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"Clay, im really worried about you man, its Nate, call me"

"Clay, its Brooke...ive seen the news I am so sorry I know we were arguing I just wanna help you through this buddy please call me"

Clay threw his phone into the river he was staring into. It took him all of his strength not to throw himself in after it. His mother, his rock, the only person on the planet that would ever understand, and she was gone. She had killed herself

he should of known, she was acting strange, everything had felt final. She had told him not to wait up and he didn't even ask where she was going he had been so terribly self involved.

He had turned into his dad. He had been selfish, and now his mum was gone. She wouldn't of heard his answer phone messages, him pleading that he needed her. The one thing that could of dragged her over the edge.

He had found her, he had paid the receptionist off to let him know which room she was in, he busted the door open, he had known something wasn't right, he had felt it the minute he had seen the name of the skanky motel she was in. She was worth more than that.

He saw her across the bed, at first he had thought she was sleeping, she looked so peaceful, like nothing was ever going to bother her again. He had laid down next to her, he had watched her. Then he realised. Her chest wasn't rising up and down, she looked pale, withdrawn.

He had shaken her

"Mum?" he asked, shaking her a little

"MUM?!" he shouted, shaking her a lot, holding her to him. He suddenly saw next to her, three empty bottles of pills and a bottle of water

"oh my god mum, mum its ok ok we are gonna get you help an ambulance, then we are gonna get you more help" he started, speedialing an ambulance

"i need an ambulance my mum shes taken some pills and she wont wake up, she wont wake up" he said, his words flying together, he was frantic, his mum couldn't be dead. She was the one light in his life she couldn't go anywhere she just couldn't.

But she had. He knew she was dead before the doctors had arrived, he knew her breathing wasn't there, he knew that her skin was becoming blue, her lips becoming cold, her body becoming cold. He hugged her to his chest, he wrapped the duvet around them as they waited, he thought if he could get her to feel warm and safe again that she might be watching over him and she might decide that she would wake up and get through this. He hugged her to his chest and tried to tell her it would all be ok, that this was all a bad dream and that their lives would be better, they would run away and start again, he had the money, as long as she was there, his mum. The ambulance tried everything, they tried shocking her

He saw her body being thrown up and down as she was shocked, he heard the heart monitor attached to her continue to flatline, he saw the paramedics exchange a nod as they both stepped away from the equipment. He listened to one of them pronounce the time of death. time of death. she was dead. she was another statistic on the suicide register. He clung onto her as the coroner arrived, he tried to revive her himself, he watched as his father coldly stood in the doorway then left as soon as he saw that Clay was "handling things". He protested as he was forced away from his mother, as he was consoled and taken outside, an outsider looking in just like everybody else gathering outside of the motel.

He waited in the corner, he saw the body bag being wheeled into a van, as if it was just another ordinary day. Nothing told him that that was his mother, there was nothing. There was no hope.


Brooke paced around her house, Nathan had come with her, they figured working together was only ever way they were ever going to find Clay and help him

"Nate this is bad this is really really bad"

"i know" he mumbled

"he found her and and I was the one who went to his house and asked, and she came to my store earlier and she was so sad and I never really asked why and oh god.. "

Nathan cut her off, knowing what the next sentence was going to be

"its not your fault brooke"

"I could of helped"

"you didn't know that this was gonna happen" he said, simply. thats all he had to offer right now, he couldn't even process this

"i shouldn't of needed to I spent half my childhood hiding out there"

"i did too brooke, I thought something was wrong and I didn't reach out and either did you and-"

"there is no and, Nathan its awful. That woman let me into her life, her home, and she trusted me with her son, and I didn't even try and go beneath the surface"

"i don't know what you want me to say" Nathan said blankly, shuddering, his voice muffled. Brooke wanted him to say it was their fault, thats what she wanted him to say. But he didn't want to say it, he didn't want to admit that he didn't have time to ask the woman who practically raised him if she was ok. A three letter sentence and he couldn't do it.

