Your mother tells me you spent yesterday evening with a friend." Dr. Bellecourt said following a very uncomfortable ten-minute silence. She reached up and tightened her blonde ponytail with a forced smile. "That is a monumental step, befriending someone."

"He's not my friend." I mumbled, hardly audible. If we hadn't been in a room so silent I could hear the mechanics of the bathroom a few doors down, she wouldn't have heard it.

Unfortunately, she had, and it was the first words spoken in her presence, which of course, to her, would also be a "monumental" step.

"And why is that?" she questioned, shifting her Mac on her thick thigh. I retracted my legs back on to the sofa I sat on, tucking them under my butt.

"I don't trust him." I said softly, curling my cold fingers against a small tear in my jeans.

Oblivious to my discomfort speaking on the topic, she looked at me over her laptop. "Why do you think that is?"

"Because the two people I trusted with my life tried to end it." the words escaped me before I could stop them. They felt like a blow to the side of the head, leaving me disoriented as I tried to comprehend what I'd just told the psychiatrist. Still in and out of reality as she spoke, I only watched the middle-aged woman's purple lips move, but couldn't hear a word she said. Then, almost as if it were an outside force bringing me back to reality, a loud clap of thunder sounded through the room. I threw myself to the floor and crawled around the side, dragging my body along the Persian rug so quickly I could feel the carpet burn on my elbows as I sat myself upright against the side of the grey sofa.

One, breathe. Two, you're okay. Three, you're safe. Four, they're gone. Five—

"Everly." Dr. Bellecourt cautiously lowered herself to the ground on my left side, her computer having vanished into thin air. She touched a hand to the carpet, nodding slowly. "Think about the textures of the carpet. A big, deep breath in, then release it slowly."

My entire body was trembling, tingling from my fingertips up my arm and into my chest as I tried to catch my breath. The doctor's image was fading in and out with the tears that blurred my vision, her voice calm and steady, as if she'd done this hundreds of times.

"Listen to my voice. The drawl of every word." she continued, then moved a little closer to me. "I know it can be annoying when I talk. Like a Dolly Parton audible on replay."

The joke was enough to break the spell and I looked toward the window, watching as the rain fell in sheets, fogging the window and flooding the street. I felt her warm hand grasp my cold fingers, and slowly turned back to her with a shake of my head.

"It's okay." she assured, squeezing my hand. "You're okay, Everly."

Lies, I wanted to say, I'm never going to be okay again.

I couldn't even sit and a place of security without the shooting finding a way to creep beneath my skin and pierce through the walls I continuously had to rebuild around me to keep my guard up.

That morning, the screams, the gunshots, the tortured look on Brady's face as he nodded and laid himself over me until his breathing grew ragged, our blood muddying into a pool beneath me. The trapped, agonizing cry that threatened to escape me as my brother hunted me down like I was an animal. They all played on a continuous loop in my head, flashes of the day preying on my every thought. Some days I climbed into the shower and screamed and banged my hands against the wall until they were bruised and bloody. Some days I questioned why I was more deserving of walking out the building alive than that of the forty lives taken.

Then, on days like this, I understood. I may have walked out of Lincoln Heights that day, but a part of me remained on the bloodied tile. That part was now plagued with nightmares twenty-four hours a day and left to live in the aftermath of the trauma every waking moment of my life.

**

I couldn't say I was surprised to find my parents on the couch when I walked in, soaked from the downpour outside. Even my raincoat hadn't been enough to prevent the water from seeping through and drenching me head to toe. It didn't matter, I couldn't possibly feel any worse than I had the last four months.

"Dr. Bellecourt called." Mom said, though that much had been obvious by the appearance of my father at her side. The only time I saw my father lately was dinner, and even then, he wasn't a hundred percent there, but lost in his own thoughts somewhere far away from this place. Even now there was a blank look on his face, his eyes on the black television screen as if he were watching something play out only visible to him. "She said you made some progress today."

That caught me off guard. She hadn't run and told my parents about my episode?

