My knee jerking into the desk sent half the class breaking their necks to look in my direction. Unwarranted attention had already been on me for the last week. The incident with Holly Park had given the bored, drama deprived rich students a hot topic to gossip about. I hated that I had to be the center of it all. Because with everyone talking about what their Queen Bee had done came all the talk and speculation that had been surrounding me for months. The same speculation that Garrett had outright questioned me on almost two weeks ago.

With my lack of sleep came hallucinations-these were relatively new. They weren't the scary, murderous clown chasing me with a knife kind of nightmares-they were the real-life blood spraying my hands and the giant hole in my boyfriend's head staring back at me kind. I'd thought about explaining them to Dr. Bellecourt, but that idea had long since been put on back burner since she was under the impression I was making progress and had been relaying that message back to my parents. It had kept Mom from trying to pry details out of me as she had indirectly been trying to do since she watched them throw Clark into the back of the police car.

Mom thought we didn't know that she snuck off in the earliest hours of the morning around dawn to make the hour and a half drive to the prison that housed by murderer brother. She assumed that Dad didn't roll over and find her side of the bed empty every morning and trudge through the eerily silent, empty house and on to the front porch to clean up whatever mess the neighborhood teenagers had left the night before.

She pretended as though she weren't still trying to play mommy to a psychopath.

"Everly." a quiet voice was accompanied by a gentle hand on my forearm. My head whipped up, eyes focusing on Mr. Andrews as he stared down at me in concern. My eyes shot passed him and around the room to find my classmates had vacated, leaving my eccentric teacher and myself the only two in the room. "Are you okay? You kinda left me for a minute there."

I crossed my arms over the cold laminate and averted my eyes to the fruit bowl sitting on the desk in center of the room. "I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize." He said, pulling out a chair in front of me and lowering himself into it. "How is the nose healing?"

The pain that I felt along the bridge of my nose and under my left eye was nothing in comparison to the cold, empty void in my stomach and chest. I had become so numb to physical pain that I only ever felt the giant bruise on my nose and my stitches whenever they were mentioned.

"I spoke with a good friend of mine. He works for RISD." Mr. Andrews continued when I didn't show any indication of responding. "I told him I had a couple promising students this year I'd love to have him check out. I know Garrett is a bit stubborn and is more likely to follow the full ride football scholarship, but I think that this would be a wonderful opportunity for you, Everly. He asked for a portfolio by Winter break."

I waited for some kind of catch for five minutes after he'd spoke, any kind of stipulation. He had an entire school full of students and he wanted me to try and apply for one of the best art schools in the country?

I knew, despite my teacher's constant encouragement that a I could have a life beyond high school, make something of myself, that it was unlikely. I would never be seen as Everly Rodgers, I'd always be seen as the Rodgers Twins little sister, the girl that'd survived the massacre that her own brothers had been planning with nothing but a wall between us.

"Just promise me you'll consider it, alright?"

I lifted my head slowly as I gathered my drawing tablet and pencils into my backpack. "Yeah, okay."

Mr. Andrews looked as if he wanted to press further but thought better of it and stood, picked up the chair he'd sat in and stacked it in the corner of the room before he made his way back to his desk and sat down. I hurriedly zipped my bag and threw one of the black straps over my shoulder and went straight for the door. It wasn't until I was in the doorway, halfway into the hall that I looked back at the teacher and whispered, "Thank you."

*

Though I had been on my way out the door and out to the lot so I could make it home before another storm, my eyes found Garrett across the field and before I could stop myself, my feet were stomping through damp grass. Most of his teammates were just tossing the ball around and rushing up and down the field, practicing I'd guess. Though I'd been too a countless number of Miles' games, I'd never quite understood the mechanics of the baseball diamond or how anything worked.

Football was just as foreign to me.

One of Garett's teammates, a lean boy with a mess of unruly dark hair, looked up from the ball with a crooked smile that slowly faltered when he caught sight of me. He wasn't as filled out as Garrett, he was lankier, his arms slightly out of proportion to the rest of his body. Miles had been built similarly, Brady had made sure to give him crap for it, especially during the season.

"Hey." the boy, being the bravest of the four guys that had stopped during practice to look at me, jogged over and slowed to a stop in front of me. "Are you lost?"

There was a hint of an accent lace in his voice, I just couldn't muster enough energy to try and figure out what it was. "Garrett?"

Though I was sure of the name, it came out as a question and realization seemed to strike the boy as if a ball had hit the back of his head.

"Yeah, he's in the locker room. He should be out in a couple minutes. You can sit and wait if you want. His bag is the one at the end of the bleachers." The boy pointed to a black and white duffel with an eagle stitched into the side. "I'm Javi by the way. You're Everly, right?"

I nodded, but found myself backing away from him slowly. "Thank you."

Javi grinned the same crooked smile that'd been on his face a few minutes prior, but being so close I could see the slight squinting of his eyes and the crinkles around the outer edges of his mouth. "Sure, no problem."

