SEVENTEEN
ozzy
Bay standsin front of me, unmoved, as though she’s dead, right along with Wallace’s casket in front of us.
I haven’t seen her crack a smile in days. And I mindlessly find myself longing to see it, because…it makes me content to know she’s okay. That she’s still Bay and not some empty shell walking around with demons in her head.
My chest tightens uncomfortably as the early afternoon sun beats down on the group gathered today. The solemn looks aren’t what’s bothering me, but who could be here.
Sinister thoughts form in my head, because I know the different types of evil. I lived around it as a child, when Cairo was dating Vivian, and when I was sent to prison.
I’ve seen people get beaten to death for stealing a morsel of food. I’ve heard muffled screams within the depths of night, when prisoners would pay off the guards just to get at or to someone.
I’ve been targeted.
Multiple times. And the only thing that brings me solace from those things is her. From the moment I laid eyes on Bay, skipping to her car at a race, I knew she’d help me.
But in the shadow of the large tree she stands under, I feel Bay slipping away from me.
Not that I ever really had her.
Not in the way my brothers have, but we havesomething.
Our palms, when they touch, I feel something other than empty and weird. I feel like she sees me for what I am and who I’ve become.
Yet, in her grief, it’s not the same. I can’t read her anymore.
Bay is this torpedo of madness I find myself enthralled with. She’s unsystematic; her ideas and movements are always changing and moving. I can never entirely pinpoint her brain, but I do know when she smiles, she’s alright.
But now I’m left in the dark, and I’m afraid she’ll never come out and will be forever changed by her best friend’s death.
Ellie holds one of Bay’s hands, trying to keep it together, but broken sobs escape her lips every few minutes.
We’re so different, from the same parents, and I wonder how we’d be if I didn’t roam down the path I had.
Not that I regret most of it, only some.
And when Bay wraps her fingers tighter around her sister’s—my sister’s—is when I see she barely holds on to what people call sanity.
I don’t like that I can’t see her face, but I stand behind her in silent support anyway. Bay may not care or want me here, but I’m not leaving her side, nor is she abandoning my sight. This chapter of her life isn’t one I’m particularly a fan of. Especially when she’s trying to push us all away. I wonder if Reeve was here if he’d know how to get to her.
To feel.
This powerful anchor she has on De Leon makes me apprehensive about her next move because I know there is one. Cairo says she’s going to listen, but he’s not fully bought.
I’m not either.
It’ll take one spark of something else for an idea to form and for Bay to immediately act on it. She’s like a pitbull, already with her jaws latched onto her prey, and Matteo De Leon is counting on it.
That’s the part she’s not fully understanding.
And we need her to comprehend that.
I’d do anything to him to make her feel at peace again because a part of her is now me.
I need her.
I think that’s the appropriate term to use, I’m not sure.
