The severity of my actions dawns on me immediately.

As time begins to move again, I drop the gun and fall to my knees, feeling as though the sky has crashed onto my head. Movement bursts to life around me: officers swarm the docks, someone grabs onto my shoulders, and I helplessly stare at Derek lying motionless ahead of me. There are flashing lights and swarming vehicles and so many words spoken all at once, their meanings are lost among the sirens.

So I finally let the numbness of the icy water consume me. I can taste sweat and blood as stray rivulets of murky water move from my hair and into my mouth.

There is more gunfire behind me.

That is where the firework sound came from, I think hazily. I already know that. The thought—one answer in a sea of endless questions—is comforting.

That comfort is shattered when I hear Abigail call my name and then scream as though she's been struck. I've never heard that sound come from anyone before. No, I take that back. I remember hearing that kind of pain in my mother's screams when Dad's heart finally stopped.

I watch her as she sits on the dock with Derek's blood-coated head in her lap, sobbing. He is still motionless. Medics swarm them before I can get a better look at him. I don't care. Seeing her with him, my mind snaps back to Hayden.

"Hayden," I whimper, crawling towards him. Men in dark jackets holding tool kits surround him. One of them holds his head while the other has a stethoscope pressed to his throat. Hands move quickly, orders are barked into radios, and the hilt of the knife that protrudes from Hayden's chest glints in the light mockingly.

"Step back, ma'am," one of the men warns me.

"You have to get the knife out of his chest. Why aren't you getting the knife out of his chest?" Hysteria bubbles in my chest. "You have to get it out! Get it out before he dies!"

"Ma'am! Please!"

Why aren't they listening to me!

Rough hands grab my shoulders. "Stop it! Let go of me!"

"Let her go," another voice says and just like that the hands are gone. I clumsily race to Hayden's side and collapse beside him, thankful for every heavy breath that comes from his chest.

"You're alive," I sob. Face splattered with blood, Hayden turns his head to look at me and the impact of the emotion that shines in them makes me dizzy. "You're going to be okay. Understand? You have to let these people help you. Please, let them help you."

He doesn't speak.

"You're going to be fine! Everything is fine!" I tell him hysterically. "Please! Tell me you're going to be okay!"

"Ember, you need to calm down." There's that voice again. I swing my gaze around to Hayden's father, Matthew, and am surprised to see the absolute distress in his reddened eyes. "Crying and screaming isn't going to help him." He clears his throat and offers his hand. "They have to get him into the ambulance."

I'm not leaving him, I want to say. I can't leave him.

Hayden begins to cough. The medics leap back in surprise when blood spills from his mouth and his coughs grow more violent.

"What's going on?"

Hayden gurgles in pain, gripping his stomach, coughing. "Give us space!" one man yells. Matthew struggles to pull me back.

"Someone! Help! He's coughing up blood!"

The seconds feel like hours. Four men rush to us with a stretcher, load Hayden on, and disappear somewhere behind the warehouse. I clumsily follow, my heart thumping faster than it ever has before. Fear makes it hard to breathe. The EMTs talk feverishly among themselves with words like 'puncture' and 'drown in his own blood'.

The medics begin to strap every kind of device to him. An oxygen mask is strapped to his face. The men are stressed, rushing to get vitals and calling for an emergency surgery in the hospital. Bile rises in my throat and it takes everything not to break down. I just found Hayden. I can't lose him now.

"You're not going with him," Matthew says when I climb into the back.

But before I have time to register his words, I'm pulled out of the ambulance and thrown into the arms of another EMT waiting to tend to my wounds. Overhead helicopters buzz noisily and lights shine from their illuminated bellies. Fire trucks whine in the distance. The commotion makes my mind spin.

"I have to go with them," I tell the woman. "You don't understand, I have to be there."

"No," the EMT says sternly. "You need help before anyone else."

But it's too late. They're gone.

"Shhh, you're okay. Hayden will be fine." A girl around my age, with dark hair and tan skin, wraps her arms around my shoulders, murmuring soft reassuring words. Shaking, I cling to her, unable to stand up anymore. The world focuses in and out.

