As It Was (COMPLETED) (wattys2023)

Should Have Been

My knee jerking into the desk sent half the class breaking their necks to look in my direction. Unwarranted attention had already been on me for the last week. The incident with Holly Park had given the bored, drama deprived rich students a hot topic to gossip about. I hated that I had to be the center of it all. Because with everyone talking about what their Queen Bee had done came all the talk and speculation that had been surrounding me for months. The same speculation that Garrett had outright questioned me on almost two weeks ago.

With my lack of sleep came hallucinations-these were relatively new. They weren't the scary, murderous clown chasing me with a knife kind of nightmares-they were the real-life blood spraying my hands and the giant hole in my boyfriend's head staring back at me kind. I'd thought about explaining them to Dr. Bellecourt, but that idea had long since been put on back burner since she was under the impression I was making progress and had been relaying that message back to my parents. It had kept Mom from trying to pry details out of me as she had indirectly been trying to do since she watched them throw Clark into the back of the police car.

Mom thought we didn't know that she snuck off in the earliest hours of the morning around dawn to make the hour and a half drive to the prison that housed by murderer brother. She assumed that Dad didn't roll over and find her side of the bed empty every morning and trudge through the eerily silent, empty house and on to the front porch to clean up whatever mess the neighborhood teenagers had left the night before.

She pretended as though she weren't still trying to play mommy to a psychopath.

"Everly." a quiet voice was accompanied by a gentle hand on my forearm. My head whipped up, eyes focusing on Mr. Andrews as he stared down at me in concern. My eyes shot passed him and around the room to find my classmates had vacated, leaving my eccentric teacher and myself the only two in the room. "Are you okay? You kinda left me for a minute there."

I crossed my arms over the cold laminate and averted my eyes to the fruit bowl sitting on the desk in center of the room. "I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize." He said, pulling out a chair in front of me and lowering himself into it. "How is the nose healing?"

The pain that I felt along the bridge of my nose and under my left eye was nothing in comparison to the cold, empty void in my stomach and chest. I had become so numb to physical pain that I only ever felt the giant bruise on my nose and my stitches whenever they were mentioned.

"I spoke with a good friend of mine. He works for RISD." Mr. Andrews continued when I didn't show any indication of responding. "I told him I had a couple promising students this year I'd love to have him check out. I know Garrett is a bit stubborn and is more likely to follow the full ride football scholarship, but I think that this would be a wonderful opportunity for you, Everly. He asked for a portfolio by Winter break."

I waited for some kind of catch for five minutes after he'd spoke, any kind of stipulation. He had an entire school full of students and he wanted me to try and apply for one of the best art schools in the country?

I knew, despite my teacher's constant encouragement that a I could have a life beyond high school, make something of myself, that it was unlikely. I would never be seen as Everly Rodgers, I'd always be seen as the Rodgers Twins little sister, the girl that'd survived the massacre that her own brothers had been planning with nothing but a wall between us.

"Just promise me you'll consider it, alright?"

I lifted my head slowly as I gathered my drawing tablet and pencils into my backpack. "Yeah, okay."