Eventually

Chapter Nineteen

A.N. THE PENULTIMATE CHAPTER! Ngl this one is very sad and angry and idk how you'll react. It's definitely setting the scene for how the book is going to end. It might be hard to read it, but I do hope you enjoy it! Vote and comment, and I'll update the FINAL CHAPTER in the next week. Xoxo, Clay.

Chapter Nineteen

June 25th 1999 - Frederick Pepper

Everyone was screaming.

The entire street that sat at the front of the school gates had been swarmed by people in seconds. All the traffic had stopped moving, even the bright yellow car that had sent Ben Buttermilk flying ceaselessly into the air. It had swerved onto the pathway, toppled over and crashed dramatically into a lamp-post, which had been up-turned and was spitting sparks of electric orange.

The front of the car was blasted by blotches of blood, staining the bright yellow with miss-matched patches of red. The windshield was cracked, and had sent glass flying everywhere. The cars behind had all grinded to a halt, all the way down the road and back around the corner. Parents who'd came to pick up their kids from school all came running, hopping out their cars in a panic. Students gathered around the street too, to see who had been hit.

I could barely even see everyone around me, but they all stared down at me, and at him. I was sprawled right next to him, just missing the car, all because he'd pushed me out of the way.

I could see their faces. The crying, sobbing, fear-stricken faces of all the people around me. The panicked look of the parents, and the sadness. It was mortifying. And I could hear it too. Behind the faint buzzing in my ears, and behind the incessant car horns that echoed from the traffic, I could hear the screams and the crying.

I climbed back up onto my knees, then heaved myself back onto my feet. I was confused for a second, until I looked down and saw him lying there. His pale face, frozen and staring out. His arms and legs were twisted in all directions, mangled, like they'd been broken into a million pieces. Blood was seeping everywhere, from his head and his chest and his legs. Pieces of glass decorated the gravel around him.

That was when I saw Arthur. He pushed himself to the front of the crowd, and his eyes immediately landed on me. He seemed, only for a second, overjoyed -  like he thought it was me that had been hit by a car, and he was just happy to see me still alive.

Then I saw his eyes fall to the floor, to the body, and he shook, shuddered, and slipped away into the crowd of people.

"Freddie." I felt someone's hand on my shoulder, wrapping around my neck, trying to turn me to face them but I just couldn't look away. "Freddie, what happened?"

It was Millicent Mountbilling. "I-I don't know. I wasn't looking. I didn't see it. He pushed me out the way."

"Freddie," she repeated, "where's Arthur?"

"I don't know. He ran off. He's gone."

"You're shaking," she said, taking my hands in hers. "Freddie, calm down. You're shaking all over."

"He dove in front of the car," I heard myself saying. It didn't even feel like me. It was like an outer body experience, like I was floating up in the clouds and watching it all from above. It almost didn't feel real. "He dove in front of the car and pushed me out the way."

"He's going to be alright, the ambulance is on the way," Millicent assured me.

"Look at him, Millie," I heard Alissa say from somewhere behind me. I didn't want to move a single muscle, like I'd suddenly forgotten how. "He's already dead."

"Don't say that!" Millicent badgered. "Think before you open your fucking mouth, someone just got hit by a car!"

"Look at him, Millie," Alissa repeated. "He's a corpse. He just saved Freddie's life. He pushed him out the way, and got hit himself. He's dead." Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the ringing of the ambulance. In the corner of my eye I could see the flashing blue lights. "There's no point pretending."