The slow ticking of the clock could learn a thing or two from my racing heart. I'd been staring at the bold-faced circle for over an hour, holding my breath every few seconds, my legs bouncing with anxiety. Every click of a lead pencil, thud of a textbook closing, tapping of a foot, had me spiraling. I tried to reassure myself as Dr. Bellecourt had suggested, using breathing techniques and mentally checking off a list of reasons why I was safe, but it didn't do much. I could still feel the tingling starting in my fingertips and found it difficult at various times throughout the day to catch my breath: the makings of a panic attack. I'd had my fair share of them the last two months, and they'd ended as brutally as the one I had waking up in the hospital the day after the massacre. I'd been here a week, and hadn't done much to drawn attention to myself, and planned on keeping it that way. A panic attack would ensure the very opposite.

The shrill screech of the last bell should have relaxed me, but I couldn't bring myself to gather my things and head for the door the rest of the class was pouring out of. My mind told me to stand, to get out of this prison before it could trap me, but my legs wouldn't budge. The same legs that always hung out from underneath my desk, ready to take off toward the door or throw myself out a window at any second. The Art teacher, Mr. Andrews, glanced toward me in the back of the classroom as soon as his door shut behind the last student, thin blonde eyebrows drawing in confusion as to why I hadn't budged.

I had liked Mr. Andrews the second Garrett had dropped me off at this classroom Monday. Not just because of his abstract art and easygoing, carefree attitude, but because he had made it a point to not draw attention to me. Garrett had introduced me before the bell, and instead of making me stand before the entire class, he made sure that I was at the back of the classroom so eyes wouldn't find me as easily. He was wearing a loose grey shirt speckled with black paint and a pair of jeans, nothing like the strict, boring dress code his coworkers had been sporting since I walked through the front door. His hair was as long as mine, though a few shades lighter, the color of straw. With his light beard and attire, it was hard to tell if he was trying to go for a hipster nomad or a Jesus kind of look.

"Everly." he says now, drawing my attention to him. He had crossed the room and seated himself on the table in front of me. Like his clothes, his black work shoes were splattered with a variety of different colored paints, planted on the blue surface of the hard plastic as if it were tile.

He was the only teacher that had referred to me by my first name and it had felt nice. To not be a Rodgers for once, but Everly. To be my own person. "I'm glad you stayed behind actually. I wanted to talk to you about the drawing you turned in Tuesday."

The project had been to draw how we felt at that very moment in time. I'd been terrified at first, not knowing how to express the hurricane of emotions that were at war with one another inside me. He'd been so encouraging that I'd finally just let my hands move across the paper, even if my mind couldn't quite process what I was doing until I had finished it.

"The small candle in the darkness was brilliant." he praised, making gestures with his longer, slender fingers. "The metaphor, the artistry, was incredible. I'm not supposed to say this, but you're definitely one of the most promising students I've had in years, and I can't wait to see more of your work."

Averting my eyes, I looked down at the brown laminate under my elbows, not sure if a nod would be appropriate in this situation but didn't want to try and risk speaking and having the teacher loose his chill factor and start worrying. I hadn't spoken since Monday morning, and though Garrett had insisted we hung outside on the brick wall at lunch every day, he was comfortable with my silence and had managed to fill it with all his endless rants about how shitty the cafeteria food was for a school our parents paid so much for.

"I also wanted to tell you something that was said to me at a very young age. I think you might enjoy it." he continued and leaned forward, the bottom of his black work shoes tapping against the blue chair as he swatted a strand of his hair out of his eye. "My grandfather was a very eccentric man, but sometimes he had these motivational speeches that he pulled from thin air. And one of those was about art, as he was a painter himself. He told me that that when my mouth can't do the speaking, that my hands can do the painting. He said, "Michael, son, words fail. But when this happens, you can channel all things unspoken, all your emotions, into your art."' Everly, I know what you have been through is beyond comprehension, and promises of us all being here for you won't take away the pain, the memories, and trauma. But I see potential in your art, in you. And if that is the outlet you choose to use to express yourself, I won't stop you, nor will anyone outside of you and me see it without your consent."

I could feel my eyes stinging with tears hearing the soften spoken, but heartwarming words.

Half a dozen psychiatrists had nothing on my new art teacher.

"If you ever need anything, even if it's just a new pencil, I'm here." he jumped from the table and smiled down at me. "Us abstract people gotta stick together."

