Guilt

By Eve Hayden

19 / 05 / 2022

Zach, the same man who told me that I didn't understand love because I was a silly teenage girl, gave me this set of notebooks for Christmas, three of them. He told me that I could write my notes in their for GCSE and Mom gave me a look when I opened my mouth to tell him that I already had multiple folders and bigger books for my notes. I said thank you instead.

They're silly little ones, slim books with card covers from some preppy shop in Bullring or Town. One is pale pink, one pale blue and one pale grey. They all have the letter E on the cover, something he excitedly pointed out, like it would bring a smile to my face each time. I haven't looked at them since Christmas but I'm writing in them now. Sorry if I offended you notebooks, it's not personal.

Anyway, guilt. I've named this guilt because giving this titles makes everything neater. Or at least that's what the teachers tell me.

I'm feeling guilty about Eden. Guilty about everything. Because didn't I enable her to go kill someone? The way she was so willing to talk about KILLING someone so easily, so casually isn't normal. And instead of shutting it down, I gave her Josh's name. I put Josh on her radar. I did this. Eden might've pushed, but aren't I the girl behind the curtain? The one pulling the strings in the death of Josh Hartley.

I'm the one to blame.

If Josh had just let his crush fade, if he hadn't plucked up his courage to hang out with me, he wouldn't have died. We wouldn't have started fighting when Year 11 started, we wouldn't have fallen apart. It wouldn't have hurt so much when we broke up. And I wouldn't have told Eden Davis, the freak of all freaks, that I would be totally fine with her killing him.

So the guilt. The guilt is eating me alive. It will eat me alive. All I had to eat yesterday was the ice cream and a tiny helping of lasagne. This morning I skipped breakfast and had another tiny helping of lasagne for lunch to make Mom happy. Josh won't get to eat again.

And sleep doesn't come easily either. It's filled with dreams of red rivers with dead ex-boyfriends in them, schools filled with crying kids and Eden. She's always there, those blank eyes unfeeling and ridiculously calm as she stares into oblivion.

They say pain heals all wounds. That grief will fade. That the mountain will become easier to climb as the seasons pass.

But most of them probably aren't responsible for the death of the first boy they ever loved. That's guilt and that won't fade. Never ever.