~~~WARNING~~~
This chapter will incorporate events, feelings, and characters involving the heavy topic of school shootings.
If you cannot or feel like you might not be able to handle such writing PLEASE DO NOT read this chapter! You're state of mind, mental health, and feelings are of the upmost importance.
Thank you
"Maddie, you're going to fall." Estela says, worried, while she stares up at the blonde from her corner on the floor. "No, I'm not." Maddie says, her voice strained while she tries to stretch and reach for the lock on the window. "Damn it." She says and leans back, more of her weight going onto the sink than the wall and window ledge. "I can't reach it." She says and Estela wipes her nose. "I can give you a boost?" She suggests and Maddie looks at her. "That could work." She says and the dark haired girl gets up from her spot and makes it over to Maddie. "So, what do I do?"
Maddie sighs and pushes her hair back. "I'll get balanced on here and the ledge, and then you hold my feet. You sure you can hold me?" She asks and the younger girl nods. "Yeah, I'll stand against the wall just to be sure though." She says and Maddie nods, her heart racing. For some reason she felt like this window was the only thing standing between the two girls and a painful death.
Estela squats with her back pressed hard against the wall, her hands ready to hold onto Maddie's feet. "Here goes nothing." The blonde says while moving one of her feet onto Estela's leg, the girls hand gripping her ankle instantly. "You got it?" Maddie asks and Estela breathes out. "Yeah, other foot, now." She says and once Maddie puts her other foot down Estela gets a grip on it before pushing up slightly so the girl could fully reach the lock.
"Damn it!" Maddie curses while using all of her weight on the little level in the middle of the two windows. "What?" Estela asks, her sweating hands slipping up Maddie's lower leg rather than holding onto her ankle. "It won't lock." Maddie says, her eyes searching the ledge for something that might work to move the lever but instead she sees the top of someone's head in the stall. "Holy shit!" Maddie shouts, her body jerking out of fear and due to the sweating of Estela's hands the two girls found themselves toppling over, onto the hard tiled floor.
"What happened?" Estela asked, panicked all over again and Maddie sits up and puts a finger to her lips, telling her to be quiet before pointing to the bathroom stall. Estela's eyes widen when she looked to the stall and she backs up against the wall before looking back to Maddie with wide eyes. Maddie slowly stands up and turns toward the stall, Estela shakes her head frantically and grabs ahold of the blondes ankle but Maddie kicks her off before lifting her leg to kick the door open, she knew someone was in there but she still screamed when it opened to reveal someone inside.
Estela yelped, covered her mouth and leans back further while Tyler fell off the toilet and shouted in fear. It took a couple seconds but soon enough all three of them breathed out in relief. "What the actual fuck?" Maddie says in a scared whisper while covering her face. "I-I'm sorry, I wanted to say something but I was scared." He says, his eyes floating to Estela who was still huddled up on the ground. "Of me?" Estela asks and Maddie's eyes widen while she covers her mouth. "Oh." She says and looks to Tyler before turning back. "Estela, this is Tyler."
"Oh." Estela says, her eyes floating to Tyler. All of them still breathing hard, scared because of what was happening plus their own personal reasons. Tyler nods, trying to control his breathing. "It-it's just a drill." Estela says through a sniffle, trying to comfort the boy.
"That's what Maddie said. That you guys do these sometimes." The girl says, looking to Maddie. And the blonde only hopes that the boy doesn't tell her the truth. That their drills were nothing like this.
"Yeah." He says and tries to breathe in. "But this is the last place on Earth that I want to be at." Tyler says and Maddie's eyes widen, a whole new realization settling in on her. "Oh." Estela says, a small sniffle making it's way through. "I'm so sorry." Maddie says, a tear slipping down her cheek.
Charlie and Alex stay sitting on the floor while Tony sits up on his knees and puts the folded pictures of guns into his jacket. "He's our friend, Tony." Alex says in urgency, he felt both responsibility but also friendship for Tyler, and he was prepared to defend him as much as he possibly could. "I know that." Tony bites back through gritted teeth while he tries to think, none of it made sense either option could be the best or worst thing to do in that moment and he always hated being the one left to make those decisions.
Charlie speaks up as Tony stands up completely, the only body that could be seen above the tables. "We all want to believe that he's better and he's our friend, but what if we're wrong?" He asks, he normally speaks up for Tyler but he also felt sick to his stomach about this decision, what if they said nothing and someone lost their life because of their silence? "Exactly!" Tony says, wringing his hands out as he goes to walk into the other room but they hear a loud sound come from the hall making him stop and everyone else in the room jolt. "What was that?" Tony asks nobody in particular as he looks around, but before anyone can process what they've heard or even think of answering him there are multiple gunshots sounded throughout the building.
