Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,184

been trying to make it from one day to the next, without realizing that there's no end goal worth sacrificing the present for. I should've been living from day one, just … living.

With a small sob, I take the rocks I dragged in from outside, and I tie one to each ankle with the rope I brought, like macabre little Christmas presents. Then another two to my waist. I thought about other ways to do this, but they were all equally ghoulish, equally horrible. The thought of falling into the cool, dark embrace of the earth seemed like the least traumatizing way to go.

I can't believe that I'm doing this, I think, but then, I tried every other possible way. I've had so many perfect days, but somebody always pays the price for my happiness. There is no other way. Lifting my gaze up to the ceiling, I can see the stalactites above me, the reflection of the water dancing on the rock.

Thoughts of my mothers dance in my head, the way they always stay up late on Friday nights with wineglasses in their hands and an old movie on the TV. Even though I'm a senior now, they don't mind if I sneak out to join them, curling up like a child between the two of them and nodding off to the soft murmur of their voices.

My sisters will cry, I'm sure, but they're so young … they'll be okay, right? Because I can't even seem to sacrifice Pearl to save myself. If she dies, then her kid is left with the Knight family, and she'll never get a chance to fight for something better. I know what it's like to be bullied and pushed and targeted.

Except … I've had a chance to learn, to fix my mistakes, to realize what I've been missing all along.

If Pearl dies, she will never get the opportunities that I got.

“Happy Devils' Day,” I whisper as I think about Luke and April, dancing in the shadows of the bonfire and laughing together. They'll move to New Orleans after they graduate, I bet. And I bet Thad will join them, just as April says he will. Their friendship will mature and grow as they evolve to handle life's challenges. I want to be there with them, I think as I push myself off the edge of the shore and into the water.

It's hard not to struggle as I sink below the surface, my hair floating around my face in a purple tangle, the pins in the rose crown keeping it in place. It's likely the boys will be the ones to find me here, and even though it's too wet to be sure, I'm almost positive that I'm crying.

The rocks tied to my ankles hit the bottom of the spring as bubbles escape my gently parted lips. I try to take a breath, but my body won't let me pull in water, not of my own accord. I have to wait.

Calix's dark eyes, his smile so warm when he finally gives it, his hands skimming across my bare skin. And Raz … so angry and broken, but so smart, so desperate for someone to look his way and see him beneath all his bullshit. Barron, the quiet enigma, and the butterfly necklace that even now floats in the dark water with me, escorting me to the grave.

I close my eyes against the darkness as my chest spasms, and I suck in two lungfuls of water against my body's better judgment. Automatically, my hands go to the ropes around my waist, struggling to untie the heavy knots, to save me even though I know I can't be saved.

I will forever live in this loop if I don't do this, dooming the ones I love to live in repeat. If you stay up long enough to see the sunrise, paint it. In my mind, I mix colors and pick up one final paintbrush, splashing yellow across an empty canvas. It gets brighter as my body struggles, my legs kicking, the stones dragging me down as my lacy dress tangles around me like a net.

Brighter and brighter and brighter, like the sun kissing the sky for the first time after a long night.

My body gets heavy and my lids drift closed in the darkness, the scene from my imaginary painting exploding behind my eyes like a true sunrise.

This all started because I drove my moms' car off the edge of the road, because I died, because I