Brutally Beautiful(63)

“I don’t know if I’ll be capable of love, ever. Or trust. I’m panicking from hearing all the noise outside in the bar and I’m counting heads and windows. In my head, I’m going through all the different scenarios of someone coming in with a gun and how I would get to her and how I could save her, how I’d save everyone.”

“That’s what you do? You count heads and windows and constantly plan escapes? Lainey kind of talked to me the other day about PTSD and coping mechanisms, but I didn’t believe her fully. You never once let me help you. You never once let me in. I have no idea what you went through unless I read about it in the bloody paper.”

“You remember the sort of day it was, don’t you?” I whispered.

Dylan slumped against the wall heavily and nodded.

I ran my hand down my face and gave a dark chuckle. “It was one of those beautiful days, not average for Britain, strange it wasn’t rainy. I was with Thomas before first hour in our little hiding spot, getting in our last drags off our Marlboros before we headed inside. Lizbeth had just gone in. She was always afraid of being late. She gave me a snog. I had no idea that it would be the last time I would ever kiss her.”

My legs gave out and I just dropped down heavily to the floor. Dylan followed along and leaned his back up against his desk. I thoughtlessly played with the cuff of my jeans. “I had no idea that my world was going to shatter so completely when I stepped into that classroom. So many people asked me if there were any warning signs before it happened, any clue in the few minutes before when we were sneaking our smokes, but there were none, not then. The f*cking warning signs had come all before throughout all the years and months I’d known him. I knew Thomas better than anyone did. I knew him better than those analysts who tried to profile him did, I knew him better than his parents, and teachers. I knew when I stepped foot in there what he was capable of. I just didn’t choose to believe it.”

Dylan thudded his head against the desk, eyes rising to the ceiling, “I can remember the gunshots. We thought someone lit fireworks off in the main hall. But they had us evacuating immediately after. I knew it was bad. I knew it was bad the minute all the classrooms were emptied but yours. And we saw the bullet holes as they blasted through the window.”

I tried to even out my breathing, I didn’t need a full on panic attack right there in front of Dylan. “Not even two minutes after he walked in, he was standing in front of the class aiming, his black duffel bag full of guns at his feet. I was the first one, did you know that?”

Dylan’s face went ash.

“Over everyone’s screams, he eloquently explained why he chose to fire on me first, two nonfatal shots. He said, and I’m quoting here, ‘I need you to be able to watch it to the very end, Kade. You stay until the end, watch me kill everyone, then you get to die.’”

Shaking the visions from my head, I stood up. My palms were sweating and my head felt light. I needed to see Lainey. I needed to see her calm face. I lumbered to the door and stopped shy of the threshold, clamping my hands on the top of the doorframe. “Back then, my biggest problem was trying to talk Lizbeth into showing me her tits. It all changed when my best friend aimed that barrel of the gun at me, and pulled the trigger without blinking. He had a goddamn smile on his face, Dylan. I relive that scene everyday. I relive the entire scene of him picking off all of my friends one by one, shooting kids hiding under desks, hiding behind other dead kids, and…oh God, Mrs. Turner. He executed them all; the whole time laughing and bloody singing a sick twisted song, then came back to me. But, when I look at Lainey, for a minute, I can think of something else.”