Andy

School the next day was very tedious. I hadn't slept at all, and to tell the truth, I hadn't been trying all that hard. I was too scared and shaken to sleep. I kept on my lamp all night, lying with my back to the closet, in case the boy turned up again, with my headphones on, cranked way up until you could tell what I was listening too outside of them, turned to a friendly All Time Low album that kept me from losing my cool during the night.

My friend, Elizabeth turned up outside my first hour history class, and she walked me to biology, which we had together.

"Wow, Ash, you look exhausted." She told me after a few silent moments. I looked over at her and forced a crooked smile. "Didn't sleep." I simply told her. It wasn't a lie, it also wasn't the complete truth.

"Oh, did you hear about the car accident yesterday?" Elizabeth launched into the very story I'd been trying very hard to forget. "An old Pendant county high schooler, his name was Andy, I think." She said with a remorseful shrug. "I've never heard of him, but from the things I've overheard some people saying, he used to be the school outcast... Y'know, tried to commit suicide a few times, cut, listened to dark music, and was just weird."

I frowned as we walked, also curious as to what she was saying.

"He... Wanted to die?" I murmured, unable to find a 'kind' way of saying it. There was no light touch to saying someone wanted to die... That they hated themselves and their situation so much, they just wanted to sieze to exist. Forfeit life...

"Yeah, I guess so. Back in his high school years, though. I think after graduation, he hung up around California for a while, got his life on the right track. Heck, I heard he was attending collage classes. Was back in Pendant visiting some family over the weekend when it all went wrong, I guess." She shrugged again, was like me, trying to figure out how death was even possible. How it was more than fantasy on paper.

"It's a shame..." I murmured sadly, looking down at the ground as we walked to biology.

"Yeah," Elizabeth sighed in agreement, "I think the funeral is at the end of the week. There's so many high school girls, that are either talking shit on the guy, or are bawling because they knew him. There's no in between."

I considered telling her about my experience with the boy last night. But as exhaustion weighed in on my thoughts, I began to believe more and more, that Andy had never even been there.

I seperated from her side and went to my seat by the window as the other students filed in. It was clear within a few minutes of watching the seats fill up, that this death was the biggest news Pendant had seen in a long time. It was all anyone was talking about, and it was making it harder for me to forget what I'd seen.

"-I heard it looked gnarly!" A jock squealed in excitement as he sat down. A girl a few rows down was dabbing at her makeup dramatically. "-I just feel like I knew him, y'know? I feel like we were the same person."

Hard to see the resemblance.... She was one of those preppy bitches who didn't like anybody, even her boyfriend.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. With every swirl of my fingers, I felt the blurred image of the dead boy fade from my thoughts. When it was safe to uncover my ears, and the topic of every conversation was now settled on normal topics again, I sighed in relief and reached for my textbook.

That couldn't be the end of Andy, though... Because the teachers' first words, were "I'd like to raise awareness of the death of Andy Biersack. He used to be a student here at Pendant high, and he passed yesterday in a motorist accident. May we share a moment of silence for Andy?"

I closed my eyes, and let my face fall peaceful, but under the table, I was clawing at my legs, at the dark denim fabric of my jeans, just agonized, waiting for it to be over.

Maybe what actually bothered me about the whole thing was, no one liked Andy when he was alive, but now that he was gone, that's all anyone cared about, and it felt unfair. Unfair that he couldn't be appreciated while he was alive, and it only took his heart to stop beating for people to realize that.

When the moment finally passed, I sighed silently in relief, and got straight to work. I blocked out all the conversations going on around me, because I just didn't want to hear anymore second hand accounts. I wanted to know who this Andy Biersack fellow was for myself.

I made plans before class was out, that when I got home, I'd look him up on the internet. I probably wouldn't find much, besides an abandoned Facebook account, and an half-ass written obituary, but still, I wanted to try. I wanted to try and appreciate the man in my own time, so I could mourn in my own way. Witnessing his death put me into a unique scenario, in which, I was having a hell of a time getting over it. What I'd seen, was going to take a while to erase, and beginning that healing process started with first, assessing the issue. And the issue was, finding out who the hell he even was.

Biology was out by noon, and I headed to lunch with Elizabeth by my side. We didn't speak much, and neither of us commented on class, because we were probably both thinking the same thing. The entire class, as well as the ones that followed it, were dedicated to the sorrowful news.

As the day drug out, I found myself frowning more and more, because most of what I heard, were bad stories. And from what I could tell, this generation, the one that would hail four years after Andy's graduating from this school, still didn't like them. They swapped the poorly tasteful stories about Andy over school and through whispering sessions in class. I walked in on some girls in the bathroom, bitching about how they'd seen Andy a few years back, standing on the corner of Main Street with a plunger of drugs shoved in his arm, looking hazy.

A chorus of rehearsed, fake laughter threw me over the edge.

"Is that all you have to bitch about?" I demanded, looking at them all. They looked back at me in speachless surprise. They clearly hadn't been expecting my addition to their conversation.

"He graduated four years ago, and died yesterday. Everything that happened in his life, is none of your damn business, unless he told you personally. Which, judging from the sour tone you all have for him, you didn't know him well enough to even begin to talk about him like this, and if you were friends, you weren't good ones. Fucking drop it, Goddamn. He's dead. Quit bitching about what you can't change."

