𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝑾𝒆 𝑫𝒊𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝑺𝒂𝒚 ( Unfinished)

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐒𝐢𝐱

┏━━━ ❀ ━━━┓
A Secret
┗━━━ ❀ ━━━┛
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Friday, April 13th, 2018

Blood.

Blood is what I desperately tried to wash off my hands under the sink, which barely seemed to be working. I watched it stain the water red as it flowed down the drain.

In the reflection of the bathroom mirror, I saw Jules leaning back against the bathroom stall, arms crossed, eyes staring down at the tiles.

When I flickered my gaze over, I was met with an empty shell of a person looking back. Face pale, tear-stained cheeks, red eyes, and a cut at the temple almost hidden in my hairline.

Over and over in my head, my mind replayed the scene – him falling forward, his face hitting the ground first, the soft white carpet turning black with blood.

Viv said it was best to get rid of the carpet, and Wes helped Jules roll him up.

When we returned to the room, it was just Wes and Vivette. I had been told Lizzie and Vince went to get some necessities and would meet up with us later.

The weight of the lifeless body pressed against my shoulder as we carried it through the dorm hall to the back alley, behind the building. I'll never forget that weight crushing down on me.

The six of us reunited in the middle of the woods. Vince, Wes, Jules, and I all took turns digging, while Viv and Lizzie looked for sticks. Wes made a good point that we shouldn't keep our bloody clothes or whatever.

It rained that night, hard enough to mold his grave back with the ground but not hard enough to put out the large bonfire. We threw our clothes in a pile, and one by one, Viv threw them into the fire.

Now, we were a handful of young students standing around a fire in our underwear.

—

Exactly twelve weeks before my entire life fell apart, everything seemed to be going my way. My roommate and I had patched things up (again), Elizabeth and I were going strong (again), and I had good grades and stable friends.

At that time, everything felt perfect, but that illusion of perfection was shattered on –

Tuesday, January 13th, 2018,

"Hold still, won't you," she mumbled, her fingers gently clasping mine. We sat criss-crossed on her bed, face to face, as she meticulously applied a coat of black polish to my nails.

With a sigh, I leaned down on my other hand, simply watching her. She placed the brush back in the bottle and leaned down to blow on my fingers. A smile broke across my lips as her eyes flickered up to meet mine.

"What?" she asked softly, and I shook my head.

"You're just so beautiful,"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, shut up," she retorted, a light shade of pink flushing over her cheeks. She could just get so flustered. Blowing the polish dry, she held both my hands side by side, a scrutinizing gaze searching for imperfections. But nothing she did was imperfect. At least not to me.

Those green eyes looked serious. "What do you think?" Elizabeth asked.

I grinned playfully, meeting her serious gaze with a twinkle in mine. "I think you've done wonders with those hands of yours," I teased, lifting one of our intertwined hands and pressing a light kiss to her knuckles. "But if I'm being honest, they look even better when they're holding mine."