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“I know it didn’t have anything to do with Gerard.”
“My sister is dead!”
“So is Gerard’s sister!”
“Yeah but see here’s the difference, Claire. I didn’t drown his sister, but his brother sure as hell drowned mine!”
“Guys, can we not?” Shannon tried to interject but it was too late to be brought down. The pot had come to the boils and confessions were spilling over the rim.
“No,” Lizzie cried hoarsely. “Because I’m never going to be okay with you going out with him.”
“And I’m never going to start asking for your permission!”
Looking like a wild, cornered animal, Lizzie shook her head and bolted for the door. “You can all go to hell.”
“What the…” Hugh muttered, looking around down at the crying girl pressed against him. “What happened?”
“Ask the rapist protector!”
“Gibs?” Hugh asked, turning around. “What happened?”
“You know what, Liz?” Gerard replied calmly. “One of these days, you’re going to have to make peace with the fact that the only person responsible for your sister’s death is your sister.”
The minute he said it, Lizzie snapped. She lunged for him, and that’s when it all went to hell. Moving like lightning, Hugh intercepted her before she could reach Gerard.
“Let me the fuck go,” she screamed, banging and hitting at his chest with the fury of a thousand demons. “I don’t need you to save me!”
Hugh didn’t let go. Ignoring her slaps, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, using his free hand to cradle her face to his chest. Eventually, she grew limp against him, hands reaching up to clutch the fabric of his school shirt, as he talked heatedly to the boys.
“Get her out of here, Hugh,” Johnny warned, as he kept a protective stance in front of his friend, looking less in control of his emotions than I’d ever seen before. “Go now, lad.”
Meanwhile, Katie stood quietly looking on, with an unreadable expression on her face.
Keeping Lizzie tucked up against his chest, Hugh continued to speak to his friends, while he doled out instructions and caught a set of flying car keys midair. He flicked his gaze to his girlfriend, who simply nodded before turning away from the drama and packing her lunch box into her schoolbag.
Shielding her face from the view of dozens of our peers when he opened the door to the main hallway, Hugh walked Lizzie in one direction, while Johnny steered Gerard in the other. Keeping a supportive hand on his shoulder, he walked his best friend away from the carnage.
“She needs a doctor,” Pierce, who was standing in the hall, came into the fray and declared. “That girl is seriously unwell.”
“Don’t fucking say it like that,” Patrick snapped back. “Jesus!”
“Hurt people hurt people,” Shannon offered. “I’m not excusing it, but please don’t vilify her for not using healthy ways to cope with her trauma.”
“Shannon, we all have trauma,” Katie replied. “Not everyone projects it on other people.”
“I think it’s because there were so many unsaid conversations,” Patrick offered, shifting in his seat. “One day she was here and the next she—”
“Wasn’t.”
“Exactly.”
“Nothing was cleared up,” he added.
“Exactly,” Shannon agreed, nodding eagerly. “So, for Lizzie, she’s still living that day on repeat.”
“Kind of like the film Groundhog Day.”
“Yes,” she beamed at Patrick. “Just like Groundhog Day.” She turned to the rest of us. “The years are passing by for the rest of us, but she’s stuck in that moment.” Shrugging, she added, “Time can’t heal when it doesn’t pass by.”
