After the Shooting

Chapter 2

Three Days Later
We've been off of school ever since the shooting. Today, though, is something even more horrific. Today is the funeral for my twin brother and his best friends. They all died from the gunman.
      At the funeral is everyone from my brothers friends and our families. It's a super emotional service. However, I see no one from our school. That's when I hear a familiar voice.
     "Naomi!" She exclaims.
     I turn around and see Kayleigh. That's something I forgot to mention. Out of all of our friends, Kayleigh was the only one to survive. Oh, and me, of course. Kayleigh honestly looks fine. You would never be able to tell she was shot. Her pale skin is still super clear and perfect. Her long, wavy red hair is still long and flowing. Her brown eyes, however, look broken. Like they've seen the worst thing ever. Since she was shot in the back, her posture isn't good. She can barely stand up straight anymore.
     "Oh, hey, Kayleigh. How you holding up?" I ask.
"My back hurts like hell right now." She groans.
"I can only imagine." I sigh.
"I just can't believe it." She sighs.
"What? That it got this way?" I ask.
"Yeah. I mean, that day, I never would've expected something so horrific to happen." She says.
     It was just another ordinary day at Washington Heights. We never could've expected it to happen. That morning, I was with my brother, watching him laugh it up with his best friends, all of whom are dead now. Now, I'm watching them together all dead. I really can't believe it. But my thoughts are put aside when I hear a sniffle. I look next to me and see Kayleigh sniffle.
     "Kayleigh,' I begin,' is everything okay?"
     "No! My boyfriend, your twin brother, he's gone! So are Lola, and-and Carson, Sage, Mack, Ally, Finn, Braden! They're gone! All of them! Gone! Just like that!" She cries.
     I comfort Kayleigh as carefully as I can. I don't know what to say. It's true. Kayleigh's right. I didn't think I'd ever see the day that my brother and his best friends pass on.
Later that day, it's quite in my house. We're very mournful right now. That's when I hear a knock on my window. I turn around with a frown still. I don't know why because it's my best and only friend, Ethan Hewitt.
I open the window and watch him get in. I think that Ethan's cute. He has green eyes, olive skin, and longer brown hair that I like to caress and play with. In his hand he holds a rose and a card. The first thing he does is hug me.
     "I'm sorry about Nat. I was going to go to the funeral but you know how my dad is." He explains.
     Right. When Ethan was little, his mom passed away, leaving him in custody with his dad. His dad is a drunk, abusive jerk who's racist and homophobic. Ethan's told me and shown me marks that he's abusive just because Ethan is bisexual and we're best friends.
    "Yeah, I know." I respond.
    He sits on my bed and I sit on the other side of it. We're about to slide closer together when suddenly, my bedroom door flies open. Ethan and I jump back. Out of reaction, we squeeze each other's hands. But when we see who it is, we chuckle and move away slowly, never wanting to lose each other's grasp.
     "What is going on in here?" Asks Georgia.
     She puts a hand on her thin hip. She walks over to us with a smirk on her beautiful face. My sister has a similar caramel skin color, slightly darker than mine. She has natural long, wavy, black hair, light brown eyes, perfect white teeth, and clear, shiny skin. She's also tall and thin. But not so tall that she stands above everyone. She's also not so thin to be considered anorexic. However, my sister could definitely be a model.
    "Nothing!" I exclaim.
    "We were just talking!" Ethan panics.
     Aw, he's so cute when he's nervous.
    "Mmm-hmm,' Georgia sasses,' I wasn't born yesterday. If you guys were getting it on, you can tell me."
    Ethan and I look at each other and awkwardly laugh.
    "We weren't." We say at the same time.
    We look at each other again and smile.
    "Yeah, okay. Anyway, this is not what I came in here to talk about." My older sister says.
    "Then, what'd you barge in to say?" I ask.
    She glares at me.
    "You know about the march in town?" She asks.
    After the fatal shooting at Washington Heights, our town decided to host a march. It's not a big group or anything, it's the people who actually care. Some people are missing work tomorrow because of it from what I heard.
    "Yeah." I say.
    "I'm going so do you want to come with me?" She asks simply.
I do but I'm nervous. I have this weird thing with my instinct. It's surprisingly strong. Whenever something tragic is about to happen, my gut just lets me know. That's how I feel about this whole march. I feel like something bad's going to happen. I just don't know what.
"Is that a yes or a no?" She asks.
I look at Ethan and sigh.
"No." I mumble.
"No? What? You don't care?" She remarks.
"No, Georgia, you don't understand. It's not that I don't care because I do. I mean, I witnessed our brother get shot that day. It's just, I don't know, I feel like something bad's going to happen. To be honest, I'm scared for you. I don't think you should go either." I explain.
    "I can't believe you, Naomi." She storms out.
    I don't speak in awkward situations. This is one of them. Ethan comforts me.
    "Leave." Is all I say.
    With my command, Ethan is soon gone. Alone, I remember something. When Black Lives Matter first took to the streets, Nat was insane about it.
     "I want to protest." He started.
     "For what?" Lola Diaz scoffed.
     She was the sassy one of our friend group. She had long, straight brown hair that went past her back. She had deep brown eyes and more pale skin.
    "I just want to protest against the police,' he explains,' I can't stand to see anymore brothers dying."
     Everyone looked at him like he was crazy. Of course they couldn't understand what we were going through. Of course they didn't understand how hard it was for Nat and I to see. Nat and I would fear for our lives every single day. But they just couldn't understand that.
"Nat, I don't know if you know this but they're not your brothers if you don't know them." Said Finn.
Finn was the athletic one in the friend group. He was attractive. He had messy but still somehow perfect brown hair, a tan from always playing in the West Virginia sun, pretty blue eyes and a muscular body with a sharp jawline.
"I can't see more of my people dying." He sighed.
"Nat, they're not your people. What are you, like a king now?" Laughed Braden.
Braden was the heartbreaker of the group. He was an asshole. A druggy. He was a bad boy...he was Braden. He had shaggy dirty blonde hair, pale skin, was tall and thin, and had blue eyes. He was probably messed up when he told that to Nat.
"Guys, be quite. Nat,' sighed Carson,' I think you're right. We need to get people to see eye to eye on things. The cops need to stop being so hard on African-American's and vise-versa."
Carson was the believer, the sweet one. He had big dreams and wanted to resolve everything. He was shorter than the guys in our group. He stood at about 5'9, wasn't fat or muscular or thin, he was just average in weight. There wasn't anything really special about him in appearance. He had light brown hair, light brown eyes and pale skin.
After that, Nat got so mad that he didn't talk to them in so long. Then, he got mad at me for not taking a stand for "our people". I wanted to it's just that I'm quite and didn't want to say anything. I thought I'd only make things worse.