**

Mom and Dad didn't try to conversate right away, not with me anyway. They were the middle of a heated conversation about the last shipment of our furniture and when it was to be delivered. As of now, we were still lacking our mahogany kitchen table, both couches, and the TV for my bedroom, not that I'd be watching it anytime soon. Having gone from three teenage children to just one had my parents downsizing to a one story, cute little house smack dab in the middle of the city. Except for me, the house wasn't appealing in the least. It was too big, despite being only two bedrooms, and when I wanted to scream, I feared it would shout back down at me. The floors were hardwood and had been replaced a couple months before moving in and stretched all the way down the hall to end at the bedrooms and bathroom. But every step I took, I swore I could hear it creaking beneath my light weight. Both rooms were lined with grey carpet, soft, warm carpet that I'd spent more time on then my own bed the last week. The walls were a soft lavender, an accent that matched our couches and blinds, and my mother had persisted on until my father caved. "It's supposed to be calming." She'd say.

No color was going to be able to drown out the voices in my head crying for help.

"Evie." Mom snapped her fingers in front of my face to draw my attention back into the present, her and my father sharing the same concerned look. "Sweetheart, are you okay?"

I nodded, stabbing at my pasta despite not having an appetite.

"How's school been?" Dad asked quietly, then a little louder, added. "Any friends yet?"

Shrugging my left shoulder carelessly, I whispered, "Yeah. But he's popular, so I try to keep my distance."

"He?" they echoed in unison.

Four months ago they would have been grilling me about being too young to date, even having been with Miles, Dad had wanted me to at least be out front under his roof before I started to grow up on him. Now they wore looks of sympathy and uncertainty. Sympathy for the pain in my chest any time I thought of the one boy I'd loved with everything in me. Uncertainty for the knowledge of my newest and only friend being a male.

"His name is Garrett Brooks." I went on, shocked by how steady my voice remained. "Think he plays a sport, but he doesn't really talk about himself much. Just about how crappy the lunch food is."

"Brooks?" Mom pressed her lips together and looked to the ceiling, deep in thought. "I think his mother may be one of my coworkers. Sweetest little thing, but she's always boasting about her sweet little boy. I guess he isn't so little."

I didn't know what to say or have anything to add to that, so I went back to staring at my food and pretending I didn't feel my parent's eyes burning into my scalp.

"How have your sessions with Dr. Bellecourt been going?" Mom tried to spark conversation again, sipping at a glass of wine. "You haven't asked to switch doctors yet, so I'm hopeful."

"They've been okay." I murmured, avoiding her eyes. "I like her."

They had been three long days of two hours of just listening to her ramble on about coping mechanisms and trying her hardest to get me to open up, even just a little. But I needed my parents to have some kind of hope, however false it was.

"I was thinking maybe I pick you up after school Friday afternoon and we head to the mall and—"

"No." I dropped my fork against my plate as I spoke, startling my father. They both looked toward me, eyes widening fearfully. "I don't understand how you two can be like. . . like this."

My gesture toward them did nothing. My father only shook his head and set his own utensils down. "Like what, Everly?"

"Acting like it didn't happen." I started, rising to my feet shakily. "Acting like your sons didn't walk into our school with semi-automatics and singlehandedly kill forty people. Acting like everywhere we turn people don't stop and stare."

My words earned me a choked, horrified sob out of my mother and a hardened look from my father. They had wanted me to speak, right?

"It happened." Dad eventually mustered up a response. "But us sitting here and dwelling on—"

"Sitting here and dwelling?" my throat was full of shards of glass stabbing me in every direction as my voice continued to rise. "Forty people are dead, Dad! More than half of them were kids no older than me! They were someone's daughter or son! Someone's child! Miles is dead, my Miles, my boyfriend, is dead. He never even got to walk the God Damn stage for graduation, Dad! I almost died."

"Everly, sw—"

I shook my head angrily. "No, no. You weren't there. You of all people should know what it's like to not feel safe anymore. To jump at every loud sound, every bang of a door shutting thinking it's a bullet. I can't sleep, Dad. I can't breathe. I can't walk through the hallway at my new school without cowering in on myself on the verge of a panic attack. Everywhere I go people stare at me and whisper, distance themselves in fear and awe. But everywhere I go I don't see just that. I see the colorless faces, the bloodied faces, of my dead classmates. Of Frankie. You don't get to tell me not to sit and dwell."

Before either parent could stop me, I shoved away from the table and started toward the door, grabbing my jacket on my way out before slamming the door shut behind me.

