Five Steps Away

Epilogue

Elijah's POV

I fucked up. Messed up someone's life type of fucked up.

I don't think fucked up even begins to describe what I did.

When she ran out, I hadn't known how big of an impact I had made, or what train of events would lead to it. If I hadn't kissed Kenny, there wouldn't be any video, if there was no video, Alya wouldn't have run out of the cafeteria, if she hadn't run out, Cire wouldn't have found her.

And Jesus Cire.

I don't know what he did, and I don't want to. Because the way her body is trembling and the way she shrunk from this strong human being to this horrified person, it couldn't have been small.

And his stupid fucking face.

When I had found him in the hallway I felt every bone in my body lunge at him. I've never beat someone up as bad as I did, but it feels so small compared to what he did.

What if this haunts her for the rest of her life?

I look into her eyes, they're dull, like she's not really here, like she's stuck in her head and I want to help her come out but I can't. What am I supposed to do?

I pull the blanket over her, and hold her hand, but she looks at me horrified and I immediately let go of it.

She buries her head in her pillow and I feel completely helpless.

"Your uhm... mom should be home soon," I say, hoping that that reassures her but her head is still in her pillow and she doesn't look up and her shoulders still tremble and

I don't know what to do.

So I stay by her side, silent, but present.

END

A/N: Ok... ya'll are gonna hate me for this, but that's the end aisdfhbasedf

And i know that it seems depressing, but it's really not. Lemme explain.

The whole premise of the book is about how all we really need is for someone to show that they care, for our people to show us their love in some way shape or form. Whenever that happened in the book, people's relationships or situations got better. For example, when Alya finally started showing Jenna how much she cared about her by listening to her and being there for her, their relationship got better. 

Elijah just showed her that he's there for her, that he cares. Just the simple act of sitting beside her and being there for her shows her that he cares, and that he is there for her, which foreshadows how she will be ok. I'm not making a sequel to this book, I wouldn't want it to end any other way, but I will be making a longer author's note with inside info and shit, so stick around for that (it may take a while cause im super inconsistent with posting, so expect it in like a couple months). Other than that, thank you so much for reading this book, I don't think you'll ever understand how much I appreciate it. Really. You guys are amazing, thank you.

See you soon lovelies <3