Curses can be heard throughout the room, everyone ducks closer together, Charlie scoots himself and Alex under the long computer desk and Tony swings himself low so he's also sitting with the other boys underneath the desktops. All that could be heard for a few moments was panicked breathing and crying but then Tong spoke. "Fuck this." He says, his chest rising faster than ever before. "I'm taking this stuff to Foundry right now." He says and starts to crawl out of the room and into the main section of the library where the staff member was sitting.
"What?" Alex says as he attempts to push himself out of his spot, only moving an inch before his whole body went ridged. "No!" He shouts in a hushed whisper. Charlie got out of his spot as well, unsure if he was going to help Alex stop Tony or help Tony but stopping Alex, however he doesn't have to make his decision because he notices that Alex hasn't moved from his spot. "Alex, are you okay?" He questions as his eyes leave Tony's moving figure and go to the still boy.
"I did this!" Alex says in a panicked breath as he looks around his surroundings. "Everyone's gonna die, and it's all my fault!" He says his shaking hands attempting to hold his mouth and this his chest but he fails at both and simply drops them to the cold tiled floor. "What? No." Charlie says, trying to keep his voice calm and he goes back into his spot next to Alex. "No! Tony was right!" Alex forces out as his voice cracks and squeaks more than ever before. "Maybe we could have stopped him! I fu-" He gasps. "I fucked this up like I fuck up everything!" He shouts, hitting the table above their heads before he starts wheezing uncontrollably, his whole body betraying him as it shakes.
"Alex?" Charlie asks, his voice sounding unnaturally calm. "I can't breathe." Alex says. "Uh..." Charlie says his eyes searching for something, anything, but he doesn't know what to say so he says the first thing his eyes land on. "Your hands! What do they feel like?" He asks, and Alex looks at him like he's lost his mind. "I don't fucking know! I think I'm dying!" He says, his voice growing louder and panicking the other students even more than they already are.
"Just grab my hands!" Charlie says as a last resort. "Squeeze my hands and breathe, I know you can do this." He says, and Alex does as he's told, at first he's still wheezing, his chest hurting from the rapid movement, but soon his breathing goes back to normal.
In the small two stall bathroom Maddie and Estela stand in the bathroom talking quietly to Tyler when they hear the first bang. Tyler jumps while Maddie and Estela join hands and they all look to the door. "What was-" Estela starts but she can't finish her sentence because there are multiple gun shots. Maddie screams loud enough that Estela and Tyler's reaction can't be heard. For once Estela is the brains and pulls Maddie into one of the stalls, the both of them clamor onto the toilet and hold onto each other for balance.
After a few minutes Estela and Tyler have both calmed down, they're both terrified but they're quiet and they're calm. Maddie on the other hand is neither of those things. She's wheezing loudly and sobbing every few minutes because she's trying to stop the wheezing and isn't succeeding, her hands shake while she tries to cover her mouth and she is continuously making noises as she uses her sweaty palms to push herself back up against the stalls.
Estela is looking at Maddie with a new kind of sadness and it makes her feel sick, to Estela she's always been this strong girl who sneaks into her house to save her from her father's abuse or her brothers anger, she's never seen this Maddie, the real Maddie. The blonde is still shaking, still crying but she holds out her hand to the dark haired girl, when she takes it Maddie gives her a pained smile before she takes in a deep breath. "You're going to be okay." Estela says, but it sounds more like a weak question.
Finally Maddie is quiet and she's not crying anymore but she doesn't speak, and she doesn't even look at Estela when she starts to talk. "Why would someone do this?" She asks, and you can hear that she's on the verge of crying again. "Maybe they're in a lot of pain, and they think that this will make it stop." He says, and Maddie can't help but hold onto his words, she knows that he's talking from personal experience, she'll never forget the dead look in his eyes as he held a machine gun up at her and Justin at the dance not much more than a year ago.
"How could hurting someone else stop it?" Estela asks, and Maddie squeezes her eyes shut. "It doesn't, but you don't know that.." He stops for a second and sniffles, "you just, you're so sad and that sadness makes you angry all the time. Like you thought making a fist would feel good, and it does. You feel strong again, but then you can never, never unclench that fist, and you just feel like you need to hurt someone." Tyler says, his voice growing smaller and smaller making Maddie listen even more intently, they'd never talked about that night.