*

I didn't think I had a destination until my legs finally gave out in front of a church. A beautiful white cathedral my mother would have kneeled before once upon a time. Now she did all she could to avoid even speaking of God. In her eyes, if He existed, her boys wouldn't have done something so sickening and forty innocent lives wouldn't have been taken, including that of one of her babies. I had been contemplating my own beliefs since the second I stared into a barrel of a gun. Rather than test my own waters and go in, I lowered myself on to the stone steps under my feet and turned my back to the church.

The jacket I'd all but ripped from the coat rack wasn't even mine, but my ex-boyfriend's Letterman. My dead boyfriend. I'd been wearing it the morning of the shooting, and though I'd promised to hand back over to Miles later in the day, I hadn't. I'd stuffed it in my locker and hurried to my second period with nothing but our exams on my mind. I had also tried to hand it over to Mrs. Baxter as a silent peace offering of sorts at his funeral, but she'd refused it. Promising that he wouldn't have wanted it to ever leave my possession. Even then I had seen it, as much as she'd tried to conceal it, the bitterness and anger. Why had I gotten to walk out of that school alive while she was forced to go and ID her dead son's body? Her son who had scouts lining up for him. Her son who was on his way to an incredible bright and beautiful future. Her son who had died a hero, saving not only my life but an entire cafeteria of our peers.

The little sleep I got was plagued by the nightmares that haunted me while my eyes were open, and no matter how tight I hugged the jacket against me, I couldn't feel him anymore. It was as if the second he slipped away in my arms, he took every memory with him. It had become so hard to remember what his voice sounded like I logged on to my laptop every night and played old videos until my vision became so blurred with tears I couldn't make anything out but my uncontrollable sobs. It hadn't been that way at first, the contrary. Every time I was on the verge of a panic attack, it was his voice I had heard soothing me. But with every passing second, the feeling and sound of him slipped away just as he had.

"Everly." a surprised gasp tore through my quiet sanctuary on the church steps. Casting a look over my shoulder, I found Garrett standing outside of white doors in a white button up and a pair of black slacks. He'd rolled up the cuffs of his sleeves so his tattoo was visible, as was a scar on his left hand. "What are you doing here?"

I didn't even bother to answer but retrained my eyes on the shoe scuffed concrete beneath my Vans. Having grown used to my silence, Garrett didn't push or pry, but joined me on the steps, sitting a stair below so he was level with my leg. Under different circumstances I may have been curious as to why he was here. He didn't seem to be the church-going type cursing every other word when he spoke, or with the metal and rock music that nearly blew out the small speaker on his phone. I should know better than to judge someone solely based on their appearances and likes.

"Sometimes I do this." he broke the silence, making a gesture with his index finger between the two of us. "Sit out here instead of going in. Because my relationship with God is personal. I don't have to be in a building to express my gratitude or anger, or whatever emotion is tearing me apart at that very moment."

Dropping my gaze to my hands, I ran the index finger of my right hand down the scar dividing my left palm. "It's hard to believe something outside of us exists when it allows such cruel things to happen in this world."

"I like to think He put us here to learn, pave our own paths, you know?" Garrett muttered, not at all affected by my weak voice. "That's why there is war, pain, heartache, murder. Because to learn we need to make mistakes. We need to have a counter point. All these Bible thumpers think God is responsible for it all, but in reality, it's us. Humanity."

I lifted my head and turned to look at him, immediately meeting his eyes. Under the dim light of the moon and starless sky, they were a haunting blue, like that over a riptide before it pulls you under.

"Do you think people are born evil?" I whispered.

He considered my words for a long time, eyes wandering every inch of my face as if he were trying to figure out what would trigger the hairline cracks woven throughout. Finally, he leaned forward and touched a hand to my knee. "I think some people have chemical imbalances in their brains and are more susceptible to the darkness that threatens to consume all of us. But to answer your question, no, I don't think people are born evil. I think their upbringing, their trauma, the milestones, mold them into who they'll be. Whether a person is good or bad depends on their childhood."

I hugged Miles' jacket tighter around me and stared straight ahead instead of responding, but Garrett didn't seem to mind the quiet. He leaned back on his elbows, gazing up into the endless darkness above us, lit by only the light of the moon. If Garrett was right, did that mean that all the abuse inflicted on Clark and Frankie from our peers, from our father, had been a huge determining factor in their decision? I wanted to believe that there was still good, any good, in my brothers, but I couldn't bring myself to even think back to the pleasant memories I did have with them. They were cold blooded murders; they didn't deserve forgiveness.

Did I?