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It has to get better. The way we treat each other and look out for each other. It has to get better somehow.
-Clay Jensen
~ ☆ ~I look down at my hands, palms facing up. Both are clean but my eyes tell me otherwise. They show hands soaked with blood, every inch colored a dark red.Suddenly, I'm back at the school, reliving that moment over again. Before it happened so fast but now it happens painfully slow.I witness it all. I see the gun. I hear the shot ring out in the hall and I see your body hit the floor. My mouth calls out your name and my feet somehow managed to bring me to your side. I have to swallow the lump in my throat when I see a pool of red forming beneath you. I'm trying to put pressure on the wound, trying to help. My eyes are stinging because I'm holding back tears. My mouth is saying, 'you'll be okay,' but my mind is racing. Racing with thoughts of the night I found Jeff after the accident and of Hannah Baker, a girl I loved who took her own life. Feeling lost and on the edge of falling apart again because I hated losing someone I cared about, someone I loved.And I think I'm losing you now too. But I can't lose you. I can't. I don't want you to die, not this way. Not while I'm here.But why does it feel like life is slipping through my fingers again?Over the terrified shouts and screams of students gathering at the scene, I cry, "Help! Somebody, help!"Help. Somebody. Anybody.Now, as I sit here leaning against a tiled wall with warm water running over my body from the shower head above, I allow myself to crumble. I curl up in a ball, arms wrapped around my knees and head hung low. I choke on broken sobs, my tears mixing with the water that was still running. Yet there wasn't enough water in the world that would wash those stains away or the immense guilt I felt. Guilt over the fact that this all could have been prevented."Clay?" The soft voice was that of my mother's. I could tell she was concerned, hear the worry in her voice. What parent wouldn't be concerned for their child who'd just witnessed a school shooting?