A chilly breeze hit my face as I slightly shivered, digging my hand deeper into the pockets of my hoodie. The sphere ball of light in front of my eyes was now a deep shade of yellow and orange as it slowly dipped into the water, dissolving in it leaving the sky in darkness.

The shallow water in front of me glistened in the color of the sun as it swayed away slowly. With waves shouting and bickering as they collided with each other – searching for their respective ways to go. It was the only noise my ears could hear in this silent creek as I sat on the damp lush grass, waiting for this day to be over already.

Today... oh, the way it went.

Another day, another story of how I mess things up and ruin everything good for me.

How I ruin everyone who loves me.

Another lesson of how no matter what I try, I'll be always like this, I'll be always the one wrecking things.

"Everyone who loves you ends up suffering themselves, just look at your sister!"

Just like my sister...

Mellisa was right, her words were true and that's why they sting me so much. I knew I can't change, no matter how hard I try. I feel so horrible about making Mel cry, I hate to see anyone cry because of me. She's so devastated over us, I wish I could make things better but I can't. I know she'll not even want to see my face again and I don't blame her.

But I don't doubt the decision I took with Mellisa – because I know I' would have done something here that would make me regret, exactly like I did a year ago to her.

Olivia...

My elder sister.

"I told you not to get drunk and yet look at you!" she yelled above the music of the party, the eighteenth birthday of her best friend.

"Why do you fucking care what I do? It's my choice." I rolled my eyes and took another swig of the alcohol in my hand.

"No, it's not. You promised me you'll be sober, you were supposed to drive us home." she snatched away the bottle from my hands. "We're going home, now!"

"I'm not leaving yet, you can go if you want."

The conversation of that night echoed in my ears as her face surfaced in front of my eyes. I gulped down the wave of emotions fighting to take over me. Tears found their shelter under my eyes, making a sob erupt through my throat. I shuddered as streams of tears pearled down my cheeks, as all the memories of her stuck me.

If only if I weren't an ungrateful asshole if only I obeyed the orders of my parents and drove her back if only I wasn't so selfish.

Then she would've been here...

She would've been alive.

I let out a shaky breath as my hands fished for the pack of cigarettes in my pockets. I grabbed it and took out one stick of death, placing it between my trembling lips and lighting it up. I sucked out the air out of the stick as my life depended on it as this time it didn't seem to help much.

I picked up my phone which was tossed beside me and opened it to distract myself, just to see her as my screen saver.

The two of us from the Hawaii trip with our parents six years ago; when we were barely twelve and thirteen. The click had both of us in our swimsuits – covered in sand from head to toe; a result of an attempt to make stupid sandcastles. Holding colorful Popsicles in our hands as our faces held smiles bigger than our faces.

Her broad smile – it was enough to see how much she cherished life, how much she wanted to live it, enjoy it. Her hazel orbs held dreams higher than the sky itself as she yearned to fulfill them, you could tell with just a glance of it. With her light caramel hair, cream skin, and little freckles – she looked a younger and prettier version of my mom, just like everyone used to say.

She was so full of love and life. The kind of person who could make a crying person smile over the silliest thing and make them forget their pain. With her, you could spend hundreds of hours and still won't realize it because the conversations wouldn't ever end.

But it took her barely a minute to go. She was gone just like that. Gone before she could even bid us goodbye.

Leaving us with nothing, but memories of her. Memories we weep to every day since she was gone; two years ago.

All because of me.

Because I chose to get drunk instead of dropping my sister home because I chose not to leave the party when she forced me to because I let her drive by herself that night.

Because I let her die when it could've been me.

When it could've been me behind the wheel, facing the truck coming in full speed and colliding with it.

It should've been me.

I know even my parents wished that. They pretend like they didn't, but I know they did.

I'm not stunned, she was perfect, the perfect daughter one wishes for. She was the happiness, the glue of our family – the one who stuck our parents together when their marriage was on the verge of collapsing.

She was the one who kept me in check because my parents never wanted to. I was just a messed up boy since a child, a boy who caused too much trouble. She was the polar opposite of me, keeping the balance.

She was the one who held me in her arms and said it'll be okay when our parents wanted to open each other's skull, she was the one who scolded me for being a dick to people, she wanted me to be better. She was the one I wanted to protect for my whole life, the one I would fight anyone for.

But just like that – in a blink of eyes, the universe took away my only source of light and left me with nothing but darkness.

"Zander?" I heard a voice behind me and for a minute I thought it was her as I immediately turned my head around.

It was Brianna.

She stood barely a meter away from me, I could see her brows furrowed as she looked at me. I immediately wiped the dried tears off my face and threw the worn-out cigarette from my mouth. I didn't want her to see me in such a state and pity me. Her lips parted as to say something but she stayed silent as she walked a bit and sat next to me.

I didn't want her to sit. I wanted her to leave. The dismal face of Mellisa occurred in front of my eyes and I felt guilty to be even near Brianna let alone talk to her. What is she doing here in the first place? It's getting dark, shouldn't she be in the camps?

"What are you doing here?" she inquired, her voice was low and soft like she was talking to a lost kid – finding his way home.

I remained silent and kept gazing at the creek in front of my eyes, my breathing was rigged as I found it a bit hard to breathe, I could feel my heart drum hard against my chest.

"Why are you here?" I asked, my voice came out hoarse and stammered as I regretted speaking. I never want anyone to see this part of me.

