𝐨𝐡 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐨 || steve randles sister

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝

fetcher marcus aims was apprehended by the state police at around 12:30 in the morning in oak county oklahoma.

he fought the law until it owned him.

he punched, he kicked, and he screamed. assaulting the officer who nonetheless did the same to him. he ran and he laughed and he got shot in the back, and i fucking broke down in that driveway watching him lay there.

i've hated myself for so long because of that moment. i betrayed him, but i always tend to forget that he did the same to me. i have this sense of pity that my brother says is dangerous. i don't ever want to believe that i'm a victim, because i'm too damn caught up in what the hell i did that was wrong to want to believe that maybe it was nothing.

i blamed myself for so much in the life i barely called mine.

i don't regret feeling sorry for him, but the moment i fell to my knees on that pavement, the moment he sat up and watched me was the moment he knew that he had won. it wasn't ever a battle of physical strength, it was a battle of our minds.

i can still recall to this day the fear i had for him, the terror that i still do. he wasn't as strong as the boy who had loved me way back when, nor was he filled with quite the same gratitude.

fetcher marcus aims used to love destruction. he loved things not physical, but emotions in items that brought him joy. he loved the punching bag in his mother's basement, but never the women who lived two rooms down from him upstairs.

he was always an unusual kid. unusual in ways that are always going to be different from me.

i hold myself accountable for not dying that night he pulled the trigger. i will never not have a moment where i didn't wish that it was me. i told myself i never loved archie levenger, but because of the love he had for me, it simply made me want to take that bullet.

i lived a quarter of my life in grief. a quarter of my soul still in a tunnel i never ran fast enough to get out of.

i'm 19 now, and today is the anniversary date of when my best friend was shot. the date where my head should have held that bullet. other then my crippling depression and striving spirit to keep my head up farther then my heart, my gang is still around.

of course they never left.

johnathan cades parents were arrested the week after fetcher marcus aims' trial in court for child abuse, assault and battery. they were sent to prison with the boy who murdered the boy who loved me. johnny was pretty alright after everything. he got visiting hours he never used, and a permanent place of his own. he was legal by law because he was 18 so he didn't have to go into foster care or group homes. living with dallas winston seemed to do him pretty good. toughened him up a bit, but not too much to the point where my johnny cade couldn't be seen through an interior that just wasn't made for him.

dallas winston left bucks place around the same time johnny parents were arrested, living with johnny across the street from my apartment. he's been to jail more times then i can count, but only for things not serious enough to have him stay. nothing more then a date with a holding cell and a bail worth absolutely nothing. he's been doing good. he has a girlfriend now, a pretty steady one actually. joline was the best thing that's ever happened to him, even though not many people thought that dal could have a real commitment. but theres somethin about someone who's seen too much that some people don't know. they know exactly what not to do to keep something.

dallys reputation never went over his head, but he did mature. nothing about him enjoyed going to jail anymore, but he had something to uphold. something i wish he didn't feel the need to have to. he was always a good guy, now he was just better.