To my relief, he seemed to fully take the hint I didn't want to speak further and jogged off, rejoining his teammates, and juking one of them before they all fell back into their normal routine. Tearing my eyes from them, I crossed the field to the duffel bag and sat down, accidently knocking a sketchbook loose from the unzipped bag so it fell open on the ground a few feet away. I quickly snatched it from the ground before the damp grass could stain the pages but hesitated just before I shut it.

The photo was absolutely horrifying to say in the least. It was the outline of a man's portrait. Within it, however, was not facial features. Instead, it was a school hallway with the illusion of stretching onward. At the end was a chain on the door, and a few feet from it was the outline of a man, an AR against his side.

Suddenly nauseated, I shut the sketchbook quickly and tucked it back into Garrett's bag. Unfortunately, I'd been so lost in thought I hadn't heard him approach and he was standing a few feet in front of me, arms crossed over his chest.

Given the circumstances, I should have gotten up and walked away then. I had just invaded his privacy-and was facing the consequences of it.

He hadn't even bothered to throw a shirt back on despite there being a slight windchill out here. He had a white tee thrown over his left shoulder, the rest of toned chest and abdomen sat in the open, as if the cold didn't faze him at all. It was the first time I was witness just how athletic he was under all the loose-fitting shirts.

Sometimes I forgot that he was a jock, a player, someone that I should have run from weeks ago.

"What was that?" I finally broke the agonizing silence, digging my nails into my thigh.

Garrett ran a hand through his wet hair and sat beside me, pulling the sketchbook back from where I'd pushed it between his school sweatshirt and jersey. "The Mind of A Killer."

He flipped the page over to show the name on the back before he flipped to the next page and handed it over. "The Mind of A Survivor."

This photo was the outline of a female's portrait and had the same layout as the first photo I'd seen. Only this was darker, if possible. Inside the face was smaller images, all of a girl in various situations. The one in the top left-hand corner, where the temple would be right above the eye was a girl facing a mirror. To the right of that was a girl sitting with her back against a wall with victim in a splatter like font shaded with red against it. Toward where the bridge of nose should be was a young girl picking petals off a flower. Then along the chin sat just a candle in black and white with the fire the only color in the entire photo.

"You're not alone, Everly." Garrett whispered, gently prying the book from between my fingers and slipping it back into his duffel bag. I hadn't realized I was crying until the warmth puddled against the back of my hand. I kept my eyes trained on the ground in hopes he'd take the hint as his teammate had and vacate the area so I could suffer in silence. "I know it feels like the world is against you right now. Like there's no light at the end of all this, but there is."

I wiped at my cheeks with the heel of my hand and blinked rapidly to clear my eyes as soon as possible. "I should get home."

"Everly," he touched a hand to my shoulder. "you survived the impossible. You're still here. You—"

"I wish I wasn't!" I snapped, reaching my breaking point. "I wish that one of the three bullets that my brother had sent through me took me out. I wish I didn't have to see my boyfriend's brains all over the cafeteria floor. I wish I didn't have to watch my brother grasp as his throat after pulling out the knife that I drove into it! I wish I wasn't here to have to look into the eyes of every parent, every family, that lost someone in that school that day and know that I could have fucking stopped it!"

Garrett tensed hearing the words, his expression crumbling in sympathy and pity the way it always did. "Everly—"

"I clutched my dying boyfriend against my chest before my brother blew his brains out a few feet in front of me. I had to hide under a boy I'd been friends with for years as he bled out and died on his way to the hospital." I continued, pointing my finger at him accusingly, "I had to face those parents. I had to stare my boyfriend's mother dead in the eyes and tell her that her baby was gone. I had to look my own fucking mother in the face and tell her that her own children had singlehandedly murdered forty people. I didn't die that afternoon, Garrett, but God I wish every day that I did. I wish I didn't have to live with their screams and cries, the sound of gunshots, the images, on a continuous loop inside my head."

He extended his hand out, but I quickly shoved it aside.

"I don't want your pity! I don't deserve your sympathy! I'm a monster too!" I slammed my hands against my chest. "I'm a fucking monster too, Garrett. I killed my brother! I walk around every day while the love of my life and friends I'd known since grade school are corpses six feet underground rotting and becoming fertilizer. There is no light, Garrett! There's no happily ever after! There isn't a learning lesson for me. I will have to live with this the rest of my life. The guilt, the hurt, the fear, the agony. It will eat away at me until I can't take it any longer. Please stop acting as if one day this will all stop hurting. Like I'll move on. Because I won't. I can't."

Garrett remained still for a while, anticipating another outburst, but I could hardly get a breath out, let alone another spewing of words. Once he was sure that I was finished, he took my chin between his fingers and forced me to look into his eyes. For a moment I thought he may say something, it seemed to be what he did best. Try to find the comforting words that a psychologist may try and soothe you with. But today, he didn't say a word. He just dropped his hands to my waist and pulled me into him, so tightly I was sure this time that he was actively trying to hold me together.

Unfortunately for him, it was too late. Some things were just broken beyond repair.