The Quiet

Alec died of a gunshot wound to the chest a few minutes after I called the police. The sirens wailed, coming closer to the house, as I picked up Cari. There was blood everywhere but she was still breathing.

An ambulance had come, and then another car pulled into the driveway. I was holding Cari against me when a few men walked in. Officers, paramedics and a strange man, who I assumed was Cari’s father, stood around me.

“You’ve got to let us see her,” said one of the paramedics. “Her father is here. You should go talk to him while I check her.”

“It’s okay,” Cari said weakly. “If I don’t make it—”

“Shut up,” I told her, grinning. “You’re gonna make it. How am I supposed to get through the school year?”

“Mr. Davenport?” someone said.

I turned to see Peter Delgard staring at me. He didn’t try to look around me at his daughter, which I was thankful for. He extended his hand and shook mine.

“I don’t know what happened here tonight, but I’m glad you were here.”

“There’s a dead guy out back,” an officer said. “Also, does this belong to you? I found it in his pocket.”

He held up my necklace.

I nodded. “That’s mine.” I put it back on just as they put Cari on a stretcher, told her father her wound wasn’t too severe, and said he could ride with her if he wanted.

He thanked them and looked at me. “Do you want to come? You saved her, after all.”

“Maybe for a little while,” I told him.

As we left the house, I looked back at it. It still looked like something out of a horror movie, more so now than it did when I first arrived, hours ago. Tragedy had struck one fateful night and no one would know.

We lived with secrets all the time, the difference is that some are meant to be told. With time maybe everything would be forgotten, something distant, locked away in a dark place.