may shatter on impact (tronnor)

19. Lies & Quiet

I found myself in one of the practice rooms five minutes later, the door closed and my heart echoing around the room, students muttering outside about um what's the weird new kid doing now? Mr. Jade doesn't seem to care though, and it wasn't like there was anyone in here when I came.

At least I hope not, I can't really remember.

I can't stop shaking.

I'm rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, oh my God, and everything's okay, it's all okay, I'm hiding, this is it, this is the end, he's found me.

The strings of the carpet that I grip onto are peeling, peeling away from the gray and blue rug, letting go of strips of itself until it'll be nothing, just concrete and cold stone rooms like jail cells, like the mind I'm trapped in.

They know.

Connor told me that one time when he threw up in class the whole school knew about it by the end of the day. This is a boarding school and everyone knows everyone, everyone talks to everyone, news spreads like wildfire, like the ash left over from an explosion that rocks the world out of it's orbit, like blood on the tiled floor of a math classroom.

Like Leah's blood.

Like the red blood leaking from her chest and steadily dropping onto the floor while I screamed his name, like the tips of dyed blonde streaks in her hair becoming pink with her blood and the white tiles stained forever.

This is the end this time.

They're all going to hate me.

Fifty-one families and counting.

Connor and Zoe find me at the end of the day, still hiding in the practice room.

Apparently, everyone knows that this is where I ran off to, and therefore everyone has forbidden themselves from even knocking on the door.

They come inside quietly, opening and closing the door with practiced ease, their faces the picture of blushing calm. They sit on either side of me, taking my hands and whispering that they're sorry for what happened. Zoe whispers that she's sorry that she said what she did. Connor whispers that no one hates me.

He's lying.

They're all lying.

Everyone is lying to me.

He lied, when he said everything was fine.

Zoe's lying when she says that everything is going to be fine.

Because nothing's going to be fine - I could've stopped the deaths of fifty-one innocent kids and I didn't. I could've stopped his death, which no one - including me - ever seems to count, and instead I was relieved when the gun went off and the school was plunged into horrified, terrified, silence. Silence that I'll never be able to leave. I'm never going to be able to leave that classroom with the chair legs glowing and the advertisements flapping in the held breath of the room and the blood leaking across the tiles and the damaged filing cabinets and all the tiny details that will never leave my memory. The worse part about remembering those is that I'm glad that I do. If I forgot them then the whole thing might become a dream and I'll never escape it and trapping myself in a dream is even worse than trapping myself in reality.

"Troye," Connor is whispering, whispers filling the room and silence filling my heart and the wind rushing through the trees on a sidewalk haunted with reporters and cameras like vultures picking at skeletons. "Troye, it's okay, no one is going to treat you any differently, we're all still your friends."

"Don't lie to me."

My voice is like glass reflecting a monster, my words icy and sharp and scared.

"I - "

- could've done everything differently.

- could've stopped him.

- could've saved them.

- could've been quiet.

I can't turn back time.

I wish I could.

I'd take back every moment I spent with him; I'd take back every kiss I stole from his lips; I'd take back all the good memories and all the bad ones; I would take back the time when I fucking laughed as he told me that one day he was going to get back at all the people who had ever hurt either of us, at all the people who had ever gotten in the way, at all of them.

But I can't.

I can't do anything differently, I can't stop him, I can't save any of them -

But I can be quiet.