"We're proud of you, Everly." Mom continued as she stood. She crossed the room in a quick stride and embraced me, but it was loose, lacking any emotion. It was as if a fragment of her had been lost that day too, and with it the memory loss of how to be a functioning mother. She spent more hours at the hospital now, picking up double and swing shifts so she didn't have to come home. "I have to go. There are leftovers in the fridge."

I watched her leave in silence, still a stiff, wet mess as she slipped into her coat and grabbed her keys. Once she had stepped out into the rain, I looked back to my father to find his dark eyes already on me. Though the scars I had weren't as visible as many of the other survivors of the shooting, I knew my father could see them, feel them, all the same. Before Clark had come and open fire on the school, he'd tried to shoot our father. He'd succeeded, but because of my father's military training, he was able to disarm him and only got Dad in the arm before he'd walked out the door and disappeared. Dad had called the police, but it had taken them close to a half hour to locate my brother.

"You should go change clothes before you get sick." Dad's words were quiet, but like Mom's, emotionless.

"You can't keep pretending it didn't happen." I responded, unable to contain the hurt that sprung tears to my eyes. "It happened and forty people are dead because of it."

My father turned his dead stare in my direction. "I know it happened, but I don't know how you expect me to feel about it. I. . . I always knew your brother was troubled, but I could never have imagined he'd do what he did."

"But he did, Dad." I crossed my arms over my chest to keep my body from shaking. "So did Frankie. You and Mom, you walk around here like they never existed, like they didn't shoot and kill thirty of my classmates and eleven of my teachers. Not to mention the other fifteen they injured. Including me, your daughter."

"You think I don't think about that every second of my fucking life, Everly?" my father stood, pointing his finger accusingly at me from across the room. "About the fact they took my guns. You don't think I live with the guilt of knowing I unknowingly had a hand in the most fatal mass shooting to date? I taught them how to shoot for Christsake!"

I recoiled against the coat rack at the words, watching his entire face twist in agony.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to feel, Everly. I don't know how you want me to feel." he bowed his head, shaking it from side to side. "I can't even step foot outside this house without being attacked about gun laws. Harassed about keeping them available to my children knowing your brother was mentally ill. I lay in bed at night listening to your mother cry herself to sleep because she feels like she failed all three of you. I want to give you the response you want, sweetheart, I do, but it's easier for me to pretend it didn't happen."

I recollected myself and extended a hand to comfort him, only for it to fall limply to my side. "It wasn't your fault, Dad."

"But wasn't it?" he said, his voice catching in his throat, losing all control over his emotions. "I knew something wasn't right with him. I hit him, abused him, thinking it would whoop him into shape. It just damaged him more. All he needed was his father and I was very much the opposite of it."

"You can't blame yourself for his decision to take lives." I retorted. "Trust me, Dad, I tried to take the blame too. We all had some part in the broken man he became, but none of us forced his hand and made him choose to kill all those kids. Hundreds of kids are bullied, Dad, but most of them wouldn't even begin to think to do what Clark did."

My father raised his head again, his dark eyes misty, a stray tear rolling down his right cheek. "I'm so sorry, Evie."

I knew watching the strongest man I knew fall apart in front of me wasn't what I needed to get through this. It showed me that this was all far from over. Clark was in prison, Frankie was dead, but the destruction they'd left us to maneuver our way through was still very much here and it didn't appear that there was a clear exit in sight.

*

"Nope. We were supposed to practice today, but I was not going to be covered in mud and grass stains unless necessary." Garrett knocked his phone over as he flopped back down on his bed. He wasn't looking at me, but his bedroom ceiling as he buried a hand in his dark hair. I'd texted him a one sentenced summary of the session this afternoon, the next second he was Facetiming me. I'd tried to talk, but the only thing I'd been able to ask was how his day was. "I can feel you judging me through the damn screen, woman."

I opened my mouth to say something, but a number lit up my screen, threatening to interrupt my call with Garrett.

