they wish they were us | conan gray

28. someone did see

Conan's feet aren't on the ground. If they were, he might have done something.

He is a bird, a third person observer with no power to influence the course of the situation. If he were on the ground, he might have done something. His body refused to react as the man advanced on his best friend. He was frozen in place.

In theory, he's always said he would fight anybody who would come at his friends. He can't even move a muscle.

"Ashley!" Noah screams, reaching out to pull her back the sleeve of her hoodie. If it weren't for him, the man might have pulled her down with him. Her breath hitches and for a second, it seems like she is gonna push Noah away aggressively. Her face softens a bit when she sees the boy.

Conan's world fractures, refractures and fractures again. He feels like he is watching everything on a broken television screen because it can't be real and his head is spiralling, the more he looks.

His thumb is on the 119-call button but they've already taken care of it.

"I am calling the-" Conan starts off, almost about to press the button.

"Are you crazy?!" Ashley barks. There are no tears, no sad expression on her face, just a daunted look as if she hasn't yet processed what they've all done. Someone is dead. They've done it. It was self-defence paired with bad luck. It isn't their fault. Her eyes don't have space for tears when rage takes them over. "They're gonna blame me!"

"He's drunk. They'll probably think he doddered off the side bar," Noah puts in. "The cops can't know but if we don't report self defence and then get caught, they'll have a hard time believing us."

"I didn't want to do that," Ashley says, sitting down on the ground, wrapping her hands around herself for warmth. No tears slide down her cheeks which is worse because Conan knows she's keeping it in. "I really didn't. I shouldn't have come to that at all. I am not a bad person. I was just getting coffee and then some man comes up to me thinking he has the right to do whatever he wants to; I tell him off multiple times. He drove me to it, Conan."

"It's not your fault," Conan says, taking steps towards her. His lips fall into a frown as his hands fall to his side. Everything feels so uncanny, breathing when someone else isn't a few feet below you, having no feel of someone's disgusting imprint on your body when someone you love does.

"I would do it again. Does that make me a bad person?" she asks, the innocence clearly ringing out in her voice. "I was about to hit Noah. Does that make a bad person?!"

Her screaming rings his ears. She hasn't broken down but her chest is heaving heavily at the rate of her breathing. He wants to hug her, hold her. He does no such thing and watches. Like he did before. He is in pain at her pain. He deserves it for doing nothing. 

Her sweat pasted hair stick to her forehead. She pulls her knees closer. 

Noah maintains his distance but says, "It makes you a normal person. It's not like you enjoyed that. I think it's good he's dead."- Conan flinches at the truth in his words, words he believes in too but is too nervous to be ever able to say- "He didn't deserve the life he had if he was using it to make someone else's life hell."

Ashley doesn't say anything at that. Conan puts his jacket around her arms, making sure it's tight around her shoulders to not slip off. "We're going back to the car. We're not telling anyone about what happened tonight. No cops, no parents, no one but the three of us here."

"Okay," Conan promises her while Noah nods silently. "It feels diabolical to ask but do you think someone saw?"

Someone trying to sexually assault you, my best friend and physically harassing my boyfriend for wearing a skirt while I stood there and did nothing. I wish I had but I couldn't even choke out a word, much less talk because it felt like a nightmare, a figment of my worst imaginations. It looked unreal.