With the old man and cop to one side, the parents and teenagers formed their own groups.

I understood a lot of things. My boyfriend was gone along with his entire family. I got that.

Kete, Unathi, Tshepang and I here, that I understood. Zake was more friendly with my friends than his actual friends.

Connor and Caleb? I understood that as well. Connor was the funniest, cutest of his group and Caleb was the most annoying.

But Shay? I know Zake was involved in her life quite a bit but still. Why?

Everyone stood a good 1.5m away except Shay who stood separate from us.

"I can't believe his gone." Unathi murmured, her hand going to her mask but retracting it when she realized what she was doing.

My anger subsided and I reminded myself that the love of my life was gone. I expected tears to fall, hear the inward noise of my heart shattering but neither. It took a moment to realize that those two things had already happened before.

"He can't just be gone. He has his issues but they all can't just...poof." I guessed. This couldn't be my, our, reality.

"Yeah, I'm with you. I say we go see for ourselves." Caleb agreed. Kete gave him a look of disbelief.

"Do you think we are in America? Do I look like I'm wearing blue? No. So why should we go investigate? This ain't no 13 reasons why or Riverdale."

Silence settled over the group once more. The wind picked up again, bringing with it goosebumps.

"We should go. At least just to have a prayer or something for him." Unathi suggested and it was hard to say no to that. "We know SA police. He's as good as gone so we might as well just hope and pray."

"I'm coming too." Caleb and Connor whirled around to Shay. "If everybody wants to see if it's true, I don't see why I can't too."

"And how exactly are we gonna do that?" Kete asked again. She had a point. This wasn't a place where we could just skip school or drive wherever we wanted. Like she said earlier, this wasn't America.

"I'll ask my mom." The words barely left my mouth before everyone's eyes settled on me. Before they could say anything, I walked to my mom.

I guess I should explain why those four words got such a reaction out of all of them. My mom was the absolute last fan of Zake.

It was when we just started going out. I told my mom about us and Zake had even spoken to her a few times over the phone. For a while she seemed okay with us but that wasn't the case. She quickly began phoning Zake's parents, forbidding me from ever dating him and etc. I was always selfish because I never wanted to let go of him regardless of his faults. So that's how two years of secretly (not so secretly) dating, beatings on both our parts and basically almost losing my mother.

For reasons we both never understood, my mom hated Zake even before he had made a mistake.

"Mom," My mother and the group of parents turned to me so I continued quickly. ", we want to see the house."

"What?" She questioned.

I repeated the statement. "To see if it's true and Unathi wants to do a prayer."

My mother looked at my friends and the rest of the group, emotionless. To my surprise, it was the other parents who seemed in an agreement. A prayer to whatever god was as good as the police here.

"We need to get back to work. I suppose you don't mind taking them?" Unathi's father asked my mother, who shook her head. "Okay then, we'll keep each other in the loop and keep safe, especially you."

The parents disembarked after saying goodbye to their children. My mother remained silent as we all made our way to her car. It was gonna be a tight squeeze, the six of us minus my mother and whoever sits in the passenger seat, in the back.

Eventually, after a lot of awkward moments and laughs we were ready to go. Unathi and Shay being the smallest ended up sitting on Connor and Kete's lap while everybody was squeezed together in the back. I took shotgun.

12

The ride was long, about thirty minutes. Zake, by far, lived the furthest from school so it wasn't so surprising. Most of the people in the car had been to his house before. He threw a pool party last year for just. I'm sure you know why I wasn't there.

Eventually we made it, pulling down the suburban street. I wasn't exactly sure what we were looking for. A massive house? A compound? Nonetheless, everybody (except Shay and I) guided us to a house with bright red walls.

I was almost disappointed. It looked normal...at least the sidewalk did. A massive tree loomed on the street and, besides that, nothing else could be seen.

He can't be gone, I chanted under my breath. Everything looked normal. There must have been a mistake.

How quick that hope was squashed...

My mom stopped on the opposite side of the road. We all got out. The atmosphere was tense, everyone riled up as if they were expecting a murder scene. Tsephang was still emotional, her cheeks just beginning to dry.

Even I was afraid.

Without a word, Connor moved forward. He grabbed the gate and pushed it open.

"Holy sh-"