As much as I just wanted to stay in bed the next day I somehow managed to drag myself to school; surprisingly it went by uneventful without Nick or Colt even saying a word to me the whole day, actually the whole week turned out that way. By the end of the day on Friday I was ready for the weekend, even though not much had happened at school to bother me it was nice to just get away from the crowds of people and have some alone time. Mandy and I had been messaging each other every night and although our messages didn’t say much it was nice to still have some type of connection with her.

          When I pulled up in the driveway I was surprised to see my parents cars were already there; I had to do a double take at the house just to make sure that I was at the right place. I was basically alone from the moment I woke up to when I went to bed; if my parents weren’t on a business trip they were working late into the night and never showed up until after I was already in bed or on my way there. I walked in the house only to be met by silence, geez you would think that if they got off early they would at least want to watch some TV or something, maybe even talk to each other, anything but complete silence; I dropped my books on the kitchen table and walked into the living room to find them both sitting on the couch with a few cups of tee on the table in front of them.

          Now I have lived with my parents for years and the only emotion I have really ever seen out of them was stress; if I worked the kinds of hours they did I would be stressed too. So when I walked in to see tears streaming down my mothers face and my father with his head in his hands I could only imagine that whatever news they were about to share with me wouldn’t be good; I mentally debated if I should just turn around and walk back out the door instead of hearing what they had to say. A few things ran through my head about what it could be; they lost their jobs, the house was going into foreclosure, or god forbid they needed me to sell my car.

“Haley will you please come sit down we have something to tell you.” My mother asked when she noticed me standing in the doorway of the living room; I did as she asked and took a seat in a comfy chair across from them.

“What’s up?” I asked nervously once I was seated. My mother looked at my father and he looked back at her as they both tried to decide who would say what needed to be said; it felt like I sat there for five minutes before one of them decided to speak again.

“We have some bad news.” My father stated; well yeah, duh, that was obvious.

“Okay…” I said drawing out the word and waited for one of them to continue.

“Honey, there was… there was…” My mother started to speak only to finish her sentence with sobs as she started crying uncontrollably next to my father; my dad placed a comforting hand on her shoulder before finishing the sentence for her.

“There was an accident Haley.” He looked up at me as he spoke.

“What kind of accident?” I asked; I could feel myself shifting uncomfortably in my seat, I had never seen my mother so shook up about something before.

“There was an explosion, a bombing.” He continued looking at me as if waiting for something to click; my mind drew blanks as I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. When he seen that I still had no idea what he was talking about he spoke again.

“There was a bombing in Europe Haley, and unfortunately…” His words were cut short as I stood from my seat, I could already feel the tears brimming at the edges of my eyes.

“No! Don’t you even think about saying it, don’t you even think about telling me that something happened to her!” I basically screamed at him.

“Haley, I’m sorry hunny…but she’s gone.” My father said dropping his head once again.

“No! No, this cant be true! She can’t be gone! You’re wrong, you’re wrong, I just talked to her last night, you have to be wrong.” I screamed as all feeling left my legs and I found myself on my hands and knees on the floor balling my eyes out.

“Sweetheart.” My mother said coming to my side and resting her hand on my back.

“Don’t touch me!” I screamed somehow finding my way to my feet and maneuvering through the blurry halls to my room; I slammed the door behind me before once again dropping to the floor in a fit of hysteria.

          This couldn’t be happening; there is no way that this can be happening right now. Mandy cant be gone, she just can’t be. I just wrote her an e-mail last night, I just talked to her. It’s Mandy, it’s my best friend, she can’t be gone. What kind of cruel sick joke were they trying to play on me? It felt like the walls were closing in on me, like I couldn’t catch my breath; the whole world was starting to crumble and fall around me, could this really be happening? Could my Mandy, my best friend, my whole world really be gone?

          I spent hours upon hours just curled up on the floor crying my eyes out; crying to the point where I no longer had any tears left to shed. My parents tried to come in multiple times to comfort me but I just turned them away; I didn’t want to see them, I didn’t want to see anyone. The only person I wanted, the only person I needed right now was gone; my best friend, my only friend, gone. Memories of the things we did together growing up were a constant swirl of images replaying over and over again in my head; memories of a girl that I would never again be able to see, be able to touch, be able to talk to again.

          When you lose someone close you go through an array of emotions most of which are sadness, anger and pain; then you feel something different, something foreign to you, you feel emptiness, like something inside of you is missing. Everyone deals with tragedy in their own way mine was just closing off the world around me completely; living in what seems like a bubble as the world passed by me unnoticed. Every morning I would wake up thinking that it was all just a dream, a really bad nightmare only to find out that it wasn’t; it was like a routine that I would go through as I had to convince myself daily that it was real, that I would really never see her again.

          After taking a few days off school I thought that going back would help me take my mind off of it, but in reality it had the opposite effect. Walking in the walls were lined with pictures of her with the words rest in peace in bold letters across the top; an area in one of the showcase cabinets had a memorial dedicated to her. I got countless sorrow filled looks and ‘sorry for your loss’ comments as I walked lifelessly through the halls; my locker was plastered with condolence cards, that I immediately tore off, I didn’t need more of a reminder that she was gone haunting me every time I went to my locker.

          It’s amazing how many friends you have once your dead; all the people that would have never given you a second thought while you were alive suddenly grieving over your death. It made me sick as I walked through the halls and watched people crying while looking at one of her posters or her memorial; people who had never shared even a fraction of the things that I had with Mandy. Its even worse when you know that half of them are only faking their grief for an easy excuse to get a few days off or time out of class; people can be so heartless and only care about themselves.