She let out a deep breath and fiddled with her fingers as she responded "Everyone's looking for Summer and Finn, their phones are out of signal and it's almost dark. I'm doing the same."

Before I could say something, she turned her head and looked directly into my eyes, "But I sat here because you seem like you needed some company."

Her green eyes seemed to be boring into mine as I felt she's peeking straight into my soul, I immediately looked away.

I gulped and took in a deep breath, "I'm fine, I don't need anyone. Please leave me, Brianna."

"Olivia was so beautiful..." she murmured and I raised my eyebrows, just to see her glancing at the screen of my phone which was sitting in the distance between us. I immediately turned off the screen and looked away again. Of course, she found my behavior uncomfortable as I could feel her fiddling within herself.

"Zander... It was not your fault, it's absurd even if you're thinking about it."

I took in a sharp breath, I don't want her to talk about it. I don't want her to pity me – I do that to myself just fine.
I could feel my chest rising and falling while I bit my tongue, resisting any kind of emotions floating within me.

"I used to take the blame of my dad too. Used to overthink about all the what-ifs and buts." Her voice was barely a whisper as I had a hard time listening to it with my heart thumping so loudly.

Honestly, I never knew what happened with her dad, all I heard was that he lost his life caught in a crossfire when she was just ten.

"You were a kid, I wasn't." I blurted before I could think about what I'm saying.

"You were just a kid too. We are still kids," she said, even in the dark I could see her eyes slowly brimming with water. "Timings of death – It's not in our hands, yours or mine.

It felt weird but good. Talking about this to someone, someone who went through something similar. Someone who'll maybe understand what I'm going through. I sniffed as I felt a tear run down my cheeks.

"I have nightmares about her, about how I was unsuccessful to help her..."

"You need to seek some help, Zander. Emotional help, some therapy maybe. You need to talk about it, you need to cry about it more often." she smiled warmly as I felt her warm hand on my back as she gave me a small pat.

We both sat in silence as we looked at the still water in front of us. None of us spoke, it was just the sound our breathing laced with that of water – softly echoing in our ears.

"Now, come on. We have to find our silly best friends," she said cheerfully, breaking the long silence. Now that she was getting up, I never wanted her to leave. I wanted to sit like this for some more time. She got up and brushed off the mud from her sweatpants before giving me her hand to grab.

I smiled to myself and grabbed it, grunting as I got off too. My legs felt numb because of sitting on the ground constantly for so many hours. She saw my struggle to walk as she joked about me getting old already, while I just rolled my eyes.

By the time we reached the camps, I saw Finn standing far away near the bonfire with a blank face while Mr. Harrison lectured him about something – probably about being careful and not getting lost again. Brianna and I involuntarily parted as she went looking for Summer while I walked straight up to Finn, asking about what's going on between him and Brianna's best friend and probably teasing about how he got lost.

As I made my way towards him I could feel the people around me eyeing and whispering stuff with sorry eyes in between I heard mine and Melissa's name. Maybe they got to know about our breakup... Why do they care to even talk about it?

Mr. Harrison saw me approaching and dedicated to cut short the lecture as he left him. Finn let out a deep breath and turned his head to look at me and before I could say anything he spoke "Man, are you okay? I heard what happened..."

I gave him a small shrug as we started walking away from the cluster of people eyeing me, "Honestly, I don't know. Things went bad between us because as usual, I was an asshole."

"Dude, you weren't an asshole. Honestly, I never expected Mellisa to be like this," he said giving me a lipped smile as he patted my back while I gave him a puzzled look.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"How Mellisa turned out to be a bitch," he said like it was something obvious that I should know of. Immediately I stopped in my tracks and faced him with an expression of 'explain me'.

"Bro the fuck? Are you high or something?" he shook his head before picking out his phone and clicked on the screen abruptly before shoving it in my face.

It took my vision to adjust to the electronic screen as I peered at an Instagram story of Holly Miller, which made my eyes go wide as the video of Mellisa making out so hungrily with a somewhat familiar tattooed guy. Her fingers were in his hair while both of her legs were wrapped around his torso with his hands were under his dress – on her ass. Her eyes were clenched shut as she moaned under his touch, their lips never parting even for a second.

The video had a caption reading 'Go girl' with her username tagged and beneath that 'Sorry Zander, she's his now, bye bye' with a couple of laughing emojis.

I curled my fingers into a fist with my chest rising and falling, the longer I stared at the video the more I wanted to beat that guy up. How dare he touched her like that let alone kiss her?

Finn saw my growing anger as he abruptly put away the phone and kept his hands on my shoulder in an attempt to calm me down.

How dare he touch her?

Fuck, how did she allow him to?

Suddenly all the anger seemed to flush away as my lips parted realizing this is what I had coming. I know where I've seen him – he was the same guy she was playing those games yesterday at the party!

Did she want him all along? Did she fake all that? Did she didn't love me as she said at all? Was all that crying and cursing for me fake? Was she faking it so I feel guilty?

Though do I have the right to be mad at her? Given I did something similar to her?

But even then, how did she move on from us so quickly? So fucking quickly!

Ah, what a dramatic chapter.
Honestly, I loved writing this one because all Zander's feelings are displayed here. No shit he hates himself so much.

Plus see how stories get twisted into rumors so quickly? That was not the scene with Mellisa. If only one knew what happened.

Stay tuned for the next update.
Things are getting dramatic and juicy now.