"How do you know that?" I hiccup.

"Because I do," she answers calmly. "Now for Hayden's sake, you need to get checked out. That's a lot of blood you have on yourself. And you need some dry clothes. Come on, Ember."

I don't bother to ask her how she knows my name and lean on her shoulder for support. The girl leads me to the second ambulance and before I have a chance to reach the stretcher, my legs buckle and I collapse, the exhaustion finally taking its toll.

***

Funerals.

They're one of the hardest experiences of your life.

The confusion is suffocating and the sudden realization of how time continues to move so unaffectedly has me wondering what the simple and beautiful world will remain as when I'm no longer there to watch it.

I appreciate the beauty I take for granted when faced with the dreadful. To stand in that wretched funeral home, watching as a person grieves over the loss of someone they've loved with their whole being, and knowing there is nothing you can truly do to alleviate the pain can sometimes feel worse than death itself. The only thing you're able to offer to both the deceased and their loved ones is a small embrace of hope that they're in a better place, kind words of their memory, and a sorrowful apology.

But it's worse when you know—knEw—them. When you share laughter and pain, jokes and insults, and small moments you won't remember until they're in that casket. It's darkness. It's painful. It is tears and questions of why someone or something could be so cruel as to take a fragile piece of beautiful energy from the dark world.

When my dad died, when my mother began drinking, my innocence died with it. We only grow up when our innocence dies, not the age of our bodies. The memories will be there forever and looking at a cemetery, a church, or funeral home, will never be the same again. You'll always be reminded of how it happened even if you weren't there.

And if you were?

I have no words for that one.

I can't bring myself to walk through the doors of the funeral home I stand in front of. If I do, it'll all be real. It'll assure me that my nightmares are a reality.

"Ember?"

I don't turn around at the sound of Gabby's voice. I'm too numb, too tired from all that's happened in the past few months, to do something that requires so much energy. In this moment, every once of exhaustion I've felt has returned. That's all I can think about.

"Em," she stands beside me, hesitant to reach out and pat my shoulder. "You've been standing here for twenty minutes..."

"I can't do it."

My voice sounds foreign. It's thick and raspy like I'm choking.

"I can't do it." I smooth out the silky black fabric of my dress.

Gabby throws her arms around my shoulders, careful not to press too hard on my bandaged side. "I'm sorry," she whispers, "I'm so sorry."

"There was nothing you could do," I reply miserably. "It happened so fast and so out of nowhere. I...I didn't see it happen. I didn't see any of it coming."

"Nate chose that life way before he knew you. He chose this fate. He played you and put you in harm's way. You can't feel guilty about anything."

I don't feel guilty. But a part of me doesn't feel so innocent either. I never realized there was a gray between those two as well.

I give my best friend a wary nod and she pulls me through the door where my brother and Paris are waiting. Felicity and Gianna are close behind and I take a second to look at the small group of people around me, so glad that they weren't dragged into this. If they got hurt in this mess, I could never ever forgive myself.

"It seems like we haven't been together in years," Paris says quietly. "Too bad this is where..."

Corry clears his throat. "We all knew Nate. Even if he was a bad guy, it still hurts and we should pay our respects." Taking Gianna by the arm, he disappears into the viewing room.

Gabby gives my hand a small squeeze. "Come on. Your mom is waiting inside."

I can hear the muffled sobs that belong to Mrs. Lincoln before I enter the room. She's a tall woman, hair pulled back in a tight golden bun at the nape of her neck. She sits on her knees in front of an old woman in a wheelchair, Nate's grandmother I assume, with her head in the woman's lap. I can't seem to swallow the lump in my throat.

I just want to leave. I don't know why I'm here in the first place, but something inside of me says that if I missed this, I would regret it for the rest of my life. So I step further into the dimly light space and try to ignore the stares. I don't know how they know, but the town knows I was involved in the circumstances of his death. There just hasn't been anyone ballsy enough to ask about it.

