𝐍𝐎 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐈𝐄 ⁻ ˢᶜʳᵉᵃᵐ ⁵

13 - our minds get blown (literally for one person)

"I'm doing okay, y'know, considering the circumstances and...everything." I shrugged, tossing a brief smile that didn't shine up to my eyes.

"It was a memorial at first, we promise," Laina put a hand on my forearm in some form of...comfort? "Liv texted a bunch of her friends, apparently, and those friends invited their friends, and now it's a party."

"Half of these people didn't even know Wes." I scoffed, and motioned to some older-looking guy. "Is he even in school at all?! You know what, no...no, it's fine. It's fine. I need to find Amber, do you guys know where she is?"

Both of them shook their heads, and I pressed my lips together in frustration. Don't show your frustration too much, or else they'll start asking why, and you can't tell them yet. You need to do this by yourself. I straightened up and shrugged it off, "Alright, well-I'm gonna go look for her, see you guys later?"

"See ya!" Brielle gave me a side hug with her sweet words, and Carter waved goodbye as I walked in the direction of the living room.

"Tatuuuum," Mindy was high, how slowly she drawled out my name instantly made me realize that. "Babe, how are you?"

She asked this as she stood up and wrapped me in one of those hugs where as sweet as the hug is, you want to hold your nose because the person just smells so bad. In this current case, Mindy reeked of weed, and I absolutely despised the smell of weed. It just brought back some very unpleasant memories, which is why I've only ever tried weed once. Everybody says it's relaxing to them, but for me? Nope. It made me overthink to an entirely new degree, which is why I pulled back from the hug as quickly as possible.

"My Dad got killed." I tried to whisper this as softly as possible, since I didn't want all eyes to be on me.

Mindy's eyes became so wide with shock that they basically looked like two perfect circles. Her hand flew over her mouth, her beer can fell out of her other hand and I'm pretty sure I saw a couple of tears form in her eyes. It was hard to tell all the emotions exactly on her face because of the flashing lights, but I could tell she was sad. 

"Holy shit, Tatum, I'm so sorry-" She was stumbling through her words, justifiably so-it wasn't an easy thing to hear.

I mean, the entire friend group grew up having Dad in their lives; I was going to need to tell all of them tonight. Minus Brielle, Laina, and now Mindy. This wasn't going to be easy, in fact, I saw the reactions getting worse and worse as the night went on. I did have to say, however, that I was proud of all of us for still being here. At least for now, because I mean, a few of us could still die-like Mindy had said at the bar the other night.

"Don't say it right now, please, just go on with the party, kay? Don't um..." I took a shaky breath. "Don't tell anybody else yet. Try and act normal. I need to go find Amber."

I spun my head towards a group of teens debating about which Stab movie is the best, sincerely concerned about their mental well-being at this moment in time. As I watched one ferociously declare that nobody can beat the original, Mindy's voice knocked me out of that complete focus.

"You seem, like...really cool about all of this." Her words were painstakingly slow. "Too cool. Are you one of them?"

I turned back to face her, concern and confusion running a muck in my facial expressions. "Mindy, do you have short term memory loss? My dad and boyfriend got killed, why would I be one of the killers?"