Devin and I were sitting on his front porch. He was drawing circles in my hand. "I'm really happy you decided you liked me enough to date me." "Me to, but honestly what's not to like." "Well for one I'm a guy." "Well there's that." I joked. "I'm serious. After what your jerk of a step dad Carl tried to do, and you punching me I get it that's why I've been keeping my distance on the whole physical part of it." "I appreciate that. I don't know if or when I'll ever be ready."

                                "You and me both, my dad made it look so wrong. I mean it's like tainted." "Yea Carl too, how do you have a normal relationship after that?" "I don't know if we ever will but I say you kiss me and let's see how you feel." "Right now? What if I suck?" "No chance of that, and even if you did I wouldn't care. That's not why I'm dating you. I need you to know that. The physical stuff is such a small small part of why I like you." "Good, ok then let's give it a go."

                                I didn't know where to put my hands. Not now and certainly not when I kissed him. It was so funny his grandmother was worried about us doing everything and we couldn't even get kissing right. It was just such a scary thing because to me this meant so much. Kissing somebody meant you trusted them and you let them in, all the way.

                                I sat my hand on his leg and he leaned in closing his eyes. I did the same and our lips touched. I steadied my breathing and calmed my nerves. This isn't creepy or wrong. He is my boyfriend and we like each other. My stomach coiled a bit but not in a bad way. Now was my chance to figure this hand thing out. I moved one up his sides and squeezed. Oh muscles, that's nice. He put his hand on my back under my shirt gently rubbing. Testing me, but so far everything felt ok. I hadn't had any alarm bells going off.

                              I pulled back out of breath. "Well how was it?" I asked biting my lip. "Wow, I have no idea what you were so worried about." "Honestly, me either. That didn't feel wrong. It felt, nice." "So good to hear, and I'm glad it isn't awkward. " I let out a breath. "Me too." The front door opened and then closed. "Ew you guys that was seriously disgusting." McKenzie said coming out to sit right between us. "If it was so disgusting then why did you watch us?" Devin asked. She shrugged. "It was like a dying dog you just can't look away."

                             "A dying dog?? McKenzie that is horrible!" I shrieked. "What? Bryan says it all the time." She clarified. "Well now I'm really not so sure I like this Bryan guy." Devin said shaking his head. "He's mostly ok." Kenzie laughed. "Right, is there any reason why you came out here? Other to make fun of our kissing?" Devin asked. "Oh...that...yea dinner is ready." She hopped up. "You're kidding me! Why didn't you tell me that?" Devin asked laughing. "Cause watching you kiss was more fun." She giggled running inside before Devin could catch her.

                              I loved hearing those sounds. It was something I never heard before. I was an only child and my child hood memories had faded and were replaced by darker things. Maybe I should go to Tennessee, I mean the picture Ms. Jean showed me looked nice. Two boys around my age and a two year old girl. And the best part of all is my aunt was my dad's sister. So far they seemed like the good part of my family.

                               Although the idea of them harassing me because I'm the reason my dad was dead did cross my mind. I realized I was staring at Devin and his family with a stupid grin on my face. That was only slightly creepy. I took a seat in my spot and started to fix my hamburger. I listed to the endless chatter about the day. It was nice. When dinner was over and we had the kitchen clean Kenzie was begging us to play candy land again. I didn't mind though it was nice having a sister type figure to do stuff with.

                          After that was over Devin and I snuggled on the couch to watch a movie. I didn't need to tell his grandparents we weren't ready for sex because if we ever got to that point I'd feel like a horrible person. But I wanted to follow her rules because I was grateful to be living here. And a movie on the couch sounded safe. We decided to head to bed after that because we had group the next day.

                         The next day we were all sitting down waiting for Brad to show up. "Where is he?" Asked Reggy looking at his watch. "Who knows, we'll give him five more minutes." We talked about what we had done during the summer and the upcoming school year. It was going to be fun getting ready for college. After the five minutes had passed Mr. Stein decided to go ahead and get started, and that we could fill Brad in when he got back.

                           "So today were going to be talking about..." A gunshot went off. Mr. stein stood up very quickly and ran to lock the door. "Everybody get down now." He laid on the floor and we joined him. "Was that a gun!?" Kami asked. "I think so." Mr. Stein said. "What in the world!? Who would have a gun!?" Emily said clearly freaking out. "I don't know, I'm scared." I said. Devin held onto me as tightly as he could. "I'm going to call the cops." Mr. Stein said pulling out his phone.

                          "Hello yes this is Shawn, I am at Pendleton High school. A gunshot just went off in the hall. I'm with some students. Yes we're safely inside a classroom but we are missing one of our students I'm worried he may be out there. No its not just us there are teachers here for a conference. Ok thank you." He hung up his phone. "Their on their way kids just stay down until its clear."

                           We heard screaming outside the room. "Who do you think is in here with a gun?" Asked Emily trembling. "Who knows, anybody off the street could of came in here." Said Mr. Stein. "I hope they missed." Said Kami. "Well ok so that's unlikely I just hope whoever got shot doesn't die." She said. The floor was very cold and I was scared to death. "Do you think the shooter will come in here?" I asked realizing its a possibility. "I don't know but the door is locked and where on the floor so I think were safe." He said reassuring all of us.

