I woke up with a bad headache.

Did I drink?

I'm guessing that I did.

"Did you sleep well?" a woman's voice broke my thoughts.

Wait.

I got up and looked around. It was a different room. A different house. It was my mother's place.

"How did I get here?" I wondered out loud.

My mother ruffled my hair.

"You were so drunk and wasted when you arrived at my doorstep last night, crying and being miserable." she recalled.

I groaned. This was so embarrassing. I wasn't in the mood to hear 'the talk'.

"Go wash up. You stink."bshe informed me like I already didn't know.

After I freshened up and had a proper breakfast, I was sitting in my room and just rethinking about the conversation between Zach and I. The tears threatened to fall but I was not going to let them.

I heard my mother enter the room so I quickly blinked those tears away.

"Hey sweetheart," she cooed softly.

"Hi mom," I greeted.

"So tell me what happened with Zach?" she demanded.

Why can't people beat around the bush?! He used to be great at that stuff. But how did she even know?

Then I remembered  that I was drunk and wasted so I might have blurted out the unnecessary things in my life.

"Nothing," I mumbled.

"You do love him, right?"

"It'll be unfair to him. He's dead. And that's cause of me. I do not deserve happiness in this life," I started crying.

"But do you love him?" my mother questioned me again.

"Yes. I do," I answer softly.

It was the first time I verbally voiced my feelings. It just made it more permanent.

My mother turned me so that I faced her in a very motherly fashion.

"Then go after him. Before it's too late, hold onto him and never let go. He would've wanted it. Rick would've wanted it. This was destined to happen. With or without Rick." she encouraged me, saying his name for the first time in a year.

"I'll sleep on it?" I told her.

"Don't nap on it too much though," she winked before leaving me alone.

I stayed on with my mother for two days. I spent this time on self reflection and to clear my thoughts. Yes, I did love Zach. Was it something he would've wanted to happen? Was he not condemning me for it from heaven? Such thoughts came and went until I found that letter he had written to me from his summer camp from my drawer a few years back.

It was the summer and he was away from Zach and I. So we wrote letters to each other cause it was more fun that way. I had reread that letter over and over again. The last two lines of that letter has stayed within my heart since then. It said:

"If anything ever goes wrong in the future, remember that I would always ship you with Zach. Even if you act like siblings and old-school crushes when next to each other, know that 'Love recognizes no barriers'. Bye!!"

My mind was made up.

I was going to get Zach. I picked up my coat and ran out of the house as fast as humanely possible. Zach's house was not really far away from my mother's place but it felt like a thousand light years for me to reach his place.

His small house in a calm and small neighborhood looked very cute.

I banged my fist on the door.

No answer.

So I continued to do so until the old aunt living next by had to come out of her house.

"Sorry!" I apologised to her.

She looked me up and down before deciding I belonged to a high social class who was worth addressing to.

"The boy living here left two days ago.He left his keys with me. Who are you?" she inquired after letting me know all the required details.

Hopes dropped to the ground like bombshells.

"Uh... no.. no-one," I stammered and rushed out of there.

It was a beautiful day. The clear sky and air smelt like spring. The chirping of birds flying resonated everywhere.

I couldn't really hear them though. Because the sound of my heart breaking into millions of pieces was louder.

*

Days passed into months which turned into a year.

In this time, I moved out of the hostel and started to live with my mother. I continued to stay in touch with the news of the war. The war was huge.

Spain was not retreating and nor were we. The death toll was increasing by hundreds everyday. I visited Zach's military camp every day on my way to work to ask if there was any news about a particular man.

Zach Sylvester.

To ask if he was going to come back or.................

No he can't be dead.

Not when I realized that it was right for me to love him. The people around me kept teasing and bullying me for a stupid thought but he was my only medicine to be able to cope with it.

One day, right in the morning, the news said this:

"The war has officially ended. The prisoners are being released and both the countries have surrendered. There are many unidentified bodies and missing men but our worst nightmare has ended."

I picked up my coat and rushed to the camp. He has to be there. He should be.

Or maybe........not?

*****