I stalked out of the bathroom before they could even breathe a reply. It just really pissed me off that they were taking this chance to glamorize his death. Death isn't beautiful. It isn't ugly... It just happens, and we can't stop it.

I felt my chest swell with sadness, and the nerves from what I'd just said, and found myself running for the exit instead of my last class of the day. I skipped gym, to instead, hang out on the playground, hidden in the branches of an oak tree that had been there well over a hundred years.

I hid myself away, and allowed myself to think, and share my thoughts in private. I didn't like hearing the stories about who Andy was. I just wanted to know who he was in those last moments. After he'd gotten clean of drugs, and had been going to college. I wanted to know that him, not the him conflicted by bullying and depression.

When it was late enough to be acceptable for me to return home, I began the long walk. Since I'd missed my bus home over fifteen minutes ago. I just didn't feel like seeing those people again. Looking at their drawn faces, and fake pity. They weren't actually sorry that Andy was dead, they were grateful to have some new gossip to hand out.

I took deep breaths as I walked, and fished my headphones out of my pocket, just as the first rain drops broke free of the clouds.

As I walked, I felt like I was being watched, but I refused to look behind myself, in fear that the spirit of Andy would be waiting there again.

I listened to half of Green Day's American Idiot, with one headphone in, just in case someone was actually sneaking up on me. It'd make them think I couldn't hear them, but I'd be able to, and it'd give me the upper hand.

When no one attacked, I finally looked over my shoulder, and of course, there was no one there. But I could feel them... I could feel their eyes boring into my back, and the odd thing was, the gaze didn't make me fidget uncomfortably, I actually felt quite safe under the glare of the unseen person. A guardian angel, if you will.

At last, I arrived at my own home. I unlocked the front door, since my parents were still out, and let myself in. Quickly, I locked it again, just in case, and dropped my backpack to the foyer floor and went hunting for a snack in the kitchen.

I flipped on the TV in the kitchen as a background noise while I fixed up a sandwich. Of course though, when I turned, the local news channel was spouting about Andy's death. With a sigh, I scooped up the remote and flipped through the channels, but everything reminded me of him in some way, and I eventually just turned it off.

I headed upstairs to my room to work on my homework from today, and listen to to music, and of utmost importance, forget everything that had happened that day...

But then, I found myself seated in front of my computer, with the Internet Explorer open, and the cursor blinking patiently. I had a few hours to work on my homework, but even less time to learn what I intended to learn before my parents got home.

I think I was more curious to see what he even looked like, when not covered in blood... I wanted to know if my mind had conjured up a proper replica or not.

So I typed... Reluctantly, I typed in his name into the blinking search box, and hit enter. My slow, dial up internet slowly began it's searching process, and I waited, with the cursor hovering above the exit button in the corner of the screen. At any moment, I could just drop out of my adventure.

But I didn't... I let the page finish loading, and it, of course, brought up a few small results. The first two were from two people on Facebook, niether were actually him. And the third result was a report issued from the Pendant County Police Department. I decided that would be the most honest of the results.

I clicked on the link, and within a few slightly impatient moments, that page loaded. It contained the Police Department's logo at the top of the page, as well as a case number and date of accident. Scrolling down, I briefly read the mandatory mission statement of the Police Department, and then I got far enough down the page to read the short statement on the case.

On April 13th, 2015,
Former Pendant County resident, Andrew Dennis Biersack, was involved in a head-on collision with another car at the Creston intersection in town. No other fatalities have been released, and there is currently only one known death from the accident.
Further information will be disclosed at a later date. Pendant County Police Department requests that all residents give the family time to grieve during this time.

It was short and sweet and uninformative. All I really learned, was that his middle name was Dennis.

It hit me then, and I laughed at myself in embarrassment. Why did I care so damn much? Was it solely because I'd witnessed his death? If so, then I guess it's understandable. But if I wanted to forget so badly, I'd go on with life, ignoring the stories at school until this whole thing blows over.

It was something else entirely...

Maybe I wanted to see the boy again, the ghost of the boy, hovering nearby somewhere, making me feel watched again. Maybe I just wanted to know what I'd seen was real or not.

Sighing, I hit the back button, and searched for further facts about the boy, but there wasn't much. He wasn't on social media, so there were no accounts to trace. No obituary had been written yet, and there were no obsessive bloggers posting their second hand accounts.

When there was nothing left to be seen, I turned off my computer, feeling farther from a solution than I did at ease.

My breath hitched in my throat when I heard the floorboards creak behind me. My pulse stopped all together, and I feared that my immense interest had attracted his spirit to me.

I did not move, or look behind me, because that always spelled out trouble in the horror movies. I just waited, and watched, frozen in horrified silence as the papers on my desk rustled, yet, no windows were open.

The room became so still, it was maddening. I watched the papers, lying flat and still again, and I swallowed, trying to find words, something to say, something that would not make me sound like a complete idiot.

"Who are you?" I finally wondered when nothing else came to mind... No other confrontations fit the situation, in which, I might anger the spirit and end up with a poltergiest.

I refused to look behind me, in case he was there.... It was the not knowing that was killing me. Knowing I might not be alone right then, made my hair stand up on end.

The air became cool, but nothing moved or changed. I waited in complete silence, listening for the tattle tale of the wooden floorboards squeaking. When nothing happened, I figured it was over and took a deep, calming breath.

"Does that really matter?" A deep voice replied.

Notes