Smut Meets Reality

She tried calling and texting him the rest of the night, but he didn't respond to anything she sent him. Even when she thought she would get a chance to apologize and beg him for forgiveness at school the next day...he was absent. When he was absent three days in a row, though, that's when she got worried. The fourth day she entered homeroom, her hopes sinking when she once again saw his desk empty, she finally decided to go to his house after school to see him in person. Sighing, she went to her seat and waited for homeroom to begin when the principal knocked on the door to the room and called her down to his office. When they arrived, she found two men in suits waiting for her.

"Hello, Lindsay, I'm Detective Johnson, this is my partner Detective Handler." The first man spoke. "Would you mind answering a few questions for us?"

"Um...sure, what is it?" Lindsay nodded, nervously.

"You're close friends with Ike Higgins, according to his parents." Johnson began, pulling out a notepad. "Is that correct?"

"Yeah, is he okay? He hasn't been in school for a few days."

The detectives exchanged an odd glance before Johnson sighed.

"Why don't you take a seat, Lindsay?"

"I don't want to." Lindsay snapped, her heart rate accelerating as she read the fact that something was clearly wrong. "What happened to him? Is he alright?"

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Ike is dead. He passed away two days ago. We could really use your help to put some answers together."

Lindsay felt like the entire world just collapsed onto her. She was at the bottom of the ocean, the pressure crushing in around her. A pang so intensely painful went through her chest, that she had to sit down, beginning to hyperventilate slightly.

"How?!" she demanded, blinking away tears. "What happened!?"

"It was a suicide." Detective Handler replied, gently. "He hung himself. Do you know if he expressed anything to you about being depressed lately? Was there anything off about his behavior? Maybe a recent traumatic event that he mentioned?"

Lindsay's heart felt like it was going to explode in her chest. Her head was spinning, and she felt as though she were about to pass out. Her breathing picked up more and more, slowly becoming interjected with chokes as she began to cry. Tears streamed down her cheeks and fell heavily onto her jeans, her crying morphing into outright bawling within seconds. She couldn't believe that Ike was dead. It didn't seem real. He closest, best friend, the boy she loved, and he was gone forever. And it was all her fault. She had done this to him. She had selfishly raped him, and it had broken his heart. To have the girl he loved just abuse him without any regard had crushed his spirit and drove him over the edge. And now, she would never get to apologize.

"Detectives, maybe we can do this another time." The principal spoke from off to the side.

"Of course." Johnson said, putting his pad away, and going to leave.

Lindsay spent another hour crying her eyes out on the couch in the principal's office until her parents finally showed up from work and brought her home. Once there, she barricaded herself in her room and hid under her covers in some attempt to keep the despair out. It didn't work. She couldn't escape the pain of knowing that it was entirely her fault. It wasn't until her mom knocked on her bedroom door the next day that she even bothered to crawl out of bed, her eyes red and bloodshot, and her stomach aching from stress vomiting all night.

"There's someone here to see you." Her mother explained. "Can you please come down?"

It was probably the detectives again. Sniffling, she rubbed her eyes, and headed downstairs to meet them. Her heart skipped a beat when she came into the living room and saw who it was. Mrs. Higgins. Ike's mom. Just seeing her made Lindsay feel so guilty, she wanted to burst into tears all over again.

"Hi, Lindsay." Mrs. Higgins smiled at her, but it was more of a sad smile, and it was evident that she had been crying a lot lately, too. "I just wanted to stop by and thank you for being Ike's friend all these years."

'Stop.' Lindsay begged in her mind.

"There was no one he cared more about than you, you know."

'Please, stop!'

"I just wanted to give this to you as something to remember him by."

She reached into her purse and pulled out a small, blue box, handing it over to Lindsay. Hands shaking uncontrollably, Lindsay opened it. Inside was a corsage. The fabric band had her name embroidered into it, too.

"Ike was going to ask you to prom." Mrs. Higgins explained.

Lindsay couldn't hold back the tears anymore, and she started blubbering pitifully, burying her face in her arm and clutching the corsage to her chest. She almost wanted to let it all out and get the secret off her chest. To tell Mrs. Higgins what she had done, and why her son was really gone. But she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

"I'll leave now. I'm sorry if I made you upset, I just thought you should know how much you meant to Ike. Take care, Lindsay."

With his mother having left, Lindsay went back to barricading herself in her room. She hardly ate or drank anything unless her mother brought it up to her, and she didn't return to school for another week. It felt terrible going back there. The students and teachers had all moved on. There was now only a little memorial plaque in the entrance hall with Ike's picture, but it only made Lindsay feel like dirt whenever she walked past it. Because she knew the truth. She knew it was her fault. And she would have to carry that weight with her for the rest of her life.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that much longer. Shortly after Ike's death, Lindsay began abusing prescription drugs to cope with the trauma. A few years later, she overdosed on pain meds in her college dorm and died two days shy of her twenty-second birthday.