The woman in his life who was more of a mother than his real mother was dead and he couldn't take it in. he couldn't take any of it in. 6 months ago they were all happy, at college, taking photos together, eating together, laughing together

"I want you to tell me its not ok, I want you to tell me that I should of asked"

"fine brooke, you should of damn asked. I should of too but thats not what we need to focus on right now"

Brooke wheeled around, allowing Nathan to continue

"we have both suffered a loss but Clay is out there somewhere, alone, and he's just found his mum dead. We need to find Clay, then you can have your guilt" he knew that it hadn't come out the right way, he knew it would offend her. he had never been good with his words that was always Lukes department, or Clays.

"are you saying im trying to make this about me?" Brooke started, raising her voice a little, it started as a croak but got louder, and clearer

"no im just trying to say clay is the priority at the moment" he looked at her, his eyes pleading with hers, to understand him, to understand that beneath the clunky sentences he was now spouting out, all he wanted to do was find his best friend so they could grieve together, the way they should be doing.

"well I am trying to find clay, your the one sitting on your ass" Brooke rested her hands on the counter and took a sharp breath, she knew she shouldn't of said it, she knew this was big to process for everyone and not just for her, she knew that everybody had different reactions, she knew that Nathan was trying. but she couldn't see past her own feelings right now, she couldn't see anything. the world had become a unfamiliar, unfriendly blur

"well hes not gonna speak to you is he" Nathan said, breathing in, he knew he was being hotheaded, this wasn't a situation he was used to, he didn't know who to blame or how to handle it he just hated the fact that his entire life had been unravelled

Brooke grabbed her car keys off the table, a tear running down her face

"on second thought, im gonna go look for him alone"

"Brooke- hold on im sorry" Nathan closed his eyes and sighed. he needed her. he needed clay. right now he would even take Dans company, he just couldn't be alone. thats where Shelley used to always be there. he never felt alone in Clay's house.

the door had already slammed, he already heard her release the sob that she had been holding back for the past hour

he called clay and it went straight to voicemail

"clay, I really need to know your ok man just..let me know please. Everything has kinda messed up and I want my best friends back" Nathan said into the phone, sadly, his own voice shaking. He still couldn't see it as being real, any of it.


Clay sat by the river, hours had passed and he was staring into space, he didn't know what to think, who to call.

He wanted his mum. He wanted her to wrap her arms around him and tell him that it would all be ok. That this was going to stop hurting, that it wasn't going to feel like a knife was going through his heart and stabbing at every emotion he had, making it ten times more painful.

He wanted to go home and sit around the table with a cup of her hot chocolate and to figure out a get out plan, the way they had talked about it when he was a teenager. It had all seemed viable than, and it was the only time that he ever saw a light in her eyes. When she had talked about leaving. His other brothers, Sam and Rob, were already enterprise robots, and Alex had managed to escape to Australia. He came home for christmas sometimes, he sent cards and emails for birthdays and other holidays, but he had escaped.

Clay was her only hope, the only person who was on her wavelength, her level and he had completely ignored her, he had become a robot.

It had pushed her over the edge, he had stopped having friends round, he had stopped being animated, he had stopped talking to her the way he used to.

It was him, it was his fault.


Brooke drove around in the dark, she drove past the motel, and got out the car. She didn't want to revisit that scene for as long as she lived but she needed to make sure Clay wasn't there, she knew how he thought, she knew he would be killing himself right now with pain and with "what ifs" in the same way that she was.

She walked into the crowd of people, all looking round the motel for any sight of gore. She had seen the bodybag earlier, she had seen Clays dads car, she had seen his two brothers getting back into their fathers limo, as if nothing had happened. The door was taped, there were forensics and coroners surrounding. It had all happened so quickly.

"Clay?" she shouted into the crowd, shakily. Questioning herself. As if he was going to be standing, gawping like the rest of these people

then suddenly, the flashing stopped, the cameras stopped, and they all centred to her

"Brooke Davis, best friend of Clay Evans right?" a female asked, stepping forward

"yeah have you seen him?" she asked, quivering

"he found his mum dead right? How is he, how does he feel? How do you feel?"

