RED: Welcome To Fayetteville | Complete ✔️

Chapter 35: The Choice

"That boy was stupid for wearing the jacket. Why would you wear a red hoodie in this town?" the high school student said as she stepped out of the building and under the balcony toward the parking lot.

"Hey, he had a name..." someone snapped from across the crowd.

"Mind your own business, faggot," she chirped back at him.

Evelyn was walking out next to "the faggot." She remembered Jasper telling her his story in the sandwich shop that day and grabbed the guy's arm.

"Hey, don't listen to her. You're not what she just called you," she turned her shoulders toward the girl making her way through the parking lot. "Watch your mouth! Don't call him that!"

"What are you going to do about it!?" she yelled as she flopped into the passenger seat of her friend's truck.

Evelyn turned back to the guy as more students poured out of the school around them. "I'm sorry, man," she hugged him... and she didn't even know his name.

Behind them, Natalie was bumping her way to the front of the crowd. She was ready to get out of there. She tightened the straps on her backpack and nudged someone next to her. She stepped off the sidewalk and into the parking lot.

"Watch it," they snapped at her.

She didn't even acknowledge them as she kept moving to her car. They probably wouldn't have said that if they knew Natalie had a loaded gun in her bag... and Derrick probably wouldn't have been leaning against her car in the freezing cold if he knew what she had, either.

"Hey," he gently whispered as she approached her car.

She slung her bag off her shoulders and dangled it in front of her.

"Don't beg for me, Derrick. Move," she demanded without any emotion on her pale face.

"I'm not here to ask you to come back to me... I'm here to apologize. Face to face, I wanted you to know I'm sorry." He saw Evelyn walking to her car behind Natalie. He wanted to wave, but he hadn't apologized to her yet... hopefully soon, he thought.

Natalie unzipped her bag and reached inside. The keys were sitting right beside the loaded gun. "Are you... really sorry, Derrick?"

"You know me, Nat. I'm not going to say sorry if I'm not."

Natalie didn't believe him, and she wrapped her hand around the handle of the pistol hidden in her bag.

"That's all, Nat. I'm sorry," he said as he perched up from the car and turned to walk away.

He walked away feeling happy. He was proud that he apologized, and he hoped Natalie received it well. If he only knew how close she was to pulling the gun out of the bag and letting all of her anger and frustration out on him right there in the busy, loud, crowded parking lot.

She loosened her grip on the gun and grabbed her keys.

***Author Questions: Do you think Evelyn made a difference by standing up for that guy? How close was Derrick to dying? Will Natalie snap... or has she been RED all along?

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