Change Me (editing)

Chapter 23

A Week Later ..

Kayla's POV

It's been a week and a half since the shooting. Dontae was let out about three days ago, but he has to see a therapist everyday to cope with his mental and physical pain.. In a matter of days he's completely changed. He refuses to eat, he never sleeps, and the part that makes it worse for him is that he stays in Tyler's room.

Tyler was transported to another hospital.. they would only tell her family where. The rest of us had no choice but to stay behind, along with her younger brother. All we knew was that she was on life support and right about now there wasn't much hope of her making it out of the hospital alive.

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It was currently 7am .. I sat in Tyler's room with Dontae's head on my lap after finally getting him to fall asleep. Jessica walked out of the bathroom. She wore Tyler's jersey and one of her hats, a sad expression plastered her face. Today the school was holding a candlelight vigil, not only to come together for Tyler but to also raise awareness on gun violence in the area.

Little TJ walked through the door with a t-shirt on that displayed a picture of him and Tyler last year on his birthday. He was supposed to talk about his sister today. Little did people know that Tyler was such a big part in many of the people in this town's lives... starting out freshman year she started to tutor and mentor a lot of the younger kids in the town, keeping them in school and in sports rather than around on the streets. But nobody knew it... nobody knew about the Saturday mornings she spent down at the children's hospital reading to all the kids.. walking around with them and just making them laugh. Nobody really saw that side of her not even Jessica. The only reason I know is because I found a picture of her and one of the kids in her wallet and asked her to take me with her.

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Today was quiet.. a rush of sadness was felt everywhere around the school. People taped balloons and laid teddy bears and cards in front of Tyler's locker.

By the time of the vigil,they said about 800 people had filled the area from in front of the gym to the end of the parking lot. They bought pictures, donations, flowers, more bears and even stuff for Dontae. The mayor spent most of the time talking about gun violence, and new laws that were being proposed. When he was done, Little TJ snatched the microphone from him, the mayor looked shocked.

"All you're talking about is laws, but did anybody find the girl that tried to kill my sister?!"

The mayor tried to take the mic from him, but he snatched away and kept repeating the question, eventually backed by the crowd. He never told them how Demi was on the run, or how since Tyler was only life support and transported the investigation slowed down. I watched as TJ and about fifty other kids ran towards the park down the block.. when Jessica and I finally caught up we saw the kids had their own stuff for Tyler set up.. they even got with the owner of the REC center and tried to give money from their piggy banks.

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A week later we got news that Tyler had woken up but then things took a turn for the worse....

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To be continued ..