          I thought that the funeral would bring me some closure but it didn’t; something about looking at a closed casket with Mandy’s picture set on top just didn’t feel right to me. I know that if they had to have a closed casket that her body, or what was left of it, wasn’t in good shape; the thought of the pain and torture she might have had to endure just left me feeling even worse. It wasn’t until they lowered the casket into the ground that everything really sank in; no longer could I think that maybe it was just a dream, that I would wake up and my life would go back to normal.

          It was a few weeks later when everything started to go back to normal; instead of the normal blur of people and mumbled voices I was starting to see faces and hear actual words. I was far from over grieving the death of my friend but at least I was starting to move on; I knew that my life would have to go on without her, it was just hard to try and get myself back into the normal routine. I left lunch early to try and straighten out my mess of a locker; once I was finished it was back in its perfect order with nothing out of place. I grabbed my books and a pen before making my way to the science room; I sat down and folded my arms on top of the desk before resting my forehead on them and blocking out the sounds of the students around me.

          As hard as I was trying to get back to normal usually by this part of the day I was just ready to go home and block everything out again; the subject of science holding absolutely no interest in my mind. I found my ability to block out any and all sound had highly enhanced over the last few weeks; I had always heard about people having selective hearing but had never been one to experience it myself. I was usually the one to hear and see everything going on around me; never missing any of the useless gossip that happened daily throughout the school, even though I had no real interest in it.

“Earth to blondie!” Someone said while jabbing at my arm with something sharp.

“What?” I mumbled never lifting my head.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” The person asked as the jabbing started up again; I jerked my head up and grabbed the pen out of Colts hand that he seemed to feel the need to repeatedly stab with me.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked throwing the pen behind me.

“Nothing is wrong with me. Now go get my pen back.” He demanded staring at me with a look of disgust.

“Go get it yourself.”

“You threw it, you go get it.”

“You were the idiot that wouldn’t stop stabbing me with it!”

“You’re the idiot that threw it, so go get it!” He demanded again.

“Look I don’t know who you think you are, but if you think that I am going to just do whatever you say then you have another thing coming!” I said going to lay my head back on my arms. Stupid, self centered jerk; if he thought that I was just going to fall at his feet and jump at his commands like all these other little high school whores then he was dumber than I originally thought.

“You’re right; you have no idea who I am!” He said before getting up and retrieving his pen for himself.

          Was that supposed to scare me? Was he expecting me to take back my words and apologize for acting out? I didn’t miss the fact that he had on a football jersey today, I guess the golden boy decided to join the team; just like every other football player his head was starting to get too big for his body and it was only a matter of time before it exploded. He was already enough of an ass as it was, I could only imagine the image he would have to keep up now that he was on the team; I wonder what I missed out on while I was in my daze of a life for the last few weeks. Cheerleaders hanging off his every word, freshman following him around just hoping that he would give them the slightest bit of attention; the whole ‘jocks are gods’ thing made me want to vomit.

“Do you mind taking your head out of your ass for a few minutes so that we can do this lab?” Colt asked once he returned to the table, pen in hand. He did not just tell me to get my head out of my ass! Look who’s fucking talking! I’d like to stick my foot up his ass!

“God I hate people like you.” I said looking over the lab paper that was sitting on the table; I couldn’t wait to get the next thirty minutes with him over with so I wouldn’t have to deal with him for the rest of the day.

“What is that supposed to mean, people like me?” He asked sounding slightly offended; good he should be offended, I would be offended if I acted like him too.

“I’m sure you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t. Please elaborate.”

“Hmm, where do I start? You think that you are better than everyone else; you think that you’re the top dog and the rest of us should just follow your lead. You sit up on your high horse and just expect the rest of the world to follow your every command. You’re full of yourself, pigheaded, and just a complete ass hole; just like every other jock that I know. I would imagine that you’re a player and expect every female to just follow you around like lost puppies; you probably play with their hearts and minds then dump them to the curb like trash. Should I go on, or is that a good enough description for you?”

“That just proves how little you know about me.” He replied rolling his eyes and pulling the lab sheet from my hands to look it over.

“No, it just proves how little you know about yourself.” I pulled the lab sheet back to my side of the table. “I will do the first four and you do the last four.” I said pointing to the sheet of questions.

“I will do the first four and you do the last four.” He countered before opening his book.

“What ever you say your majesty.” I said giving him a fake bow; the hard look he gave me told me that he wasn’t impressed.

“It’s funny how girls act when they can’t get what they want.” He added after a few minutes of silence.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked annoyed as I tried to find the next answer to the lab.

“The way that you’re acting, the way that you’re trying to put me down just because you can’t have me.” I slammed me pen down on the table, was he seriously going there right now?

“What in the world would make you think that I want you? Again this is what I was saying earlier about you being full of yourself, you just proved my point.”

“You can pretend that you don’t want me all you want, but I know that you do; I seen the way that you were looking at me that first day, the way that you were checking me out.” Fuck, I knew that he had caught me; damn, I was hoping that this would never come up.

“You’re right, when I first saw you I did think that you were hot but your personality alone makes you one of the most unattractive people I know. So to be clear I do not now, nor will I ever want you Colt.”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.” He replied as a grin crossed his face; I clinched my fists on the table, if there was ever a time that I wanted to punch some ones lights out, right now would be it.

“Don’t worry I will.” I said picking my pen back up and trying my best to just ignore him and finish my work. Luckily he stayed quiet for the rest of the class because I’m pretty sure that if he would have said one more word I would have earned myself a detention or a suspension, hell I would even go as far as expulsion; this would be the second time that he pushed me far enough to have that thought.