Maddie could see the look on Estela's face, and she knew what she was going to ask before she asked it. "Did you hurt someone else?" She questions quietly, her eyes on the metal wall behind Maddie, like she was trying to see through it to see Tyler. It takes a moment before he answers her, "I almost did, but my friends.." He says and Maddie watches as Estela scrunches up her face to fight her tears. "Maddie, Justin, Clay. All of them helped me get better." He says, and Maddie almost feel guilty, because there was a time where she felt uncomfortable being around him, both before and after the attempted shooting.
Maddie tries to focus on her breathing once they start to talk about Monty, it's weird to feel out of place in the middle of something like this but she does. She feels like she's interrupting an intimate moment, and it makes her want to be in Justin's arms even more than before.
Justin is in the office talking to the coach when they both hear the players start to move so they walk out, and just like they thought the players were moving forward, towards the door. "Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?" He asks, his voice forceful. "Get back in there!" He says, but Diego has no play in listening to his coach. "Those were gunshots. We can't sit here and let people get killed." He says and Kerba rolls his eyes. "Look, that hero talk ain't worth your lives."
Diego takes a step forward, his face stony. "Well I'm done hiding and I don't run."
"No, see, you fight as a last resort only. Now go sit the fuck down." Kerba says, but Diego keeps his face clear as she stands still, and Kerba does the same, so finally Justin speaks up from behind coach. "Alright come on Diego." Justin pleads, his voice so close to shaking you could hear it. "People are scared." He says, gesturing behind his player. "Well I ain't scared." Diego lies. "I'm ready to fight."
They all stay silent but Diego was right, he was ready for a fight. "What you aren't ready?" He asks, his eyes dead set on Justin. "Some boyfriend you are. You don't even know where Maddie is do you? You're just ready to let her die" He says, so clearly that it must be a fact in his mind but everyone else can see the heartbroken look on his face and his adam's apple move as he forces himself to swallow the lump in his throat.
The team stays silent for a second, Kerba watched Justin, and Justin tries not to think about the fact Maddie has ignored every single one of his texts. "Fuck!" He shouts, his word cracking in the middle as he lunges toward Diego but Kerba pushes him back and then pushes Diego back into the locker room where they were told to sit to begin with.
Justin slides down on the ground, his breathing uneven as he tries Maddie again, no answer. Just like last time.
Only this time an alarm is blaring.
So now he's panicking, he texts Zach, Clay, even Jessica. Everyone he can think of, he only gets a response from Jessica which sounds just as rude as their normal conversations. His heart is racing, she always has her phone on her, why isn't she responding?
Then he thinks of someone. The one person who seems to hates him more than most, but he knows she'll know.
Rocky has never felt more alone in her life. She's surrounded by other bodies, people going through the same event, the same thoughts and emotions but she feels alone. She left her best friend in the hallway alone, god knows where she ended up or who she's with. Zach couldn't talk to her like a normal person for five minutes. She's been texting Maddie and Zach back to back but she hasn't received a response.
It's the same situation as her waiting for an update from his accident, except she wasn't sitting under a desk in fear of gunshots sounding throughout her schools hallways. She hopes they're together, that they just dropped their phone, something, anything other than what keeps plaguing her mind.
She thinks of her other friends like Brook from Chemistry or Kaya from English, and she feels worry for them but her mind goes back to the Dempsey siblings, just like it always does. It's always like this, she's safe but who knows where they are or how much trouble they're in, she hates the pit in her stomach that always forms when they're away from her.
She's about to send another text to Maddie apologizing for leaving her in the hall, saying they should be hiding together, that she's worried and she needs to text back when a random message pops up.
"Maybe: Justin Foley"
She scrunches an eyebrow and even in the midst of this tragedy she feels the need to roll her eyes. "Please tell me she's with you."
This makes her stomach drop.
"I was hoping she was with you."
~~~Author's Notes~~~
Hey guys!
So my first year of college is finally done! I missed updating so much!
I think this chapter is kind of lacking, but I couldn't figure what needed changed or how to change the few things I thought of.
I'm going to be writing (hopefully) a lot now so if you guys have any ideas, suggestions, or literally anything please comment, post on my wall, or even message me I love love LOVE using your guys ideas in my writing it's so fun and makes me feel really grateful and connected to both my book and you guys!
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and i hope to see y'all in the comments!
See ya soon!
{5.17.22}