I'm So Sorry

Chapter Sixteen

Mason

Ben is lying on the floor of Shannon's kitchen, screaming at the top of his lungs. There's a knife not even a foot away from his stomach, looking like he's going to stab himself. I react faster than Makayla. I immediately kick the knife away.

"Ben are you alright?!" Makayla calmly asks him, taking his face in her hands, talking to him gently. "If you can hear me, take my hand— " she grabs his left hand away from his side carefully and puts in her hand. "If you can hear me I want you to squeeze my hand. We're going to help you calm down, it's alright, it's okay!"

I'm about to tell Makayla that this is ridiculous, and I get ready to smack Ben in the face to calm him down when I see him squeezing her hand. Makayla's face quickly lights up, suddenly moving quicker than before. He's hyperventilating now, the screaming turning into short, but loud sounding breaths.

"Listen to me Ben, listen, I want you to concentrate really hard on your breathing. Think about taking in deep breaths; think about something that will calm you down. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out."

I can't believe it's working. I can't believe he's listening to her. Makayla, the quiet and closed off one, is helping Ben. She knows exactly what to do right now while I was just going to slap him and tell him to shut the fuck up.

"Breathe in, breathe out."

Slowly, Ben starts to calm down, his breathing becoming more natural and his eyes slowly going back to his normal.

"There you go, Ben. It's alright. You're alright. You're alright."

Makayla looks back up at me, while Ben continues to breathe loudly on the floor. As she looks at me she says quietly, "Everything's going to be alright."

Ben

I don't know how long I was on the ground and screaming, but obviously it was long enough for Makayla and Mason to find me.

I don't know how Makayla's words helped me calm down so easily. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe and then I could hear her voice, piercing through all the white noise and pain.

I don't know how this all happened.

I don't want to know.

Mason

We put Ben in a chair and I grab him a glass of water while he sits there, shivering slightly. As he does, Makayla never takes her eyes off of him, wiping sweat off his forehead with a paper towel and a small smile sitting on her face.

I text Shannon to tell her that Ben's okay, we'll be back outside in a minute.

"Didn't you have to go to the bathroom?" I ask Makayla as she stands back up.

"Oh," she whispers. "Yeah. Would you watch him then?"

I nod without another word as she walks around the table to the powder room next to the kitchen, watching her go.

I sit down in the chair next to Ben and I look at him as he stares at the ground, not averting his gaze to anywhere else. But I'm not thinking about Ben. I'm thinking about Makayla.

When we were on the deck, while she was talking to me, while I screamed at her, she seemed like the last person on the planet I wanted to talk to. I just wanted her out of my face; I just didn't want to be around her anymore. But when she immediately took over in helping Ben, there was this change inside of me. I saw the kind, caring person that Makayla didn't often show, the girl that when you opened up to her, she'd open up to you. Gladly, even. I smile faintly at the memory of the time I used to stop kids from bullying her in middle school, when she was the target. It seemed like middle school was the year we all really understood that our little group of friends had to stay tight, we had to hold onto each other of one of us would go floating down the river and be lost from the rest of us forever. Makayla was part of the original group, and what am I doing trying to push her away from me? She's one of my best friends in the world, so are Shannon and Olivia. If I hadn't had them throughout the years, Dad would have made sure I had no friends. The original group, they kept me sane for all these years. And adding on people? That's gotten us closer together, and made us care about each other even more. So why tonight have I been snapping at anyone that isn't Sandra?