(It doesn’t suck at all! It’s perf, as always~ I hope this is okay.)
Liza lifted her gaze to stare at the entrance for a few long moments, trying to steel herself for their first day back. She didn’t really want to be here. In all honesty, she would have preferred to stay at home, curled up in her blanket, pretending that everything was okay. But, instead, she had to go to school and be surrounded by people who would talk about how sorry they were to hear about the accident and keep drawing attention to the fact that their parents were dead. For a moment, she felt a lump form in her throat with the thought. She still felt so much guilt and pain from that night. Ariah had convinced her to go to the bonfire, but she’d decided to go home early. If she hadn’t called their parents to come get her, their parents would still be there. Ariah and Jeremy would still have their mom and dad. But, she’d ruined all of their lives that night and she hated it.
Breathing out, she tried to avoid breaking down. It had happened plenty of times since that night and she didn’t feel like she had the right to break down like that. It was her fault. Closing her eyes, she waited for a moment before she nodded slightly. “I guess I’m ready,” she decided quietly, looking to Ariah for a moment as she forced a smile to her lips. “We can get through the day.” They had to. Looking ahead, she stuck close to Ariah as they began walking, though she ducked her head when she noticed some other students’ sympathetic stares. She understood that they felt bad for the Gilberts, but she didn’t like those looks; she didn’t like the attention. “Do you think Jeremy will actually listen to you on that one?”
Tyler, surprisingly, had made it to school early today. His best friend, Matt, was still bumming about the break up with Liza a couple weeks prior. Plus, Matt was mourning the Gilberts’ parents deaths almost as much as the Gilberts were. Matt had always been close to that family, after all. Tyler felt bad for them, even if Jeremy was a bit of a punk sometimes. They didn’t have many issues, though, not anymore. When Tyler had been having a little fun with Vicki, it’d caused some problems between himself and the youngest Gilbert, but they’d gotten past it after he’d decided to stop seeing Vicki and had started putting his friendship with Matt above all of that, rather than Matt’s sister. Getting to his locker, he looked around, though he heard some kids talking about some new student. He ignored that in favor of looking around for Matt.
Instead, he caught sight of the Gilbert twins entering the school. He knew they were just as close to Matt as he had been and he was sure it must really suck to have lost their parents. He could see people gawking at them, quietly whispering among themselves, likely about the loss of the girls’ parents. Scowling, he shook his head and made his way over towards them, spotting Matt heading over as well. “Ignore them,” he mentioned quietly to the girls, though he spotted Matt looking at him with mild surprise. “They’ll stare for a while, but they’ll get over themselves soon.” He wanted to apologize about their parents’ deaths, but he knew that wouldn’t do much good. Matt watched for a moment before he nodded in response. “Surprisingly, Tyler’s right,” Matt assured them gently, “How are you two holding up?”