Chapter Thirteen
Roman
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
My teeth grind as Maddox’s leg shakes beside me. We’re in Music class, listening to the final session of droning by the teacher before graduation tomorrow. Everyone is in high spirits, considering most of our peers got into Ivy League colleges or prestigious universities. Us on the other hand…
Basic training starts next week. Our futures were cemented the moment my dad got a call from the principal a few days ago about Dirt’s little tumble down the stairs. But the Army isn’t what we’re concerned with.
“She still isn’t here,” Kairo growls low, his eyes trained on the classroom’s door.
He’s been more irritable lately, and it’s really starting to piss me off. Just as much as Maddox’s habits are. As if to punctuate my words, Maddox’s foot shakes again, causing my desk to rattle.
“Shake your leg one more fucking time,” I snap at my friend.
He stops, side-eyeing me with silent aggravation. We’re all irritable, and I don’t know why.
I stare straight ahead, pinpointing Dirt’s friend, Charlie, in the front row across from us. She looks up at the same moment I do before lifting her middle finger to her lips and kissing the point of it.
“Do you think she knows where Dirt is?” Maddox asks quietly.
“Only one way to find out,” I sneer.
Charlie is a hard girl to trail. It’s almost like she knows we’re following behind her, and she’s trying to take the path of most resistance to throw us off. She maneuvers through the thick crowd of students barricading the hallway, almost escaping us as we corner her near the biology lab.
She turns around, folding her arms over her chest. “What do you want? Haven’t you done enough?”
Kairo is always laid-back with easy smiles that melt away into indifference, so when he speaks up first, it stuns us.
“Where’s Dirt?” He closes in on the brunette, and I grab his shoulder before he does something stupid.
Charlie shakes her head, her attitude slipping as her lips turn downwards. I see a flash of misery in her gaze as she sears us with a look that could kill. “Her name was Rosalie.”
The world around us slows. The word was echoes in my head like a record scratch that refuses to fade.
Time folds in on itself—the moment stretching thin and resting between breath and heartbeat.
Every sound feels distant, every color dimmed, as if the air itself has grown heavy with a distant memory.
A memory that I never wanted to fade…
Maddox’s eyes are wide and unblinking. Kairo looks like he’s on the verge of crashing out right here in the middle of the hall. I can’t even breathe.
Can’t think…
Charlie shakes her head in disappointment. “I hope she haunts you until the day you three fucking die.”
With those parting words, Charlie leaves us unfeeling and unmoving in the hallway. Life continues around us, but none of us dares move an inch. Whether it’s the shock of the news or something far deeper, we’ll never know.
That’s the day something hollowed inside of me, gouging into the deepest recesses of my mind like a living nightmare that would never end. It became embedded in my very bones, leaving a lasting scar that no amount of time could heal.
We all reacted in our own ways. Kairo slammed his fist into a set of lockers, denting the metal as he cursed until his throat became raw.
Maddox placed his hands behind his head, pacing the corridor like a fucking ghost as he mumbled words I couldn’t make out beyond the chaos unfolding inside of my own head.
I was stuck.
Caught somewhere between both of my friends’ reactions—Kairo’s anger, and Maddox’s disbelief. But I couldn’t even show it.
I just stared straight ahead, completely lost and silent, unsure of what to say or do.
The last thing I remember about that day is the perfect flash of Rosalie I got in my head—her long, black hair and pale lips.
The way her green eyes squinted anytime she saw me, as if her flinch was woven into her being rather than a knee-jerk reaction.
And the last time I had seen her, lying on her side in pain as we dismissed her so easily.
I’m not sure how I made it home after school, or how I was able to drag myself out of bed for graduation the next day.
As the auditorium filled with parents and teachers, we were shells of our former selves, just aimlessly shuffling along and going through the motions.
Maddox delivered a monotonous speech that felt sterile.
The room politely applauded, but it seemed rehearsed—like everyone was just there.
No one mentioned her during the ceremony. Maddox was named valedictorian, and another student was named salutatorian. There was no memorial or moment of silence for the girl we tormented.
It was like she ceased to exist.
We wouldn’t know of Rosalie’s actual fate until a year later, but the time leading up to that is mostly a blur of training and combat.
We buried ourselves in our work in the hopes of mending those scars, but quickly learned that no amount of patience or repentance could heal wounds that cut that deep.
Nothing can fix a broken soul.