trigger warning : slight visual imageries of gore, please skip if you're not comfortable x
THE INSTANT SHE figured out what was happening, she screamed. Her feet bore into the ground as she shook violently, heart plummeting and stomach churning. The tips of her fingers dug into the soft material of Tate's blazer.
She felt like she was watching a train wreck, tragic but eye catching at the same time. Her eyes wouldn't leave the sight of it, the glory and gore of it. Of a girl falling to her death.
Fuck, she realized. What was she going to do? She could jump â no i'd end up just like her. Ryan could run to the grounds and hope to catch her in time to soften the fall â to make sure she doesn't die â
It happened in the blink of an eye. Tate moved before Ryan could, whizzing past her, taking her with him. She was glad he was there, Ryan wasn't sure she'd be able to move on her own.
They bounded down the stairs, armed with shaking hearts and plummeting stomachs.
Down the stairs and onto the corridor, she chanted in her head. Then left to take a shortcut to the groundsâ
Just before Ryan placed her foot on the soft Australian imported grass the girl fell. She winced visibly, gulping bile down hastily as soon as she heard the sickly sound of several bones crushing. The hair on her arms stood up.
She stopped dead in her tracks, eyes wide and mouth quivering.
"Shit, shit shit." Tate muttered before taking off. She followed him slowly, trembling to the bone.
God she wanted to puke. What the fuck was going on? No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn't comprehend what the fuck was happening.
When they reached the girl, Ryan let out a whimper. Her olfactory nerve picked up on the fresh smell of blood, evident from the dozen cracks. Despite her inability to think right now (Ryan was bad at handing situations she didn't understand), relief did cloud her mind when her eyes immediately trailed up to the girl's skull to find that it was in one piece.
She was hardly recognizable, arms bent at a horrifying angle and feet apart. Like a cracked painting, rough at the seams and ripped at every age. Fresh paint (Blood. Blood. Blood.) pooled through the cracks on the soft grass, seeping through the zoysia as it turned scarlet.
Ryan's vision blurred, a kaleidoscopic view of the life she saw. Red. Green. Blue. It mashed up together like a color wheel. Like the Persian carpets at her family home. Spinning, spinning spinning.
The boy next to her didn't hesitate for a second as he bent down to cradle her skull and limp body. Delicate but rough hands bent down to check her pulse, and then he cried, for help.
A piercing shriek in the midst of silence.
Red stained his hands. His shirt turned the color of Ryan's favorite flower. But he didn't stop screaming.
Ryan was wrong. She wasn't poetic at all. If she was, maybe she could've painted the story of a girl's death more beautifully. Tragedy was every artist's muse after all. They painted everything scarlet, symbolized the color of red as love. But wasn't death red as well?
What was more tragic? Love or death? Or were they â under the pretense of silly romanticization â the same thing?
All this blood was never poetic, it was just red.
She doesn't remember exactly what happened after that. People came, a crowd, teachers and students, confusion lacing their voices. They nudged their way in to see the horrific sight.
Chaos. Chaos. Chaos.
"Call the ambulance!" She heard some scream. Teachers fumbled with their phones to dial several emergency contacts.
From the corner of her eye she could see some bend down, trying to identify who it was. Some looked away, almost ready to puke.
"Call the fucking police!" Ryan stared ahead. She couldn't discern between anyone's voices anymore. There was too many. Too, too many.
What were they mumbling about? Why were they screaming? Stop screaming, she thought. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.
Ryan tried to inhale and exhale. She was all chattering teeth and trembling fingers. It was cold, really cold here.
Oh god, I need another jacket. I need to wear better clothing â
"âRyan!" Involuntarily she gasped when a warm hand clutched her blazer clad forearm. Dazedly, she tilted her head to see who it was.
"Tate," she finally exhaled. His shirt was stained with blood. It was the color of withered cherries, the ones that sat on the table top in her home, uneaten and dry because her dad hated the bittersweet taste of it.
Dried blood chipped off his lunula when he placed his fingers on her jaw. His thumb caressed it slowly, "hey, hey. It's okay. Ryan, it's gonna be okay."
Instinctively she leaned into it. The girl was still trembling, but managed to lock eyes with the boy in front of her. She searched his irises for any signs of discomfort, for fear, for shock.
But she didn't find anything. Concern mirrored his expression, accentuated by the familiar scrunch of his eyebrows and the dip of his lips, despite the smell of asphalt and copper staining his skin.
It made her wonder if he'd ever experienced anything like this.
The familiar sound of a siren made her snap out of her crumbled train of thought, dry blonde hair whipping past her shoulders in haste as she craned her neck.
Within seconds they were hoisting the girl up on a stretcher while one of the paramedics come over to ask one of us to come with them as well.
