her choices or what she's talking about, but she says nothing. She just takes a drink of her coffee. "—Have a bad trip, I mean."

Sarah hums. Then, the bell rings, and Heather feels like her head is going to explode. Like the sound erupting from around her is ten times louder than usual as it vibrates through her ears. She can hear students groaning and slamming lockers and scurrying to classes but her head is literally reacting to every sound being made around her.

She feels like it is going to be one of the longest days of her life. Truly.

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It is 6:23 PM when Heather discovers her headache still has not subsided. There's a plate sitting on her lap as she sprawls across the couch beside her dad, a bacon cheeseburger (with extra bacon!) and a handful of fries residing on it. Her feet are resting on the coffee table in front of her, and her dad soon copies her actions, crossing his sock-covered feet on the table. His plate rests on his lap, as well.

Her mom, however, sits at the dinner table behind them, stabbing her fries obnoxiously with her fork. She hates when they eat on the couch; she thinks they get salt everywhere, but Heather has never found any evidence to back up that claim. The only salt that falls while they eat is onto their clothes, which is why they wear raggedy clothing during burger night. It's a known rule around the house.

The problem is, Heather isn't very hungry tonight, so she spends the entirety of the episode pushing her fries around and messing with her burger. She thinks, maybe, it'll look like she ate something if she makes her plate look at least touched. She's not one to not eat what's in front of her or to ever skip out on dinner, so when her dad gives her a weird look out of the corner of his eye, she understands where it's coming from. Heather is basically a vacuum cleaner when it comes to eating. If you put something in front of her, like anything at all, she'll eat or drink it just because it's in front of her and she needs something to occupy herself.

"Everything alright?" her dad asks.

"Yeah," she says. "Just not very hungry, I guess."

"That's OK," he says. His plate is empty now, and he reaches for her's and sets it on top of his own. "The leftovers will be in the fridge if you get hungry later."

"OK, thank you," she mumbles.

Her dad nods his head and pulls himself up from the couch with a grunt. She can see him walk into the kitchen and start talking to her mom, but she can't hear what they're saying. Another random TV show starts playing in the background, the episode of their show coming to an end. This is usually the time where her mom and dad start getting ready for bed and make their way up to their room to read for a while before they go to sleep. Heather will probably stay downstairs and watch TV for a little while yet.

She can hear the clanking of dishes as her parents work to clean up the kitchen before the night is over. It brings a slight pain to her forehead when she hears this. It worries her that her headache has yet to disappear, but seeing as she's already taken a few pills for it, she's not sure what else to do. If she brings it up to her dad, he'll worry about it for the rest of the night, and she doesn't want that. So, she keeps quiet. Worries to herself.

She's done that a lot since Katie.

Heather pulls her legs onto the couch, crossing them beneath her and setting a pillow on her lap. She wraps her arms around the pillow, hugging it to her chest and setting her chin on it. She doesn't know what show is playing on TV, but she watches it anyway. To keep her mind off of everything that she's feeling or something. She doesn't know. It's just noise to her at this point.

"Hey, kiddo," her dad says then. He peeks his head out from behind the wall between the kitchen and the living room. "We're going to head upstairs for the night. Come get us if you need anything."

"OK," she says. "I love you."

"I love you, too," he replies, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before disappearing up the stairs. Her mom does the same and follows behind him. Heather sighs.

She picks up the remote to her right and begins flipping through the channels on the TV. There's not very many options on at this time of the night, but she looks anyways. She's hoping she might find some sort of movie, maybe a Disney one. She hasn't seen Beauty and the Beast in awhile...

Her phone lights up from the ledge of the couch, and she grabs it. Sarah's face shines brightly on the screen, and Heather pulls it away from her face as another pang hits her forehead. She slides her thumb across the screen and brings the phone to her ear. "Hello —?"

Heather barely even gets the chance to finish what she's saying before Sarah interrupts her. "Girl! Turn on your TV!"

"What—?"

"The news! Turn on the news!" Sarah says.

Instead of asking questions, Heather begins flipping through the channels again in search of the news. Sarah's not saying anything, but Heather can tell that she wants her to rush. It's makes her heart race a little. Sarah's not really one to actually call people. She very much prefers texting, so Heather always feels a little bit of a pit in her stomach whenever she calls. It usually means something serious.

When she finds the correct station, she turns the volume up on the TV. " What am I watching?" she asks.

"Just watch," Sarah says.

Though very confused, Heather watches the screen in front of her. One by one, a line of faces appear on the screen. Bright, smiling faces with names right under them. Heather blinks. She knows these people. She remembers these people. More importantly, she remembers seeing all of these people alive just days ago. The reporter continues on, stating that all of these teenagers were in the same location on Friday night, and within 12 hours of leaving that location on Friday night, they all died. Every single one of the teenagers pictured on the screen left the party she was at, went home, and died that same night. Why?

"Isn't that where you were?" Sarah asks.

"Um...yeah."

"Heather!" Sarah exclaims. Heather pulls her eyebrows together. She just can't believe this. She's so confused. "You have to go to the cops. Tell them what you know."

"What? No!" Heather says. "I took freaking acid, Sarah, I cannot go to the cops. Sounds pretty illegal to me."

"No, no, no," Sarah says. "They can't charge you with it if you go to them. They just need information. Something to tell them what happened to those kids. At least point them in a direction."

"I can't help them," Heather says. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. In front of her, the images continue to flash as the families desperately search for answers and plead to the public for their children.

"You saw them, right?"

"Yeah..."

Heather can't believe what's happening right now. As each image crosses the screen, she flashes back to seeing that face Friday night. Farrah Brooks. Trenton Rhea. Paul Quast. Yasmin Taylor. And so, so many more. She'll remember the names forever. Their faces. Because they were all in the same place as her that night.

"What were they doing?" Sarah asks.

Every single one of these teenagers interacted with the same person she did. Every single one of these teenagers interacted with the one person that no one should have interacted with. Every single one of these teenagers died. Except Heather.

"Buying drugs from that guy," Heather says.

"Wait...the one—"

"—That I bought from? Yeah."

It's quiet after Heather says this. She can practically feel the thoughts from Sarah's head reeling and bouncing all around trying to come up with some sort of explanation as to what is going on. Heather doesn't have an answer for her. "Then how come you're OK?"

Heather pauses. "I don't...I don't know if I am."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asks. She sounds worried. Heather would be too, except she doesn't know what to feel right now. Is she supposed to be sad? Is she supposed to be scared? Worried? Because right now all she feels is numb.

"I don't know."

Heather can't come to a conclusion, and Sarah says nothing. They both sit in silence, watching as a reporter talks about these teenagers. Neither really knows what to think. And there's no moral to this story, really. This crazy story that Heather took this stupid drug to prove that just taking a drug one time cannot ruin your life like it had her sisters. That there was no way that just because her sister did one bad thing in her entire life it caused her to die. It's not some sort of big, old defining moment or something. But...look at her now, and look at those teenagers. Maybe there is a moral to the story.

The moral of the story is that Heather was fucking wrong. And there is no way that she can make it right.

Author's Note: don't do drugs kids, really. I am not advocating for it whatsoever, these are just the thoughts of a teenage girl as she handles the grief of losing her sister.

Anyway, this chapter was a whirlwind to write. I found myself staring at my screen doing absolutely nothing more often than not but it's done. Please let me know what you think! I'm excited to continue the rest of the story.