Disclaimer:
I don't own Shelby, Jess, etc. I'm not using this for money. Yatsa, Yatsa, and Yatsa.
Claimer:
I own Xan & Nick.
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That Little Girl
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Shelby looked across the water at the full moon and sighed. How she missed her. That beautiful, young, blonde girl she loved so much.
She missed the days when that girl would run around the yard and play in the sprinkler. When she would play house with nothing more then a cardboard box. She always loved to dress up in her mother's clothes and play with her lone Barbie doll after school. Content to just sit with her mother at her job.
Before Walt came. Before all the pain started.
Then that little girl had changed.
'I killed her. I killed her.' Shelby thought, before her head fell into her hands and she began to weep. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be! She wasn't supposed to have died. She was supposed to be here.
"I'm so sorry." She cried.
"Shelby? Where are you?" Xan's voice called into the dark.
Shelby choked back her tears and dried her eyes. Sighing again, she looked up at her friend, "Hey."
"There you are. Come on. We have to get you back to the cabin. Sophie's doing bed checks and we've got ten…What's the matter?" She asked, finally noticing Shelby's tear-streaked face.
"Nothing." She sniffled.
"Wrong, Shel. Something's wrong. Let me guess – you miss Jess?"
"That's part of it." Shelby looked at her, "How do live with this feeling? I mean like when you remember Sammy."
The teen thought for a moment, "I remind myself that he's not in pain anymore, that he's happy, and that he's watching over us from the stars. He used to love them so much – that's how I know that he's never really gone from me. He's just in a place that I can't see. I know he's still here though, helping me and Nicky to get through life until the day we'll meet him again."
Shelby nodded, "Thanks. I guess I should tell myself that. It's just she's gone and she's not coming back – I've never thought about that before."
"Don't
worry. Eventually, it'll get
better. Just need to grieve first. You can't bottle it up, Shel, or else it'll
eat you up. Look at Nicky. He can't talk about Sammy, that's why he's
so…protective." Xan sighed, "So what's the other part of this?"
"What do you mean?"
"When I came over and asked
what was wrong you said that Jess was part of why you were upset. What's the other part?"
Shelby looked up at her friend, "I can't…"
"If you're afraid that I'll tell Peter, I won't. I won't even tell Daze."
"Promise?"
"Cross my heart."
She leaned forward to look at the water, "It's me. Me. I…I hate who I've become. I used to be just like Jess. I loved school, I love to read, I loved to play. I was happy to just be with my mother. Then I had to change. I made a cover for myself so no one would know what I was really like, so they couldn't hurt me anymore. I closed off from everyone – even my mother. Truth is, I can't stand to be way from her."
"I thought you were mad at her, for not coming clean sooner."
"I am, but she's my mother and I love her and I need her."
Xan pulled Shelby into a hug, "Maybe it's time you told her that, and let everyone else know that too. You'll only be happy when you be what you want to be."
Shelby shook her head, "What about you?"
"I've been like this for so long, this is just how I am, Shel. I can't change, but you can." She finished and looked across the water.
Shelby looked too, before whispering to herself, "I can change? Maybe I can be what that little girl was supposed to grow up to be. For Jess's sake at least."
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Cassie Jamie
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