I Am Not My Skin [ UNDER EDITING ]

Chapter 32:

I felt myself being dragged from the scene, I shout and screamed. "Let me go. Let me go!" I could not see the face of the one holding me. My mouth is covered and I feel stuck, I feel as though I cannot breathe. Oh God no, this cannot be it, this cannot be the time I die, not now and not like this.

"It's me, it's me Drew." The voice sounded so familiar and try as I might I could not place it. With all the fuss and everything happening all at once. I try to kick the back seat door shut to this car I was being forced into. Why can't I place the voice?

Until I heard another voice again. "Drew, calm down, you're safe." It's Maya's voice, but what was Maya doing there and with this stranger? Oh wait──this is not a stranger, I can recognize this car very well, it's Johnny's and he has left. The only thing I can remember is what he said, “Wait right here.” And then he disappeared into the crowd again.

Maya held so tight onto me and told me how scared she was, I was too, but I didn't show. I held her close to my chest and tried to calm her nerves as well as I could. I heard the back door opening again, Johnny instructed Maya and I to jump into the front seats, I didn't know what was going on or why he told us to do so, but then I saw other people. A middle-aged woman with her two young children, about the same age as Maya was, they hurried into the back and two more came in. He instructed me to drive them a few feet away from the scene and drop them off along with Maya.

He also told me that I needed to return for him to get as many people away from the scene. Some ran and some just laid on the grounds screaming for help. It was those screams I will never be able to forget. It's agonizing and so scared, scared they might die if they got up and ran, that was how most of us felt for our own lives and safety. We were so afraid something might happen if we don't comply, we had to beg for our lives and our freedom, it was heartbreaking to watch.

Never before had I been so afraid of my life and safety, with most of the people already to safety and on the other side. One officer yelled, "She's helping them get away. Stop her!"

Johnny tapped against the roof and told me to drive as fast as I could with the ones he helped rescued, I didn't want to. I wanted to stay and be with him, to help him and the others who were being detained.

"Go. Now, Drew!" He yelled. I feared, as I sped off I could see them through the wing mirror, they struck him hard against the back of his head. His face was against the ground, they cuffed him and dragged him inside. My heart broke because there wasn't a thing I could do in that moment but just watch as I drove off to safety.

When the following day arrived, I felt sick to my stomach, I couldn't process all that went on. I just couldn't believe how they treated him, Johnny was one of their own after all and it broke my heart to see how he was being treated. His only sin was to help us and make sure that all of us were safe and out of danger.

"It's time. We have to go Drew, come on." I swallowed as I heard my mother speak.

As I walked these steps, these Holy grounds again, I nearly fell to my knees at the sight of Sam's casket which stood on a wheeled bier at the center. My knees were getting weaker as we were getting close, I have to turn around. I must, I cannot face this unbearable pain anymore. Make this stop, make all of this go away and make it all to disappear, wake me from this hellish nightmare and make me not relive that awful day.

My mouth is dry and my eyes are filled with tears. I cannot see clear, this road seems all too long and far too painful, the faces that came were all loved ones and all those who knew Sam. I cannot fake it anymore, I am drowning and no one is able to see it. It all just is too much for me to bear.

To sit just a few feet from his coffin I could not take. So many people around and yet I feel so empty and lonely inside. There is no one in this room who can understand how guilty I feel and how each and every night I go to bed and wished it had been me instead of Sam. He was so young and so innocent, this should never have happened to him, no child deserves to die as he did. He did nothing to deserve this pain and suffering he was forced to be in.

My mother could not handle this much pain, she broke down and for the first time I saw her crying. She wept and all her pain showed, her baby boy was no more, he was just a lifeless body now laying still and so peaceful in a coffin. No mother has to go through what she has to, no mother deserves to bury her children.

There was not a single thing I could do for her, I was a broken piece myself and fixing her I just couldn't. My father embraced her tightly, little Maya was as emotional and it pained me that I couldn't take their pain away and comfort them in this time. I was so broken. A glass that shattered on the wall, I could never be fixed and it ate away at my soul. I felt a warm touch softly against my hand, closing in whomever's hand that held onto mine, "Sam!" I whispered.

"No, it's me, Johnny. Sorry for being late." He breaks the silence as I advanced my eyes towards him, he smiled with his lip bruised. He had a black eye which I can assume they gave him a beating last night. I could see how uncomfortable it was for him to sit down.

"You came, and that's all that ever really matters." I said, I always used to smile brightly. I was no more than a shell of my former self.

I was left without words, this was the time I felt I had to say something, but I was far too broken to, Sam's death left me empty. My baby's death is what I could not accept. I felt like dying and ending this pain, to make it all just go away.