"Who's calling you?" he rolled over on to his stop and moved so he was holding his phone, his black bangs fanning his forehead and occasionally into his eyes as he awaited an answer. The fact he knew I was receiving a phone call just by the expression on my face was a bit strange, but I decided to ignore it.

"Another reporter." I mumbled. "They've been trying to get something out of my family since I was discharged from the hospital. They just don't stop."

His eyes softened into the deepest of oceans as he sighed quietly. "Shit, Everly. I'm sorry."

"I can't even sleep at night and these vultures want me to relive the day."

"Hey, don't let them get to you." a hint of a smile tugged at his lips, currently bitten raw from the nervous habit of gnawing on them when he was anxious. I wasn't sure if he realized he did it, but if there was one thing I'd learned the last few months, it was to be hyperaware of my surroundings, including the people within them. "I'll use my super-secret inner John Wick and dispose of them for you."

The words made my heart clench so hard I felt my breath catch. It sounded so much like something Miles would say to cheer me up. Somehow, that wasn't what hurt, but the fact that I'd never hear his quiet, breathy chuckle, or feel his lips against mine. I'd never get to hear him make the obnoxiously corny speech he'd promised for our wedding. The perfect future we'd had ahead of us was now paved with what-ifs and empty promises.

"Hey, that wasn't meant to upset you." Garett's rueful voice reminded me he was still on the other end, and I looked down to find that tears had filled my phone screen. "Don't make John Wick jokes, duly noted."

"It wasn't that." I found myself responding. "Sometimes the stuff you say reminds me of my boyfriend."

It was a monumental confession if I said so myself. Dr. Bellecourt would have been proud. Sadly, my audience was no more than the jock on the other side of my phone in his own room, and he stared back at me with nothing but sympathy.

"I'm sorry." he said quietly. "How about this? You let me know when I'm veering in that direction, and I'll stop. Even if it's slapping me upside the head, I'll get the hint."

"Okay." I agreed. Then looked at the time in the far top left corner of my phone. "We should probably get some sleep. It's already after midnight."

He looked as if he were going to protest the idea, but eventually gave me a quick, two fingered salute. "Alright, goodnight, Everly."

"Night."

Ending the call, I left my phone and headed for the bathroom, hesitant to flip the switch because I knew I wouldn't like who stared back at me in the mirror. As soon as my eyes had readjusted form the light blinding me, I grasped the edge of the counter and stared at my reflection.

My dark blonde hair was cascading down my back in thick waves, stained red throughout as if I'd sprayed crimson colored dye in various places through my hair. My face was ashen, blue eyes wide with terror and glossy with tears. Across my face was blood. My own, Miles', Brady's, and Frankie's. A speckled, abstract mess of reds from my jaw to my forehead. The white blouse I wore clung to me; the lower left side stained with blood flowing at an alarming rate. Reaching for the sink, I turned one of the knobs to release a steady flow of water, but when I glanced back up Clark was standing behind me, the semi-automatic rifle inches from the side of my head. His own hands were covered in blood that had been smeared across his exposed neck and pale face. I screamed, cupping my hands under the running water and splashing my face. When I looked back up, my brother was gone, with it my bloody appearance. The girl that stared back at me had her hair thrown in a messy, tangled bun and had lost so much weight that her cheeks had sunken in. The terror in her eyes was still there, but with it was a hurricane of every other emotion playing Russian roulette with it.

"I love you, Evie. That's why I'm asking this," Miles' voice rang through the quiet bathroom, immediately bringing tears to my eyes. "Come with me. After graduation. Come live with me and finish high school down there."

He'd pleaded it the night before the shooting, but I'd shaken my head in refusal and it had sparked an argument that would dissipate before he picked me up the next morning. The last morning I'd feel his arms around me, the feeling of his soft, full lips against mine.

"I love you."

The last three words that had escaped him.

By chance or coincidence, they'd been the last words Clark had said to me the night before as well, not even five minutes after Miles left.

Now, standing in my bathroom, tears dampening both cheeks and my body on the verge of yet another panic attack, all I wanted was to learn how to say those three words to myself and believe that I was worthy of them.