I didn’t sleep that week. I hardly ate. I spent six days pacing around my room and staring at my ceiling, my thoughts swirling in turmoil. School was cancelled on Wednesday and Thursday due to the consecutive tragedies, and at this point, the city was on lock down: cops on every corner in Ellis, a million interviews every day, identification procedures everywhere you went. The Ellis murders didn’t appear to be slowing down. Everything I’d ever known was slipping out of control, out of my hands. My mom insisted I see Lydia the next Tuesday anyways.

I went to her with no intentions of talking. When I arrived, she looked apprehensive and wary. She tread carefully the whole session, trying to get something out of me. I gave her nothing at first, but slowly felt myself calm down as I let myself release.
She brought up Wade, and a hundred images of his trophies and plaques filled my head. I could hear his easy laughter still, I could see his wavy hair and bright eyes. I saw my mother, too. I saw her smiling and clapping for him, all the pride a mother could have gushing onto her perfect boy. I saw the look in her eyes as Wade grew more into our father day by day. We had lost our dad a few years prior to a fire that caught in the old boys’ locker room at the football stadium. He had been assistant coaching at the time, and when he had gotten there early one morning, something had gone wrong with the pipes. He was found half an hour later, collapsed into the equipment locker under a pile of rubble. After we had lost him, Wade had risen into his place—a strong, kind leader with a glimmer in his eye. The image of my dad’s coffin burned behind my eyelids, and it was soon replaced by the image of my brother’s.

I couldn’t get another word out about Wade. Lydia tried prompting me about Gabe.

Gabriel Garduno. My history with him was almost as complicated as my history with Wade. He and Wade always got along fine, but I was an easy target, especially for a kid like Gabe. Gabe was mean for the sake of being mean; he’d push kids down in middle school just to watch them fall. His mom worked for the school board, so he was never prosecuted for any of his crimes. Wade, of course, was blind to how twisted and demented Gabe’s mind was. Wade would stand up for me and then stick around until he could resolve the issue, placing blame on no one. This only emboldened Gabe; he knew he could get away with anything, so he did whatever he wanted. I recalled this all to Lydia. She asked me if anything specifically stood out to me from my experiences with Gabe, and I told her that it was never enough to be a big deal until sophomore year in late November when the Ellis High Panthers won the football game that would take them to state. Wade wasn’t on varsity yet, but he was invited to celebrate with the team and pulled me along. The whole night was miserable: a hundred faces and bodies blurring around me as I hid in the corner of one of the linebacker’s houses, praying that Wade would reappear, and we could go home. But Wade didn’t appear. He didn’t appear until two hours later, after Gabe Garduno caught me trembling by the fridge, like some abandoned baby animal, and asked me in front of all of his friends why I wasn’t dancing. When I refused to dance with them, he snickered at me. He would’ve left me alone, but his friends pushed him back towards me, egging him on. He left me to be found by Wade half an hour later with a couple of bruises on my shoulders and cheek. It definitely wasn’t the worst he could’ve done; quite frankly, he wasn’t in much a state to do too much damage, but does that matter? Does it not speak loudly enough that a person could bring himself to do that to someone else?

Lydia and I sat in silence after I recounted this story. Her hands were shaking. After a minute or so she asked, “Anything else, Taylor? Is there anything you want to tell me about Isabel?” She paused again. “Or Ana?”

I sunk into the chair I was sitting in. “Isabel stole Wade away from me. I could’ve changed him. I could’ve made things better for us, but everywhere I turned, Isabel was always in the way. It was like she knew it, too. She floated above everything, dangling Wade over my head. You have to understand, he was unreachable when he was with her. And then I lost Wade, and Isabel was left all alone … just like me … except she wasn’t. She hadn’t lost her brother. She hadn’t lost the one person who meant more to her than anyone else. She kept treating me like she understood, and she didn’t! She had no idea!”

I breathed deeply. But now she does.

I truly didn’t even stand another week walking free. I left Lydia in her office, lay on her pretty cushioned chair, her hands folded over her still chest, all prim and proper just how she likes it. She was less messy than Wade and Gabe and less of a hassle than Ana, but I made no effort to cover my tracks this time. I left her door opened with the “Do Not Disturb” sign still on the doorknob.

Wade never understood what it was like to be second-place or forgotten, not even in his death. I believe he received the most characteristic end he could have.

Gabe never understood what it was like to be a victim, not until his death. He got what was coming for him, and he was served a dose of what he’d been dealing to innocent kids for years now.

Isabel never understood what it was like to be anything but picture-perfect, not even hardly in mourning. She would recover from her grief eventually and probably build up some noble legacy on the names of her sister and boyfriend, helping thousands in the process. I allowed her that much at least.

Lydia never understood me, not until it was too late. She tried so hard to wrap me up in a box and tie a little bow around my head, but in doing so she was suffocating the only way of thinking I was capable of. In the end, she got exactly that in return.

Every person affected by the Ellis High murders got exactly what they deserved. And soon, I predict, I will, too. Justitia Et Servivit.

For previous chapter, click here.