"Are you going to be okay?" Gabby whispers in my ear.

I'm not sure.

When I approach the casket, my legs begin to tremble. Flashes of the warehouse assault my mind and for a moment, I'm staring into his lifeless eyes again. A sob gurgles in my chest and I clamp my mouth tightly shut, focusing on everything in front of me to stop from falling apart. Flowers of every kind are placed around the dark polished wood, smelling sweet over the stale scent of sadness. Suddenly, I'm back in the locker room where he helped me escape the embarrassment of Coach Foster and the varsity football team. I'm staring at his charismatic smile.

Nate looks like he is sleeping.

I hope you've found peace.

The ache of guilt begins to fade away. Once again, I'm a hollow shell as I walk away. And as I make my way out the door, another hand slips into mine. Abigail's hold is strong, just as it always is, and she pulls me in for another hug. We're joined for what feels like hours as support.

After the night on the docks, I learned that Derek was still alive when the police arrived. He was still alive when Abigail found him. He took his last breath in her arms.

I killed him.

I killed Derek.

I killed the love of Abigail's life.

"You're not okay," I murmur into her shoulder.

She shakes her head, small frame trembling.

"I thought I was," she's on the verge of crying. "But I was wrong. I don't know what to do but I don't think I can stay here, Ember."

"I understand. Please, Abby, take care of yourself."

Abigail releases me, her face is streaked with tears, and nods. "Have you seen Hayden lately?"

A heavy weight presses down. "Hayden has been avoiding me ever since we got back. I've been trying to call him...but nothing."

Hayden had been wearing bulletproof armor under his jacket when Derek threw the knife at him. The blade had slipped between one of the spaces in his armor, slightly puncturing the skin. The shock of the throw shifted the plates enough to knock the wind out of him. With it, one of his ribs cracked and punctured his side. That was the reason for him coughing up blood.

Hayden was bruised and battered from his final fight with Derek but he made it out alive at that's all that matters to me now.

"Please take care of yourself, Ember."

"I will. I always do."

* * *

A blanket of bulbous charcoal storm clouds blocks the afternoon sun. A cold November wind slinks across the yard, wrapping around me like an icy scarf, and I rush up a pair of rickety old steps in need of a coat of paint.

When I raise my hand to ring the doorbell, I hesitate. Which is dumb. I've been here too many times not to know where I am. If I have the right house or not.

When it opens, a woman with long mousey blonde hair steps out onto the porch. She's much taller than me, with smooth tan skin and eyes that looked to be once a vivid blue, now slightly faded with exhaustion.

She looks at me and blinks. "Ember...Ember Chance?"

I shuffle awkwardly. Her expression doesn't have any disdain. She looks genuinely surprised.

"Hello Mrs. Cross. Is uh...is Hayden here? I really need to talk to him."

"Yes he is," she clears her throat and looks over her shoulder. She turns back with a smile on her face and I'm taken aback for a second. Hayden has her smile. "Come on in, sweetie. He's upstairs in his room. First door on your left."

I don't know what I expected of Hayden's room. Maybe stuff like axes and maces hanging on the wall? A pet piranha? Some kind of spy stuff in the corner of the room that he used to constantly keep tabs on me? Whatever my thoughts were, I'm surprised to see that his room looks fairly...normal.

His light blue walls are covered with band posters. Clothes spill out of Hayden's closet, some piled on top of the big bed that sits in the middle of the room next to a large bay window. An old tan guitar sits on the bench next to a fancy Mac laptop and what looks to be a microphone. I look around, taking in Hayden's safe haven with awe. It even smells like him.

"Ember?"

When I turn around, Hayden stands in the doorway with only a towel wrapped loosely around his hips.

"Oh! Oh shit! Sorry!" I scream, instantly slapping a hand over my eyes. "Your mom let me in! She told me to go up! Holy crap! Sorry!" I peak through a gap in my fingers, ready to drop dead from the smirk on Hayden's face. "I—I mean—I didn't mean to just stand in here like this!"

