I'm sitting on the side of the hospital bed; my legs dangle off the edge. My body is frozen. I'm barely breathing, but yet I'm still alive.

I'm alive, and Ryder is not.

Why would he do that? Why would he jump in front of me? Why would he shield me from what was meant for me?

The bullets were for me, not him; Travis wanted to kill me.

Bang

My breath hitches; I look over to my right. Caleb is still standing alive and well. Travis shot past him. Was it on purpose? Caleb looks at me; his expression is blank, as it should be for someone who saw his life flash before his eyes.

I look back at Travis; his gun is now pointed straight at me. I don't have time to do anything; I can't scream, I can't run; I can only embrace what's coming.

His hand squeezes the trigger; I close my eyes.

I then feel tight arms wrap around me.

Bang

Bang

Bang

A sharp pain comes to the back of my head once I hit the ground, and then everything goes dark.

The door flies open and incomes, the last person I want to see...my father. He rushes over to me and embraces me in a hug; I don't hug him back. I don't have the strength to.

He releases me and then looks into my eyes, "Are you okay?" he asks. I don't respond. I just watch him with a blank expression. Even if I wanted to say something, I don't think I could.

"Jayda," he says softly trying to get me to speak. I don't change my expression; I watch as his concern takes over his face. "I need a nurse in here!" he yells.

A few seconds later, a nurse walks into the room. "There's something wrong she's not talking, she's not--" his voice cracks; he doesn't finish his sentence.

"Doctor Grey!" the nurse calls.

A blonde lady appears at the door; I don't turn my head to look at her; I just keep looking straight ahead. "What's wrong?" Her voice is high pitched.

"She's not responding,"

"Jayda, can you hear me?" she asks me while walking over.

I try to say something, but my mouth doesn't open.

She grabs one of the little black lights off the wall and then says, "I'm going to shine this in your eyes, okay?"

Okay

The light shines in my eye. Usually, I blink when the doctors do this, but this time I don't. She sighs and then stands up straighter; she then turns to my father and says, "She's in shock,"

"Wha-- What does that mean?" he asks. "Can she not talk anymore?"

"It's up to her; she needs time," she explains.

"How much time?" he asks sternly.

"I don't know; it's up to her," she repeats. What she just went through," she shakes her head, trying to find the words, "No child should ever have to go through,"

My father sighs, "Can she-- Can she hear me?"

"She can," Doctor Grey replies.

He walks back over to me and looks at me like I am completely broken.

The doctor says "I'm going to get a nurse to come and stitch her side up and put a cast on her arm."

"Why wasn't this done already?" he asks sternly.

"She wouldn't stop crying, which means that she wouldn't stop moving," she says. "They couldn't stitch her up unless she was still,"

My father then asks, "She wasn't like this at first?"

Doctor Grey looks to the nurse for an answer, "She was crying hysterically, we tried to get her to calm down, but she wouldn't. She was in the room when the boy..." the nurse stops talking.

My father doesn't say anything more he just looks back at me.

The doctor and the nurse walk out the room; my father squats and looks at me, "I going to call mom," he informs me, "I'll be right outside the door,"

...

I watch as my legs continue to dangle back and forth; everything feels like a dream; two hours ago, I was sitting enjoying a football game. And now I am in a hospital drenched in blood.

I look up and stare out the glass huge glass; I watch as my father paces back and forth on the phone—his hand in on his forehead, showing a sigh of distress. My mother is probably losing her mind right now, as she should be.

A woman and man turn the corner. It takes me a second or realizes who it is; Josiah and Evelyn. My heart sinks; they walk up to the desk front and get the receptionist's attention, there too far away, so I can't read their lips.

The lady at the front desk picks up the phone, she starts talking and then hangs up. My father walks over to them; Josiah and Evelyn turn around. I can see their mouths now.

"Marcus?" Evelyn questions,

"What are you doing here?" Josiah asks.

I can't see what my father said, but I know he mentioned me because Josiah and Evelyn both look straight ahead at me. My breath hitches, I try to hide the guilt on my face, but I can't.

Evelyn looks back at my father and says, "I don't understand,"

Just then, a woman appears from around the corner; she walks up to them; her back is towards me, but I don't need to see her lips to know what she is telling them. Evelyn covers her mouth and then slowly bends; Josiah tries to hold her up, my father also does, but her body has gone completely limp.

Screams mixed with sob falls from Evelyn's mouth, even with the door closed I can hear. She turns around and grips her husband tightly. Josiah returns the gesture.

The lady says something; they release from their comforting hug and then follow her to the back. My father walks back over to where he was once standing. I watch as my father rests his head against the wall; his eyes are closed.

He's probably putting himself in their shoes. Wondering what if that was him being told that I was dead and that they did everything they could?

That should've been my parents. It should've been my mother and my father being told that I am gone.

I'm supposed to be dead!

Me, not Ryder.

...

"How is that?" The nurse asks as she pulls my shirt down; the stitches didn't hurt. I felt nothing at all. I sit up on the side of the bed. She comes from around me and walks in front of me, and says, "Your father told me you like black," she pulls out the tape for my cast and then begins wrapping it. I watch as she goes around and around, covering every white part.

After she finishes, she walks over to one of the drawers and pulls out a gown. "Here you need to change; we have to do a CT scan to make sure there aren't any brain bleeds," she explains, "You hit your head pretty hard, you blacked out."

She places the gown on the bed and says "I'll be back," before walking out the room.

I blacked out. That makes sense. That explains why I can't remember what happened to Caleb and why Jessica was in the ambulance.

I know he isn't dead, but what happened? Did he go back to the game? Is there even still a game? I know everyone heard the shots. Surely they would've stopped the game.

Ryders the QB; they can't play without him.

Well he was the QB.

Jessica must have been walking through the parking lot when everything happened. She called me seconds before Kaite.

Katie!

She set this up, she... how could she do this? She's the reason Ryder is dead.

Just saying... well just thinking the words make me sick to my stomach. He's dead. There's a sense of emptiness in me that I have never felt before. He's actually gone, and... and it's all my fault.

I'm the reason he's dead, Travis pulled the trigger, but I killed him.

What was he even doing out there? He still had the money with him; why?

Whatever he had it for, I know it had something to do with me. That's all he has been trying to do was help me even though I told him several times not to for this very exact reason.

But he didn't listen, and now he's gone!

A piece of me feels broken, an unexpected feeling for someone I had a weird relationship with. Our strange relationship, our mysterious connection, was somewhat starting to become normal.

It was starting to feel almost familiar.

We were getting somewhere, and now we will never go anywhere.

I don't know what's worse, the shock of what happened or the ache from what never will.

~~~

( So I'm currently binging Greys Anatomy lol hence why there's a doctor Grey. 😂 Uhm yeah so doctor Grey is herself.

Also there are a couple name changes The Adams Family in the being was Scott now it's Adams.... Kennth Scott is now Josiah Adams... I don't think I changed anyone else just him and there last name.

Josiah Adams- Matthew Settle *aka Rufus Humphrey from Gossip Girl

Evelyn Adams- Angelina Jolie *aka maleficent and hundreds of other things

Marcus King- Jamie Fox)