Bullet

Chapter 12 - Changes in Character

Chapter 12
Changes in Character

As the days progressed in my house, it seemed like my parents were finally able to talk to one another about the situation that involved Clay and admit their feelings to one another. While I was still cooped up in my bedroom most nights, my parents stayed up talking in the living room while they sipped on coffee and shared tissues. 

I still was having a hard time communicating what I was feeling and the thoughts I was fighting within me. The secret of what actually happened between me and Clay before he was towed away by the police ate away at me every single day. The more my parents watched me with worried eyes, the more I felt like I was going to be sick if I didn’t spill the scene soon. Everyday my mom would ask what I had meant inside the car on the way to see Grayson, and every time I would shake my head and tell her it meant nothing. 

Grayson and I had started talking a bit more in the following weeks, text conversations and casual hospital visits happening on a semi-daily basis. I was learning so much about him while we talked and he was making it effortless to have even the biggest of conversations whenever I was with him. I hated that an ‘incident’ like this was bringing us together somehow, but I liked being able to talk to someone who understood the pain and the anguish from witnessing something like that. 

Although he was opening up to me about his life and his personal issues, he always made sure to bypass the subject of why he jumped in front of the bullets for me. Often I would try to bring it up in casual talks, making it out to be like I wasn’t constantly mulling over the reason behind his actions. But whenever I managed to slip it in, he’d shake his head or sigh heavily and continue with a different topic. It was so frustrating and made me over think on too many occasions, but I was still sticking around for some reason. 

Maybe I just felt like I needed a friend to lean on.

I hadn’t heard from Marnie since the day of the ‘incident’ and she was making it so hard to get in contact with her. I tried texting her, leaving voicemails for her to hopefully get to later and even tried going to her house once, only to have the door slammed in my face by her little brother who told me she was busy and ‘couldn’t talk.’

Today had been a particularly harder day because the school had called the students, with automatic voice-overs of course, leaving messages for them all to say that school was about to be back in session the following week. It had only been two weeks since the ‘incident’ and I didn’t think it was long enough to grieve over a thing like this. People had lost loved ones, were scarred from the images they saw that day, and I was the sister of the boy who pulled out a gun on school grounds and killed their star athlete. 

So instead of keeping myself cooped up in my room and thinking about the many different ways Monday morning could go, I sprinted down the stairs and made a move to grab my bag. Grayson was still stuck in his hospital room for another week at least and I figured paying him a visit would be better than worrying myself to the bone like this. 

But just as I slipped my fingers around the strap to my bag that was hanging off of the dining room chair, the house phone rang and a mess of shuffling was heard in the kitchen. No one had called the house lately, considering our family relations, so hearing it go off was odd to all of us. 

I let my bag drop to the chair again and slowly walked to the kitchen, making sure my footsteps didn’t squeak on the creaky floorboards. Slinking behind the wall to keep myself out of sight, I peeked around the entryway as my eyes landed on my mom with the kitchen phone pressed to her ear. 

“Oh my God, are you okay? How are you doing?” she cried, her fingers clenching around the phone and turning the skin around it as white as a sheet.