“I was with them that night. The accident happened because of me.” I swallowed, hoping to clear my raspy voice.
“What? How?”
“I was crossing the road looking at my phone. I looked both ways before I started crossing, but since my attention was on my phone while I was on the road, I couldn’t see that car on time...”
No. Don’t lose yourself in pain. Not again. Take deep breaths.
“The driver was driving too fast. He swerved to the side to avoid me, but that led him directly to Hayden, who was on a sidewalk... Kayden jumped to save him a moment before the collision. They were both hit, but Kayden was the one who took most of the blow.”
I took a deep breath, barely able to look her in the eyes, and wiped away a tear that had escaped down my cheek, recollecting the moment Kay and Hayden fell from the hood of the car to the unyielding asphalt.
“Kayden died on the spot.”
Jessica took my hand in hers. “I’m so sorry, Sarah.”
I searched her face for any trace of accusation, but I found none, and it took a moment for this to sink in. She wasn’t blaming me for his death. She was genuinely compassionate, which touched deep parts of me that yearned for someone’s understanding and sympathy.
“I keep thinking, if only I hadn’t been so stupid—”
“It’s not your fault.” She squeezed my hands reassuringly. “You couldn’t know.”
“But he wouldn’t have died if I’d been a little more careful. It haunts me. I put Hayden’s life in danger, and as a result, Kayden was forced to save him.”
“Still, he was the one who chose to save his brother.” She said exactly what Mrs. Black told me after the accident.
“But he’s his twin. Of course he’d save him.”
“But there are other factors to consider. Like that driver. You said he was driving too fast? What happened to him?”
“He’s in prison. Sentenced to six years.”
“Only six years? That’s—” She froze, and I followed her gaze. Blake, Masen, and Josh were coming toward us.
Oh no. No, no, no. Alarms went off in my head, followed by the urge to pull Jessica with me and run away.
They surrounded us in a threatening manner, which drew the attention of the students around us.
“You think you can hide from us, Sars?” Blake asked me with a scowl before he sneered at Jessica. “Playing friends with ugly Fats? Figures. Both of you are disgusting creeps.”
He snatched Jessica’s bottle of juice, opened it, and poured the juice over her. Oh my God. I tried to stand up, but Masen immediately pushed me back down, and my lunch bag slipped out of my hand to the ground.
“Sit down, bitch,” Masen hissed at me.
Josh signaled to Blake, who took a shot of Jessica with his iPhone and sniggered, the sound of his laughter grating on my ears. “This goes online immediately.”
“She looks so wet,” Masen remarked, his words filled with sexual innuendo, and a few students who observed us from a short distance laughed. It was vicious.
Jessica was shaking, her tears welling up in her eyes. No. No more.
“Leave us alone,” I said weakly. How could we get out of this? What could I do to make them stop?
“Not until you get what you deserve,” Josh responded, his sinister eyes piercing me with hatred that was beyond comprehension. He grabbed my backpack.
I jumped to my feet and tried to take it away from him, but Masen shoved me down again. “Sit down,” he sneered in my ear, making my insides crawl.
“Give it back.”
My imploring voice did nothing to convince Josh to listen to me. In fact, it fueled him to do the opposite. He opened my backpack and turned it upside down, letting all its contents drop to the ground.
He reached for my sketching notebook, as if he knew that of all my notebooks it was the one that was the most precious to me since it contained some of my most important drawing notes and ideas for new drawings. I watched in horror as he began ripping the pages, shredding them into pieces.
“No!” I shouted at him and jerked upward, but Masen didn’t let me move, keeping me glued to the bench.
Blake was filming Josh, who was throwing the pieces of my now-ruined notebook in the air like confetti, and tears escaped my eyes. All my ideas were gone. They were lost forever.
“This goes online too.”
I felt like I was going to vomit any moment. I hoped to meet Jessica’s eyes, but she was constantly staring at the ground, ashamed and terrified. I just wanted this to end.
A hushed whisper carried on between some students, their pale faces painting my grim reality. One blonde girl pointed at the school, glancing between us and the building as she argued with the girl next to her. She seemed torn.
“Please, no more,” I implored. “You did enough.”
“It’s never enough,” Blake said. “You know the date. You have to pay for what you’ve done.”
Masen and Josh picked Jessica and me up and put us over their shoulders like we were two sacks of potatoes, further degrading us.
“Put me down,” I screamed at Josh, wincing at the pain in my stomach when I hit his hard shoulder. Where were they taking us now?!
His response was to clamp his fingers around my calves, digging his fingers into them too hard. It would leave bruises.
“Keep talking and I’ll break your jaw,” he gritted through his teeth silently so only I could hear him.
I twisted to the side to see where they were taking us and cried out at the sight, my breathing turning erratic. We were heading to the nearby dumpsters.
This was not happening.
“Say cheese!” Blake took a shot of me.
I just wanted to die.
Blake started chanting, followed by a couple more students, engulfing me with misery and darkness. “Trash. Trash. Trash.”
“Put this trash where it belongs!” one guy shouted.
“You hear this, bitch? A dumpster is where you belong,” Josh said, a tone of something deranged eliciting the most intense fear in me. “How about we chop you into pieces first and then dump you?”
Masen threw Jessica into the dumpster first, evoking more chuckles from some of the onlookers, but this time I didn’t quite hear it. The only thing I heard was the constant ringing in my ears, and it got louder and louder. I was beside myself with terror.
Before I could even brace myself for it, Josh threw me into the other dumpster, and I landed among the various litter, banging my head against the lid. My vision became blurry when I scrambled to my feet, managing to find my footing among the bags of junk that produced a terrible stench. I barely saw Blake take a photo of me while laughing with a couple of other students who pointed their phones at Jessica and me. I closed my eyes, feeling numb.
How could all of them be so cruel? Where was their humanity?
Everything hurt—breathing, thinking, seeing their thrill at our pain... I wished my body was weak so I could just faint and escape this humiliation.
“Stop this immediately!” Principal Anders rushed in our direction with two teachers and the blonde girl from before by his side, and everyone scampered to the side, tucking their phones away. “This is outrageous! Do you have any shame? Jones, Brown, and Akers! I want to see you in my office right now!”