Ryan watched while one of the teachers spoke up and agreed to go with them. A girl came running up to them, begging them to take her with them as well.
"Do you know her?" Tate asked, looking at the girl. Ryan shook her head.
Before Ryan had time to react again, the ambulance left in a hurry, replaced by the sound of a siren by a cop car.
"NYPD." Tate breathed.
Four officers got out of the car, one went straight to where most of the teachers at the scene huddled and the other three were focused on getting everyone out of the area.
Which was hard to do considering the crowd was getting bigger and bigger. All Ryan could think about was that she was glad this was private property and could only attract staff and students.
"Let's step away." Tate murmured, warm breath hitting her forehead. She was about to nod, but caught the eye of the Music Theory II teacher who nodded at their direction.
Ryan's blood turned cold. Her stomach dropped and she was more than ready to puke her breakfast out.
Behind her, the rest of the officers were taping up the scene, and one â as far as Ryan could hear â was calling for backup. Yellow clouded her vision. And red. And blue. He was muttering a plethora of technical jargon so she decided to leave it alone.
"Ryan come on," Tate tugged at her cold hand.
She decided to follow him (really, he was trudging her along she wasn't doing anything). Her eyes scanned the perimeter. The crowd had been pushed to a side because of the tape.
Two were inside, and one had a â a notebook out and was taking notes. The other one was talking into his left breast pocket.
The backup car arrived after a few minutes, one in a white shirt and corduroy slacks and all the other men in the standard cop uniform.
She didn't have time to question what was going on when a cop â the one who'd gone over to the crowd of teachers first â stepped in front of them.
He smiled at them politely and calmly, which Ryan found immediately unsettling. She held onto Tate's hand a bit more tightly. He reacted, squeezing it back ever so slightly.
"M'am? Sir?" He questioned. Her eyes zeroed in on his badge when he introduced himself, "I know this might be a bit hard but can you run through a few questions with me?"
They both nodded sullenly.
"Okay," He said gently. He was acting calm for their sake, she realized. "Did you know the deceased?"
Pain shot up her ribcage. She couldn't stop the words pouring out of her mouth, "she's not dead!"
He gave her a pitying smile, one that would normally make Ryan boil in anger. He cleared his throat.
She didn't want to hear what she heard next. Tate took a sharp breath, like hearing it made all his oxygen run out.
They pumped a lot of fresh blood but too many of her vessels were ruptured. She died of internal bleeding, I'm so sorry.
"I'm â I, I'm sorry I can't â" she shook her head, throat cracking with dehydration. Without another word she untangled her hands from Tate's in a hurry to run over to the nearest plant to throw her guts out.
Her feet gave away and she crumpled on the ground, palm clammy with sweat sticking to the ceramic pot she just puked on.
"M'am? M'am?" She heard the cop holler. Ryan didn't remember when it happened but somewhere along the line Tate was beside her to hold her hair up.
"I'll answer the questions." Tate said silently, "I was there with her as well."
She stopped puking halfway through the series of questions he was asking Tate. It ranged from what did you see to did you know her. It helped that he was very gentle about it.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and blazer.
"Alright." The cop closed his notebook, signaling he was done. "Thank you for your time. We'd like you to come down to the station once this is all cleared up." When Ryan's eyes widened he carried on, "With parental consent of course, I'll be getting someone to fax them down to your residences if that's okay? I know this sounds absurd but relax. You're not getting arrested, you're not suspects or anything we just want a clearer explanation of what was happening when you guys are in the right state of mind okay?"
Tate nodded. Ryan did too after a small while.
She opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. "Officer, I â"
He crouched down further to initiate eye contact.
"I'm confused, Iâ I just, isn't this a suicide? Surely this much of â"
"We're still investigating on it, but it can still be ruled as a homicide. Just to be safe okay?" He reached out to pat her hair. Again, very weird. But it had the intended effect.
It calmed her down the slightest bit.
With a polite smile and a 'I'll send the paramedics and some hot coffee for you', he left them alone.
Tate let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding.
"Are you okay?" He whispered, hand still gripping her hair. He let it go to touch her forearm in concern. She shivered.
Are you? She wanted to ask.
Reluctantly she leaned into him, burying her face in his blood splattered blazer. She didn't care, and neither did he.
"No." She answered silently.
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Hi. I'm sorry, super super sorry for the late update. I mean it. Rewrote this chapter a couple times and that's why it was late. The whole outline of this chapter was already in my head but I couldn't write it out?? Read a fucking lot of books, questions and answers and rip to my search history. If I've gotten anything wrong don't hesitate to tell me about it and the specifics of it thank you ! It's at times like these that I wish I was better at writing lol
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