⛔ This one might hurt.

Ink, Paper, and Goodbye

My heart bumps into concrete when my eyes contemplate the scene before me. "Mrs. Woolf?" I gulp.

"This is the last box." Dean's head appears in the window frame we broke a couple of weeks ago. He slides out a heavy box and Mrs. Woolf quickly bends to grab it.

Lukah, Raiden, and Camille arrive at the scene and the three of them quickly crawl down and help Dean come out. Once he is out, his back collapses against the wall and he drags himself down until he is sitting on the floor.

Camille throws herself at him, with her arms around his neck. He starts coughing non-stop.

"I have some water." Dawn hands him a bottle.

Dean pushes Camille aside with a jerky and sudden movement. "Just let me breathe. I'm okay."

My eyes drag to Mrs. Woolf's wrinkled hands trying to pull up the box Dean has just dragged out of the library. Behind her I spot two white, metallic containers that are taller than me. There are tiny wheels at the bottom of them, and towards the center of one of them, there are two locks on it. A heavy padlock hangs from each of them.

"What do you have in there?" I ask, my voice comes out broken.

"This boy helped me put all the books safely into these boxes-where they should have always been." Mrs. Woolf looks pointedly at me. Her chin is held up, and her eyes are blazing with anger.

"Dean?" I glare at him. A thousand questions flash before my eyes. "You helped her lock them in here?"

"I just got a few of them out, Sunset. It's better to be trapped in a box than for them to disappear forever." His grey eyes look wildly at me.

"For the love of God! It's just books, people!" Camille waves her hands in the air.

"Let me help you." Lukah grabs the box himself and tries to put it inside the container.

"No!" I yell at him.

I sprint towards him and snatch the box out of his grasp. The box was so heavy that I accidentally throw it on the ground. Pride and Prejudice, The Hunger Games, and other books lie scattered on the pebbled surface of the street. My knees fall to the ground and I start tucking each of the books against my chest.

"Mss. Williams, you have to give them to me." She crawls down until she is at eye-level with mine.

I shake my head. Then, her eyes look up and they transform into a glare, emphasized with her furrowed grey eyebrows.

"You took them out again?" she sneers.

I look behind me and I find Tessa and Hardin. "It was just today. I brought them back."

She stands up, while I remain with my knees stuck to the concrete below me. The books are pressed tightly against my chest.

"Return to me all the books, right now. This has gone far enough," she demands, showing the palm of her hand stretched towards me.

Tears flood the bottom of my eyes, and I feel them streaming down my face. "Please."

"Sunset, just give them back." Dean is standing now, his arms akimbo.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I shoot at him. "How high are you, jerk?" his eyes glistening more than usual.

"Stop the drama Sunset, just give them back. You can easily get a new copy of those." Raiden crawls to me and helps me stand up. The books are still tucked under my arms.

I try to take a deep breath, but I just can't. Only small amounts of air find a way into my nostrils.

"It's okay, Sunset, baby. It's going to be okay." Tessa appears next to me. Raiden stands up and takes a step back. Tessa's hand cradles the side of my face, and I clasp it with both of mine. "We'll be okay. It's what we are," her voice trembles. "We can't escape," she speaks next to my ear now, "but we can accept the narrative that we were assigned to." Her eyes lock with mine.

"That's so unfair! no one deserves this." My arms fly around her neck. Both of us are kneeling on the ground.

Tessa slowly loosens her arms around me. While her kind, teary eyes remain locked on mine, she grabs-one by one-the books I have on my grasp. With a loud sob, I let her take them away from me. She stands up and hands the books to Mrs. Woolf.

My hand dives into my bag, and I take out my open copy of After. I try to gulp, but I just can't. Nothing seems to fit into my shrunk throat. Not even my own saliva.

"Wait." Hardin steps towards me, until he is towering over me. He grabs my hand and helps me stand up. His deep green eyes delve into my simply brown ones. My lips roll inwards, and I press them tightly to fight the tears that keep streaming down-but it is a lost battle, and I know it.

I inhale sharply when the sobs continue to burst out from my mouth. "Hardin." My arms cling to his neck, while his arms envelop me in the strongest hug I have ever received in my entire life. I think I hear him sob, but he covers it quickly with some short coughing noises.

"Shh." He tries to calm me down. "Listen to me." He grabs my face with both of his hands. "You-"

My crying is getting a real mess right now.

"Sunset, for the love of God, this is not the end of the world. It's just ink and paper, Jesus Christ," Raiden interjects, with a prominent scowl drawn on his face.

"You shut the fuck up," Hardin growls.

His words impact Raiden because he goes mute, without even questioning him.

Hardin turns back to me. "You have the power to change your story. Never forget that. We will never, never-" His voice breaks for a second. "We will never forget you."

I sob loudly or maybe it was heart shattering. My eyes drag up to the starless night. I just need the universe around me to hear the sheer pain inside of me. I feel my heart breaking, literally breaking, smashing into pieces as if it would be made of bones, and one by one they were snapping broken inside of me.

"Lukah," Hardin calls him. Lukah appears next to us in the beat of a heart. Hardin breaks his link to me and guides me into Lukah's arms. "You hold her now, for as long as she needs to."

"Please, no. I beg you, Mrs. Woolf."

Lukah hushes me and tucks my head against his chest. But I want to see them before they disappear forever from my sight. "Let go of me. Please. Please. Let me hug them one more time."

Lukah drags me away, while Hardin grabs the After copy from my hands and gives it to Mrs. Woolf.

"Raiden," Hardin speaks, addressing my brother. "The fact that some pains are not physical, and visible doesn't mean that they don't exist. Try to go easy on your sister, most of her pain is invisible to the eyes."

I hear the clap of the book closing, and I know that they are gone.

"What the fuck just happened?" Raiden asks, but no one replies.

Mrs. Woolf bends to put the books inside the box that fell before. Dean walks towards her and helps put the book inside the container.

"Dean! NO! what are you doing? don't help her!"

"Lukah, take her away from here," he commands his twin brother.

I shove Lukah away from me and stride towards Dean. I try to snatch the box away from him, but he is faster and he quickly puts it inside the container.

"What did you do?" My heart lies shattered at the bottom of that burned library. "I just didn't want you helping her do that. I didn't want you to be part of this--- of this... of this crime against characters."

"I guess I'm too high to care." He gulps. "Just as you always thought about me, right?"

His words force me to step back. I feel like I stumble, as I walk backward, and I almost fall to the ground when I see how Mrs. Woolf locks the containers with a massive, heavy key. Lukah's arms find me before I meet the floor.

"It's just ink and paper," Lukah whispers to my ear. "Just ink and paper," he keeps repeating as he drags me away from the scene.

Raiden and Dean help push the containers into a big truck, and I see them disappear before my eyes.

Goodbye.