Set Fire To The Rain• Cesar Diaz

Three

3rd person pov

"Its almost midnight!" Ruben smiled catching everyone's attention

"Lets go!"

"yeah!"

"yes, yes, yes" Aubelita smiled running to the living room

"I wanna say something really quick before the new year rings in" Ruby smiled

"You got 30 seconds" Ruben said as he helped Ruby onto the table 

"Uh, Lana-" Ruby said before turning to look at his sister, who was put on the table by Ruben also

"Lana and i know you're worried that we're just fronting and putting on a good face, but we aren't. No, we aren't not victims. We're survivors" Ruby smiled putting his arm around his sister, as she smiled at him

"Yeah!" Jasmin cheered 

"An-and we dont wanna live the rest of our life in fear or with regret, cause its a choice. And every day we can choose to focus on our gifts instead of our misfortunes. We can choose to... to turn our worst tragedies into our greatest blessings, and we can choose to love instead of hate. By the way, shout-out to whoever brought that pie-"

"And ice cream!" Lana added as they all laughed

"Tonight, Lana and I wanna look to our future and not our past. Tonight, we're gonna make every second count, cause tonight we're alive and we're okay" Ruby smiled hugging his sister as everyone cheered before they carefully got off of the tables

"Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!" Everyone yelled before cheering, they lit off mini fire cracker poppers with confetti, and to anyone else the sound didn't matter. 

But to Lana and Ruby it all sounded a little to familiar. 

As if Lana was right back to the night, the gun shots, the screaming, the looking at Latrell before falling to the ground, to Ruby grabbing her hand, and then her mom yelling their name

She began to struggle breathing, she couldn't hear anyone around her only the gun shots, she pushed past everyone flinching each time someone yelled or did another fire popper. 

Ruben came over hugging his daughter little to know she was crying and struggling to breath only able to hear Olivia yelling her name.

She began to pant, crying as she made her way outside and away from the house, she felt so suffocated, she looked over to see a crying Ruby looking at the pictures of Olivia in front of their house

She let out a shaky breath going over to him as she began to cry more, Ruby turned around immediately grabbing onto his sister, despite them both feeling pain they needed this 

 "Im not okay, Lana" Ruby cried his voice breaking as she nodded

"I dont think we're ever gonna fully be okay."

"It shouldnt of been you" He sobbed looking at the picture of the three of them

"It should of been me" Cesar said scaring the siblings, as they turned around to look at him

Ruby let go of Lana, as he turned and walked over to Cesar, they didn't say anything but hug one another, as Ruby turned before motioning Lana over, they all hugged each other crying

"Im sorry. Im so sorry you two" he cried hugging his girlfriend and best friend

"We dont blame you, Cesar" Ruby said breaking the hug, as Cesar kept his arm around Lana

"You did the right thing" She added

"No, i didnt"

"We got nothing but love for you. It wasn't your fault" Ruby cried looking at him