I nod my head acknowledging that I know and that I plan on keeping my promise. I motion to the nearest bench and we walk towards it. She sits down and gets herself situated as I do the same next to her. I look up at the sky and contemplate my words. How to chose them wisely and how to start. I can feel her looking at me. She’s not burning holes into the side of my head or anything but instead she is studying me. I turn and look at her and as soon as my eyes meet hers I know that I can open up about this and know that she will keep it within this park.

“I’ve known Chelsea since grade school, but we didn’t start actually being friends till freshman year when we both got keys to the studio here on campus, because we were the top art students here at King… I have friends here but only here at school, I’m not one of the kids invited to all the parties, but I’m the one they talk and wave to at school. Chelsea was my first real friend. We made each other a promise. A promise that I would follow her to Paris to study art, if she later followed me to Barcelona.”

I took a deep breath

“When Clay came around, I instantly liked him. He was good for her. He never made her feel like her dreams didn’t match up to his, like her other boyfriends did. He was a great guy, but I’m sure you know this.”

She nodded, hanging on my every word

“She loved him so much and still does, I can see it. She was so scared to tell him about the baby, and when she did tell him, I honored him for wanting to keep it. They would of made great parents together, and now Chelsea is going to have to patch the hole of the missing father figure and be the mother figure to. All Chelsea wanted was one last night of pure fun before the pregnancy and life weighed them both down.”

Another deep breath

“We. Chelsea, Sean, Clay, and myself. We heard you and Ashley. And then we saw Aiden chase after you two. I think we all instantly knew what had happened… Anyway, we followed, and not two seconds had we made it outside we heard them. I remember the looks of confusion as we heard the string of shots. I heard them hit and bounce off the sign of the school. I heard them hit the brick walls next to me, and then it finally registered. I turned to tell them to get down and then was distracted by a loud scream. I turned toward the scream then I jolted back and then something made my leg give out and I was, before I knew it, face down in the ground. “

　

I took the deepest breath I could muster. It was shake-y and the lump in my throat made it hard to even take a breath, let alone a big one. I looked at her, and saw that she had tears already built in her eyes. They were daring to spill over, but they didn’t. I looked down at my hands and continued

“I must have been in shock because I didn’t even know that I had been shot. I just knew that I could barely turn over on my back. That’s when I say Clay try and wheel Chelsea around and back towards the school. I saw him get shot, three times. Once in his shoulder and twice in his chest. Even after that he still made Chelsea stay down. My vision was getting blurry but I was going in and out. It became so quiet, so quiet that I heard Chelsea whisper his name. I blacked out to a ringing sound, but woke back up to see Clay in the stretcher next to me……. I saw someone look at his watch and then cover his head with a white sheet. I don’t know how many times I can say I’m sorry, but I am. If I could give you back your brother I would. If I could take his place, I would in a second. He didn’t deserve it. You didn’t deserve it. My best friend in the world didn’t deserve it, and neither did their unborn baby.”

I was crying so hard that the last few sentences where no where near coherent. I was on my knees in front of her. Begging her for forgiveness. I shouldn’t be alive. She should have a brother, Chelsea should have the love of her life, and that baby should have a dad. I was crying for myself. I was crying for forgiveness. For guilt. For everything that I had seen. For everything that shouldn’t have happened. And all the blond did was let me lay in her lap, knees in the mud, and cry as she stroked my hair.