As It Was (COMPLETED) (wattys2023)

Used To Be

Month and a half after shooting

"You're going to testify."

My hands fell limply to my sides as I tore my eyes from the dash cam footage that'd been released this past weekend of my classmates rushing out of the school from the courtyard and to my father. Dad stood just outside the bathroom in a Cowboys sweatshirt and a beanie. Though it was very unlike him to wear such a thing in public outside of attending the games at the stadium, he'd been dressed in similar attire every time he'd stepped outside of the hotel room for the last three weeks.

"Your mother is trying to fight them on it. She doesn't think you're ready."

I hugged my knees against me and whispered, "I don't think that's why she doesn't want me to do it."

"Evie, sweetheart, it's possible you'll be the deciding factor for the Jury. Your testimony is sure to shake the entire country to the core just as the shooting did."

He was right, not that I'd verbalize it. I had known upon agreeing to step foot in that courtroom the first time that this was a possibility. That our attorney would suggest the very thing I refused to do; sit there and look that monster in his dead eyes. It was one thing to see them in the photographs Mom refused to take down, to meet them through a TV screen, but being forced to look at the shell of the psychopath wearing my brother's face across the room was an entirely different story that I wasn't ready to face.

"Everly, I know this is hard." Dad moved so he was standing at the foot of the bed, brooding over me with a sad look in his dark eyes. "I know that somewhere inside, you still want to grasp onto the hope that it wasn't Clark that did this. That you still love him. He is-was- your brother for seventeen years."

I flinched, physically waving my hand in the air to keep him from saying any more. There wasn't even a miniscule part of me that had love for that piece of crap. The second he slammed the hilt of that gun against my temple, I'd lost all hope that my brother was still in there. He was gone. I just wonder how long he had been before I'd opened my eyes enough to see it. Had Frankie been right? Had Clark lost himself a long time before he'd went and done what he did?

"Evie, look at me." My father's calloused fingertips found my chin and he gently elevated it so I was forced to look into his eyes. "Baby girl, I know it's a big ask, and that it's going to be so unbelievably hard for you to get through, but if you want justice for them, this is a step in that direction."

I felt warmth start to fall against my cheeks hearing the words, but my father had never been one that was good at comforting, so he retreated to the door and said, "Just consider it, Everly."

Then he gently shut the door behind him, leaving me to stare at the door until it became no more than a blur of blue before me.

*

I stepped out of a cold shower to find my mother standing at the sink, patting a damp tissue against both blotchy cheeks to clean up her running mascara. I ripped my towel from on top of the toilet seat and wrapped it around myself, my eyes burning into the side of her head until she finally whirled around and snapped, "What?"

I didn't utter a single word; I hardly ever did anymore, and surely not around her.

"Stop looking at me like that." She demanded with a glare. "They killed, they're murderers, but they're still my babies, Everly."

I crossed my arms over my chest, fresh drops of water falling from my hair to my cheeks and rolling down them like silent tears. Nausea eased its way up into the back of my throat hearing her words, but I still didn't attempt to respond.