He shakes his head as he makes his way to the closet. Swooping its guts into his arms, Hayden shoves the clothes back inside, randomly grabbing something to wear, and turning back to me. "It's alright," he says slowly. "So...how are you?"

By that he means he wants to do what I am doing here.

I instinctively hug myself, unable to find the right words to say. "I...I just wanted to talk and all. We really haven't seen each other much since we got back. And I kind of miss you. How are your ribs?"

Hayden's eyes widen when I say that I've missed him. My fingers curl into fists, palms suddenly becoming slick with sweat, and I have to hold back the urge of throwing my arms around him.

He looks at me for a moment before nodding. "They're okay. It'll still be some time before it heals but I'll manage. Umm... can you hold on a second? Let me just put some clothes on."

He doesn't say it in his usual suggestive manner. He doesn't give me that sly smirk that would have angels blushing. He doesn't undress me with his eyes, which he's been doing for months now. Hayden Cross sounds shy.

Hayden comes back a few minutes later, wearing a blue shirt and gray sweatpants. "What's up?" he asks gently, sitting beside me. His gray eyes are crystal clear and they stare into my ice-blue irises with a strong hold.

"How are you?"

Hayden exhales a laugh through his nose, looking to the ground and running a hand through his hair. It's shorter now. Shorter, but still so stylishly messy. "I'm okay."

"I like okay. Okay is a lot better than bad."

Hayden shrugs. "Maybe." Hayden purses his lips. "How is your mom?"

And there it is. That unspoken question hanging life a knife above our heads is finally ready to know the truth.

"She's...she's almost fully recovered." I know Hayden can hear the hesitation, the buildup to what I'm about to ask.

He takes my hand. We both look down, staring at how small my pale fingers are compared to his. Hayden's fingers explore the small planes, outlining the carved lines in my palms, his thumb gently circling the pulse point on the soft spot of my wrist. It sends little jolts of electricity through my arms.

"I know what you want to ask," he says in a low voice, turning my hand over to brush my scraped knuckles. "And I'm not going to lie to you." His eyes are glazed over with guilt and pain. And it answers my question. I have to hold back a gasp. Nate and Derek weren't lying.

"It wasn't on purpose. Derek was standing there trying to taunt me and threaten everyone," he lets go of my hand. "And I was so angry. Your mom was on her way to the car. Derek said so many disgusting things, I just wanted to end it right there. Jason was in on it, of course. He must have used her as a body shield. They were that close and the wind must have changed the bullet's direction. I ran as soon as I shot it. I didn't even know it hit your mom until you got the call in the park."

"Hayden—"

"Ember, I need you to know that I would never try to hurt her to get at you. I would never. Even when we didn't get along—please tell me you know that."

I do. I do know that.

It takes a second for his words to completely register. I open my mouth and then close it because the right words don't come to mind. My mind spins. I don't feel as upset as I did in the warehouse when Nate first told me what had happened. That sting of betrayal has vanished.

"You don't understand how guilty I feel," he says darkly. "Shit. I feel like shit. And I take full responsibility for everything that's happened. I'm getting a job soon. I'll pay your mom's medical bills if I have to. I just want you to know how sorry I am for that stupid mistake my raging temper caused—"

"Stop."

Hayden closes his mouth and stares at me with a look that says he's bracing himself. And when I throw my arms around his neck, he stiffens from complete surprise.

I pull him as close as possible, feeling the warmth radiating from his chest heat my skin, feeling how surprisingly comfortable I am in his arms. "Don't apologize. I might have been upset with you before but now...it seems so small compared to everything that's happened. You were basically stabbed in the chest trying to save me. You're a different person from the one that day in the parking lot. I—I don't know what I expected to feel when you said this, but I know that I forgive you, Hayden."

He pulls away. "You forgive me?"

"Yes. For everything. I want to start over with you, Hayden Cross."

He smiles. "I know the perfect way."

"How is that?"

"Let me take you on a date."

Whoa there.

"W-what?"

Hayden licks his lips. "Can I take you out somewhere?"

"Yes," I grin. "Yes, you can."

* * *