"you spent a lot of time around her it must be hard knowing she gave up like that"

Then she realised. Journos. And paps. They were all feeding off of Clays mothers death so it could become the next front page, they were trying to get their exclusives, they were trying to make money from the misery that this day had brought for everyone, they were monopolising the bad memories, trying to recreate their own sordid version of the evening, they were trying to get her to talk trash about Clay, about his family, they wanted to be told that Clay was so messed up he might follow in his mothers footsteps, they wanted alcohol problems, any problems that led to this. they wanted to make this a story. they wanted to take photos and merge them together to try and paint a picture of the reactions of the nearest and dearest to Shelley. They didn't care about Shelley as a human, they cared about Shelley, Clays mum, Brooke's best friends mum, Carl Evans' wife. They cared about why they didn't care about her. A switch had been flicked. Brooke was about to snap

"can I see that camera?" brooke asked, her voice changing, becoming stronger

"sure" the female said, putting her camera forward. Brooke suddenly felt this surge of rage. She picked it up, and threw it to the ground, her whole body was shaking, her best friend and his mum had gone through hell and that wasn't ever going to stop. And people were standing here trying to get the gory details. Victoria had called it morbid fascination, she had implied that everybody in someway did it. But she sure as hell was not going to let them get away with it, with tainting the scene of Shelley's death, for ruining her memory, for taking away from the fact that she had died, and trying to make it into a tabloid exclusive about her troubled son. She wasn't going to let it happen,

"YOU ARE ALL VULTURES" she shouted, pushing her way through them, not caring who she shoved, she wasn't making any apologies, these people deserved nothing, no respect, no manners, they didn't have any manners.

"i thought the press were vile but a woman died about 4 hours ago and your all here feeding off of it and trying to find out how low her son is. You are all truly disgusting and I honestly do not know how ANY of you can sleep at night" she screeched, as she picked up someones microphone and threw it at a random car, at that moment she didn't care whose it was, she wouldn't of cared if it had hit someone, she was incensed at the injustice and the fact that everybody just had allowed it to happen instead of trying to stop it. she started to walk off

she shook her head and ignored the shouts that were coming her way, she ignored the cameras that were all now on hers, she ignored the girl who was shouting about her broken camera and lawsuits.

She didn't even flinch as it started to rain, the walk from the crowd to her car felt like forever.

She leaned against her car, watching the scene

she saw Shelley in her shop

she saw Shelley at the top of the stairs in her house with the vodka

she saw Shelley giving Clay worried glances as he signed the contract for his new job

she saw Shelley giving her a hug when she took her in after Bitchtoria put the house for sale

she saw Shelley telling her that she was worth more than Chase before prom, when he had dumped her

she saw Shelley hugging her and Nathan, telling them they were like her own

she saw Shelleys face becoming less full, her eyes becoming dull, her increased fear of her husband, her increased fear for Clay, her willowy frame becoming thinner and thinner until she was barely there

she saw Shelley pleading with Brooke to look after Clay, she had meant after she had gone, after she had left Clothes over Bros, gone to the motel and overdosed.

She took a breath and tried to choke back a sob, and another, and another. Then she let it all out, she collapsed against her car, crying and crying and sobbing, her chest heaving and hurting and every single bit of pain just becoming multiplied. she cried for Shelley, for Clay, for Nathan, for Carl, and for herself. She cried at the tragedy of the situation, the way it had turned out, the way that the future was going to be. The future without Shelley.

Her second mother, had felt so alone in the world, she was hurting so much, she had felt bad to the extent of killing herself to feel some sort of peace in her life, to stop that feeling in her chest that made it hard to breathe, hard to feel anything other than a crippling anxiety.

Brooke felt guilty, and empty. So incredibly empty

Brooke was sobbing by her car

Nathan was at Brooke's, helping himself to her whisky to try and dull the ache in his head and in his heart

Clay was sitting by the river, getting soaked, his eyes shut, trying to wake up from the nightmare that had become his life. The nightmare that was his life. The nightmare that was the rest of his life

His mum was dead, and in his eyes, inside, so was he.