Dear Ryan Diaz

Chapter 27: Seize The Moment

It's been a week, since we've all kept our distance from Carter. Today, here we were at school, almost half way through the day, standing near the lockers and we saw her walking out of class. She had our eyes connected to ours as we were nervous to confront her, while we were holding our breaths. I can definitely tell that the way she has looked over a week changed. Her paleness skin, dry lips, and dry tears were shown. People actually did notice about that and teachers tried to talk to her. I'm pretty sure the only thing they've ever asked was "are you okay?" because that's the only thing they worry about for the students here. I think Carter is the type of girl who doesn't talk to anyone about her feelings because she worries that no one will ever understand. Does she wanna talk about it? Yes. But will she ever talk about it? No. There's a difference.

Tia: I really miss her.
Julian: We all do.
Barry: We just have to be patient.
Jacob: But what about those guys? We need to find out about them and it's been a long time, since we haven't told her.
Robert: She needs her space, Jacob.
Jacob: Yeah, but it's already been long enough and I think we need to stop keeping secrets.
Jacob: We have no time to stay silent about this case. We have to start taking leads on those guys.
Barry: But Jacob-
Jacob: Keeping secrets will do nothing, but harm people, especially to those who you love and promise to trust.
Tia: Ouch. It feels like you're referring to me and Ryan as an example.
Jacob: Tia, that's not... you know what I mean.
Julian: We will tell Carter until she's ready to speak to us again.
Julian: We don't have much of a say, anyways. It's best to be patient. Let's not rush the process.
Julian: I gotta get to class.
Robert: Yeah, same right here.
Tia: Bye, everyone. I'll get going.
Robert: Later.
Barry: Jacob, I'm coming to your house after school.
Jacob: Alright.

Jacob's POV.

I started to bail out by turning around and heading myself to class like all of my other friends. When I was close to my class, I saw some tall, curly brunette girl that pinned some dude with black cropped hair against the locker while they were aggressively kissing each other. I was resisting the urge not to vomit. Damn PDA's. I can't believe these two. What's wrong with them? Are they trying to swallow each other?

Jacob: Oh, you've got to be kidding me!
Jacob: What is wrong with you fools?! Ever heard of a janitor's closet!
Jacob: Leave the poor lockers alone!
Jacob: Shame on you both!

They looked at me in some type of embarrassment and a humiliated expression. Nonetheless, they sprinted away from me as they were heading off somewhere that I don't need to know.

Jacob: Yeah, that's what I thought! Take it somewhere else, kids.
Jacob: Teenagers, these days. Something's wrong with them, I swear.

Back to Carter.

Carter's POV.

The whole week was way too slow for me. It felt like years. The lack of oxygen were starting to drift away from my lungs. While I was here, sitting in class, my mind wanders somewhere else. I like to believe I'm in some place nice, but I couldn't think nor find one. I wasn't even concentrating in class. The teacher kept chattering, which students had to pay attention to. I was merely staring into space as my head faced down, emotionally at the wooden floor, trying to think of what's the next step. And by next step, I mean the nightmares that I've been enduring. For some reason, I've had more nightmares about my brother than my mom. She did appear a few times into my head when I was awake, but she doesn't really do anything nor has spoken a word to me. She glances at me with no expression on her face. Sometimes she would appear to be casual, sometimes there would be a slight chance where I would think she could jump scare me, and sometimes she would give me a crooked smile to remind me that she's okay. This only happened a few times. The funeral has already been planned. Tomorrow is the day. I didn't really need to give people the request to come. It had already been taken care of when my father talked to the principal about it. The funeral is going to be at the same place where Ryan was. Am I prepared? No, I'm not. I probably never will be, but sometimes... we have no choice, but to to seize the moment and just go with it, even if it hurts so bad.