                         I tried taking deep breaths but it didn't really work. They kept coming out in short fast spurts. "What if they shot Brad, and that's why he never showed up." I said. They all glared at me. "I'm sorry but somebody had to say it. None of us have missed a day all summer." "Yea but you didn't have to say it out loud." Reggy said. "I know, I'm sorry I'm just really scared." "It's going to be ok." Devin said reassuring me.

                        Finally, about ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door. It was a police officer. Mr. Stein opened the door. "Are you kids ok?" Asked the police officer. We all nodded. "Ok well its safe now we apprehended the criminal." He said leading us out into the hall way. "Who was it?" Asked Devin. "I'm sorry he's a minor I cant disclose that." "You don't think it was..." I started to ask but they all glared at me. Of course it wasn't Brad. I mean sure, he's not here...we don't know where he is. It could be anything. He could be sick, he could of had a doctors appointment. He could of over slept for crying out loud.

                         We walked out the front door. All the teachers were out there. They were all talking and a few of them were crying. "He's been at this school for over twenty years I don't know why that poor boy would do such a thing." Said Ms. Gold my math teacher from last year. "Well I think its because of all the rumors, kids can be so cruel." Said Mr. Jordan The ninth grade English teacher. "Maybe the rumors were true, I mean think about it. He didn't wait till the first day of school and shoot up all the kids that were teasing him." Said Ms. Corvey the librarian.

                         By this time they realized we had come out of the building. They all asked if we were ok.  I turned and saw a covered gurney heading into the back of an ambulance. We were all talking at once by this point and it was very clear. "Well can you at least tell us who that was?" Devin asked pointing. "Gerald Tully." Said the police officer. I gasped. I mean from the way the teachers were talking I thought it was him. But then that would explain why Brad didn't come to group. I didn't want to just point my finger at Brad though.

                        I heard yelling coming from the right and a turned around. News cameras were near a police car trying to get a statement. That's when I saw him, Brad. He had his head down and his lawyer was leaning against the car. "No comment. Don't you guys have any decency!?" The camera crew finally left him alone. They came over to the police officers and ambulances. They asked a couple of question and one of the police officers talked on the camera. They came over and asked one of the teachers to speak then they walked over to us. "You there, girl with dark short hair what's your name?" "Jess." "May we ask you a few questions?" The news anchor asked. I shrugged to stunned to say no.

                          "I'm with one of the students here Jess, did you know Brad?" "Yes he came to group with us." I motioned and the camera turned to get everybody else in the shot. "What was his relationship with Mr. Tulley." I looked at Mr. Stein for help. "Uh..." What I wanted to say was, their was no relationship. Brad was being abused by this monster you jerk so mind your own dang business. But I couldn't because it wasn't my business to tell.

                            "Can you answer me this was Brad on any medications?" My mouth dropped. "What is wrong with you? He wasn't Crazy!" "Normal people don't just shoot people for no reason." She clarified. "Exactly so maybe he had a reason, you shouldn't be so worried about...." I felt a hand tugging at my arm. It was Mr. Stein. "I think you have enough." He told the girl. She huffed and turned. "That's a wrap." She told her crew and then they left.

                             Reggy was sitting on the side walk his head in his hands and he was crying and breathing really loudly. "Reggy what's the matter?" Asked Mr. stein. Reggy looked up. He started pulling at his hair. "Reggy what's the matter?" Asked Mr. stein again taking a seat and putting an arm around him. "Me and Brad talked last week after group. He said a lot of stuff but I never knew he was going to do this!" He screamed putting his hand out. "I should of known...I SHOULD OF KNOWN." He kept screaming over and over. "Calm down Reggy, what exactly did Brad say to you?"Mr. Stein asked. "He just...He asked if I had a chance to make all of this go away would I? So I said yes of course this has been the cause of lots of sleepless nights, I just never thought he would off Mr. Tully." He said.

                    "Reggy its not your fault if he never came out and said he was going to shoot him you had no way of knowing just calm down, its going to be ok." He put an arm over his shoulders. "But its not, somebody is dead! I should've read between the lines. I'm a bad friend I'm slime." He said his voice rising. "No you're not, Reggy listen to me. Everybody's attackers here are gone, they're locked away. Brads wasn't he just didn't feel safe. Like he told us at group he had his records of where he lived he was scared he was going to come find him. So he did what he thought was going to protect him." "Didn't he know he'd get caught!? Why did he have to go and do something so stupid?!" "To him it wasn't stupid. I think in some way he was mad at Gerald because he didn't get in trouble for what he did. So he doled out his own form of punishment. We may never know what was going on inside his head. He felt such a drastic action was needed. I'm shocked by this." "We all are." I said.

                     I don't know if Reggy believed what Mr. Stein said or not but he nodded and pulled his fingers from his hair. Mr. stein looked around at the group standing around.  "Are you guys ok?" He asked. We all nodded. "Just a little shaken up." Emily said hugging herself. "Ok well, I think we need to just go home and come back next week. And we can talk about all of this more. Ok?" We nodded. "Sounds good I'll see you guys next week." Mr. Stein said standing up. "Reggy would you like to talk some more? I'd be happy to stick around." Reggy nodded. "Ok yea, thanks." "We love you Reggy." I said wrapping him in a hug. Everybody joined around Reggy to hug him. "Thanks you guys." Reggy said. "If you need anything call or text me ok?" I said. "You got it, thanks Jess."

                       Devin and the rest of us headed to the parking lot.