“Kelsey! Kelsey! Heyyyy—"
I buried my head so into my knees that all the dust layered on my pants got into my nose—but my fear was all I needed to bring my sneeze to silence, like a child hiding from an armed intruder in the closet.
This felt wrong.
But—
No one cared! No one! Even as Charya and Kelsey’s arguing escalated, Erna stared at the two of them, a lost child watching her parents argue. Bella, in this scenario, would be the apathetic older sibling used to it all with how she pulled out her phone and looked away. Someone could be shot, and she’d likely be doing the same as always, wouldn’t she? And as for Kaleo—no, no. I didn’t even want to consider what he’d do if he cared enough to stop laying against the table.
No, that was awful. But this—this was awful too! Even more awful! Everything is awful…
And so was I, for doing nothing but cowering away.
I put my hands over my ears in a last ditch attempt to block out the noise, but no amount of layers could block my senses from the smack which screeched through the room. I looked up.
I shouldn’t have looked up.
I shouldn’t.
Why did I?
Kelsey slammed Charya’s head against the table.
I swallowed my spit, the sour taste of it making me want to vomit. Was there blood? Surely blood splattered all about. I looked back up as I heard the second slam—
And so I saw it.
Something about Erna’s demeanor always bothered me, even if I never deigned to dwell on it for too long.
No—not Erna. Not just Erna. But her, most of all. Certainly. The way she crossed her arms like a scolding schoolteacher, the way she oh so casually reached for collar and wrist alike to put an end to the madness, the way her companion paid no mind to it all like it wouldn’t matter if Kelsey split Charya’s skull open right then and there like it wasn’t blood life flesh—
Kelsey.
I looked at her.
And my heart pained me so.
She scared me. She scared me, simple as that, and it was all my fault for being the kind of pathetic coward to be easily scared by everyone. No, it’d be more concise, more honest to say she scared me, and so did Charya, so did Dori, so did Kaleo, so did Erna, Bella…
But in this moment. My heart hurt for her, did it not? She looked angry, yes, but beneath the cold embers of rage, I sensed a sort of fear I’d seen in passing at most. Saying something you don’t mean, grabbing a precious item and breaking it, throwing, hitting…anger felt terrifying.
I wondered if it terrified her most of all.
Oh, Kelsey…
I swallowed more saliva and looked down at Charya. You’d think having your head bashed in would be a perilous affair, but her face appeared the same as always. Same, empty, unreadable. I didn’t know what to say to anyone, to either of them, but Erna did. She said she did, and I chose to believe her as she prattled on like it unfolded as a small altercation would.
Well…not a droplet of blood appeared. So perhaps I would tell myself that too. That was all I could do, even as the terror which iced Kelsey’s rage coursed through my heart. Terror—blood—pain.
I wanted no more pain.
But all I received was normalcy.
“Erna…”
“You should heal Charya.”
Perhaps it was what I deserved, for being a useless, no good idiot.