Chapter 12: Eyes on Fire

Jill's POV:

"No, no, no," I repeat, knelting to the ground and cradling the little girl's body in my hands. "Come on, you've got to open your eyes okay? You've got to make it."

The crash had been major. There was a gaping cut in my forehead and I knew my leg was some sort of bloody disguting mess but I felt nothing. There was a little girl, who'd been trying to get off. She'd got caught in the doors when the SUV rammed into us.

And she was barely breathing.

"Who-who are you?" she chokes out.

"My name's Jill," I say, crying. "What's yours?"

"My name's May," she says.

"Why are you here all by yourself May?"

"Mommy left. I wanted to…find her. It's been so long," she cries.

"Do you get sad when you think of her leaving?" I ask.

She nods. "It hurts more than now."

"I'll tell you something right now May. If you make it through this, this one day, you'll find her. That's all you have to think about. No matter what happens okay? No matter how much it hurts, or how many times your memories hurt you, you've just got to think; the sun is coming up tomorrow, I'm getting up tomorrow. Life will get better."

"Promise?" she asks.

I nod. "Just make it through okay?"

"Okay," she says. "Can I shut my eyes?"

I shake my head. "They're so pretty, I want to see them," I say.

"You have pretty eyes Jill," she says, smiling.

I smile back at her, and I'm crying so hard I can't see straight.

"What's wrong?"

"I have my dad's eyes. He left a long time ago too."

"Sometimes, I think granddad doesn't want me around, because I remind him of mommy."

My heart breaks, the core shattering. "He loves you May. I'm sure of it. Did you know my family was the same way? I thought my Mommy didn't want me around, because I look like my dad. And I was wrong. It wasn't that he didn't love you, or didn't want you around. Your granddad loves you more than anything in the world. That's why he seems sad sometimes. He loves both of you so much, he doesn't know sometimes if he's doing a good enough job. And that's just how parents operate. They don't ask, they don't pester you about it, but they want to know they're doing an ok job."

May starts crying. "What if I didn't tell him he was doing a good job?"

"Do you like to smile a lot May?" I ask, tears dripping steadily down my face. I can here the sirens all around me, I can feel the crowds gathering around.

She nods.

"Then that's proof enough. Every parent loves to see their kid smile, and laugh, and have fun. It's just something they live for. They don't give up their dreams for you, you become their dreams. You being happy, living, being a kid, that's their dream, to see you happy and successful. So you've got to keep smiling okay? Because, your smile, that'll remind him of Mommy too. And he'll be so glad, he'll be so glad to see that both of you are happy."

"How do you know all this?" she asks, like I was some role-model or something.

"Because May," I say. "I'm just like you."

"So I can turn out like you?" she asks, her eyes wide.

I nod. "Just take it day by day, and always smile."

"Then I'll be like you?"

I nod, crying even harder.

She smiles so wide it looks like it hurts. "OKAY! I wanna be pretty and smart like you! I just gotta smile right?"

"And be happy," I say. "Don't just pretend! You've got to be happy!"

The infirmiry comes and asks if she has any relatives. She doesn't so they load her in the gurney. I attempt to stand, but my left leg buckles and I tumble to the ground, hitting my head with a crack on the pavement. My left arm bursts out in pain and my head feels like it's on fire.

They say it takes 5 minutes for a bullet to start hurting. The first 5 minutes are fine, you'll be able to move, walk, whatever.

But after that?

After that comes the pain that you knew was coming, but avoided it for so long.

That was like life. The first 5 minutes were your childhood. Ut after it was over, you found yourself crying a lot, and working a lot, and that was the pain.

Life was like a bullet shot.

But physical pain can be dealt with, can be cured.

Things that happen in your mind do not.

Id always thought it'd been my mother who'd pushed me to fill out the applications to Paris, it'd been her that wanted me gone. And I was so wrong. I'd blamed her because I was scared. I was just like May, scared that my mother and family hated me because of dad. I blamed myself on such an high level that I cowered inside whenever I saw my mother. It'd been me who thought everything. It'd been me who sent myself here, like it would heal me, like it would take the bullet out.

It took a little girl for me to see that.

"JILL, JILL!" I hear a voice call. It's so loud, and I just want to dull out.

"How do you know her?"

"Friend, family friend. We go to the same school. I'm the only family she's got."

People lift me, and I cry out in pain, willing my senses to dull out so I can't feel it.

"My name's Skye," he says. "Hers is Jill Suzumiya."

"Skye what's happening?" I hear a high female voice.

"Wait Lumina, I guess we'll have to meet up later. I have to go with her."

"It is her, Jill Suzumiya?"

"Yea," he says. "It is."

"SKYE!" someone else yells. 2 people, running.

"What happened?" a female asks.

"There was a crash. Jill's hurt," Skye says, his voice calm.

"Holy crap!" a boy.

"What's going to happen?"

"Meet me at the hospital!"

Skye speaks a different language to the guy as I'm strapped into the gurney and sit in the back of a truck. I can't make out what he's saying and everything is going dizzy. I can feel myself slipping from consciousness, then a surge in my right hand brings my eyes open.

"Don't do this to me," he whispers.

Skye, I know him.

"You're one to talk," I mutter, choking on blood that seeps into my mouth. "Thanks for the heartbreak there."

"What?"

"Lumina. You know don't you? About me?"

"Yea, I know," he says.

"How?"

"It's a small valley. You were too tiny to know very many people back then," he says.

I stop talking. Memories hurt. I close my eyes again, feeling them get heavier and heavier.

"No, please," he says, squeezing my hand again. But the eyelids keep getting so heavy.

I'm sorry.

"Jill, don't leave me!"

"Why do you care?" I strangle out, my body burning.

"Because, you're weird, and I can't ignore you! I can't go through the halls winking at you to make you fall down a flight of stairs! My 'magic' doesn't work on you!"

"So I'm just a weirdo to you?"

"No, you're," he stops. "I don't know what to say."

"Exactly," I laugh sickly, then cough. Blood spatters on my hand. "I'm nothing. I'm a face and a ponytail."

My eyelids finally drop and I hear the heart monitors beeping wildly and one last thing.

"No Jill, you're the floating dandelion seed carrying me far away from who I used to be."

Author's Note:

DID YOU CRY?! I did, but I'm a sap for death.

What? That doesn't sound right.

Anyway, you'll learn about the dandelion thing soon. I'VE MADE IT TO BE QUITE INTRIGUING! And Maya, Chase, Gill and Luna will be coming back in FIGHTING in the next couple chapters. It'll be awesome, it'll be amazing, and it'll be...maybe tomorrow?

I still have to write it. AND I'M TIRED. Weight class on Thursday. Football on Wednesday. Gym is going to break my brain. Thank the Lord I don't have it first period.

ANYWAY, NEVERMIND MY RAMBLING!

Xx AudaciousAdventures