The Boy Who Knew Me When(30)

He turned into the restaurant and found his intended target sitting about three tables over to our right. He ran to her , jerking her up out of the seat by the hair of her head and began shouting at her in Spanish while she begged and pleaded for mercy. After slapping her a few times he pulled out a small revolver and shot the man who had been sitting beside her in the booth before turning the gun on her. The man in the booth had never moved an inch from his seat.

I remember everything else in slow motion. He started shooting wildly, emptying the rest of the bullets from the revolver into ordinary unsuspecting patrons before getting to our booth. My mother had her hand out in front of me trying to shield me; my dad was shielding Nick with his entire body. They were both pleading with him, “Please, not the children.” my dad begged and my mom over run with tears was crying to him “Don’t hurt my babies! Do anything you want to me but please don’t hurt my babies!” Every word out of their mouths seems to fuel the demon lurking inside of him more and more. He dropped the empty gun and pulled a larger one out of his coat. He shot my dad first, once, twice through the head, then my mom. I was too caught up watching my dad fall over halfway onto the floor to notice where those bullets went. I later found out he shot her dead, straight between her eyes.

Then he moved the gun on me. I remember opening up my mouth to ask him not to hurt me but when I saw death in his eyes I knew there was no point in giving him the satisfaction of listening to me beg, so I just closed my eyes and waited. Before I ever realized what was happening, Nick had turned my direction and threw himself on top of me. The bullet hit his face first, caught him mid air. It went straight through him, piercing me in the right arm. And the second bullet, fired consecutively, hit him directly in the middle of his stomach. That bullet also went straight through and hit me in the leg. Both of us lay on the seat of the booth bleeding to death.

My best friend had just sacrificed his own life to save me. I lay as still as I could underneath him because I refused to allow that sacrifice to be in vain. A second before he could put another bullet in me, ending my life along with everyone else’s, a man came from behind the counter with a knife in his hand and threw it straight into the gun mans leg. He shot the man, knocking him to the ground before the restaurant filled with the deafening sound of sirens. A few moments later, realizing his reign of terror had come to an end, the man shot his self in the mouth sending a bullet through his skull. He fell dead no more than a few inches from where my dad lay slumped over the side of the booth.

I wanted to scream but I remained silent, refusing to move until I felt Nick’s lifeless body being lifted off of me. They say he was still alive when they put him on the gurney and was dead before they ever pulled out of the parking lot, my mother and father were carried out of the restaurant in body bags. I was the lucky one, I spent a week in the hospital recovering from only superficial wounds thanks to the only real friend I have ever considered myself having.

And now here I was after spending my entire life trying to keep from inflicting any more pain on his family by staying away, only to find that I broke his baby sister’s heart because I am a total moron. I don’t know what I can do to make it up to her but I want to try. Unfortunately I cannot get her to answer her cell phone, judging by the fact that it goes straight to voice mail I don’t even think she has it turned on.



A few minutes after my final attempt I see Axel stumble through the door looking like someone beat his face in with a two by four. Scared something might have happened while driving Jemma and Brea back to the apartment I approach him and ask what the hell happened. He started mumbling some shit about how he fucked up, I could not make out a single word he was saying so I slapped him in an effort to get him to relax enough to make even a little bit of sense.

Apparently it worked because after the blow he apologized and explained to me that Jemma had seduced him. He tried to convince me that he had not meant to sleep with her but she was standing in front of him “all needy and shit;” afterwards he started shouting.

“I always had a thing for her in high school but she was Brandon’s girl so she was off limits but when she walked her tits right into my hands, fuck man what could I do? A guy can only take so much.”

I tried to comprehend everything that he was saying but my head was nothing but a jumbled mess. Jemma and I had never made any type of commitment to one another, she was not my girlfriend by any stretch of the word but I couldn’t help the fact that I was pissed. Commitment or not, Jemma was mine, to hell be damned anyone who tried to take her from me.