Healing in Sync

Chapter 1- Stars

I sway my hips to the beat of the music, arms wrapped around Julian's neck, some kind of alcohol sloshing around in the cup I have gripped in my hand.  His familiar smile is shining brightly in the dark of the night, replicating the steady glow of the stars floating high above this backyard party.  Junior year ended for us about 10 hours ago and the feeling of summer laziness is already flowing through me.  One more year in this tiny town before I can move onto college.  I smile at the thought before I realize Julian is talking.  "Ady?  Hello, Adeline?  Ady Mae.  Adeline Mae Traynor!  Are you ignoring me on purpose?"

My eyes widen and I rush to apologize.  "Sorry, Jul.  I didn't realize you were talking to me," I laugh lightly and take a sip from my drink, the alcohol tracing a line of fire down my throat.

"It's alright, babe," he smiles back.  "What were you thinking about?"

"Oh, you know.  College.  Leaving Levin.  Same as always." Levin is the town I live in that seems to swallow the lives of anyone who resides along the one main road.  If you live in Levin, you don't leave.  It just doesn't happen.  I plan on being different, though.  Julian and I both do.  I have already started looking at colleges and none of them are in the state of Alabama.  None of them are even in one of the states bordering Alabama.  I wanted far away.  I had big plans for the future.  "What were you trying to get my attention for?"

"Oh, nothing really.  Just to tell you that our three-year anniversary is coming up in a few days so I want to take you out tomorrow," Julian leans down and presses his lips to mine and all I can think is 'how did I forget our anniversary?'  I smile and agree once there is space in between us again.  Julian asked me to go out with him on the last day of eighth grade.  Since then, he has admitted that he asked me that specific day only so that if I rejected him, he wouldn't have to face me for the rest of the summer.  It's been almost three years since then and I already know that Julian Gray is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with.  And I think everyone else knows it, too.  Our parents and friends are already talking about what our wedding is going to be like.  I glance down at my phone.  1:43am.  We need to be leaving soon.

"So are you thinking dinner or," I'm interrupted by a loud crack that resonates through the thick summer air.  It takes me a few seconds to recognize it as a gunshot.  By the time I realize this, everyone is rushing around me, screaming and pushing towards the house and side gate that leads out of the big yard we're standing in.  Before I can move my feet as well, I see the person that everyone is running from.  It's too dark to really tell who it is but something about them strikes me as familiar.  Currently, the figure has it's arm raised, pointing the gun towards the sky, but in a split second, the gun is down and pointed straight at Julian and me.

I hear Julian yell right beside my ear but I don't comprehend what he says.  Everything slows to the point where two seconds feels like two minutes.  I feel Julian's arm thrown back into me as he steps on my foot--by accident, I'm sure--and places himself between the shooter and me.  I'm aware of the crowds of people still pushing by me and I lose the ability to breathe.  I've never been claustrophobic, but this is different.  Arms and elbows and feet slam into me from every side and I'm nearly knocked down a few times.  I know I need to move.  I know Julian needs to move with me.  But I can't lift my feet.  All I can do is stare wide-eyed at the situation unfolding before of me.  I hear another shot go off and am jerked back to reality.  A reality where blood splashes over the front of my white dress and Julian buckles in front of me.

A strangled scream rips itself from my throat and I launch myself towards Julian, wrapping my arms under his armpits and around his chest, trying to keep him from falling forward.  His weight is just too much for me, though, and he topples to the ground, taking me with him.  I can feel warm, sticky liquid on my left arm which is still wrapped around his chest.  I cry out his name again and again, completely forgetting about the shooter standing twenty feet away.  I roll my boyfriend's--and best friend of about ten years--body over onto his back and push my hands against the hole in his chest, trying to slow the bleeding.  It doesn't do much and I can feel his life draining out of his body and over my hands before running down to the dry, thirsty grass where it is soaked up, never to be gotten back.  I feel hot tears running down my cheeks and wonder why I haven't been shot yet.  I'm just about the last person left in the yard, save a few stragglers too drunk to walk the length of the yard to escape.  "Julian.  Jul.  Julie, don't leave me," I use his old girly nickname from years ago as I cry to his increasingly pale form.  I hear distant sounds of sirens and pray they're headed our way.  Taking a deep breath, I start again.  "Don't you leave me.  Don't you dare.  We are supposed to go off to college together.  Get married.  Have babies.  Live."  I gasp and sob, trying to get the words out.  He just needs to hang on until the medics get here.  My phone, which had fallen to the ground in the chaos, lights up with a text from my mother.  The time reads 1:47am.  It's crazy how so much can happen in just four minutes.

Suddenly remembering our situation, I dare a glance up to where the shooter had been standing.  He's still there.  As soon as I meet his eyes, I hear a shot ring off into the air, and fall from my kneeling position to lay on the grass, still wet with Julian's blood.  I feel pain blossoming in my right shoulder as another shot goes off, and then everything is still--the kind of still only found at funerals, where everyone is afraid to make the wrong move and therefore just stands still, waiting for the moment to end. I can tell the second bullet hit me somewhere in the stomach from the amount of pain radiating from it but I know there's nothing I can do now.  With the last of my energy I search blindly for Julian's hand and wrap my palm around his limp fingers.  My life is draining from me in the form of blood mixed with lost hope and grief, soaking the ground and mingling with Julian's before disappearing in the soil.  I stare at the stars above, dimmer now than before, and lay as my vision fades, starting from the outside.  The closer I come to passing out, the more stars wink out of existence, and the darker the sky gets with each and every lost dream.  My last thought before slipping into peaceful, painless unconsciousness: I'm dying.