Reversal (The Dark Triangle #2) [ON HOLD]

Apologies

Speaking of apologies, sorry I've been gone for so long! ( -_- Finals. And essays. And work. -_-)

Here's Chapter Six! In first person! With a time skip! And sorry if it doesn't totally make sense!

Jay's POV

When I'm anxious, I pace around the island in the kitchen.

Or when I'm scared. Or agitated. Or annoyed. Or feeling especially ADHD. Or trying to find an answer to my 30,000 questions about life and death and everything in between.

Basically, I've walked miles around the island. All of Ninjago in my kitchen.

One time Kai watched me for five minutes and then said, "So that's why your name is Jay Walker." He laughed.

I didn't laugh.

I was having a bad day.

Now, it seems like every day is a bad day and so I'm walking with small, rapid steps and hoping that the movement sparks a solution. My hair has been getting fluffier, I think, and even though I'm not walking on carpet, if I touched a doorknob it would give me the electric shock of the century.

I've been pacing for nearly twenty minutes and no lightbulb of brilliance has had the decency to switch on over my head. All I've done is go around and around and some most definitely inaccurate math as well.

Six days. Six days, one hundred forty-four hours, eight thousand six hundred forty minutes, five hundred eighteen thousand four hundred seconds (give or take) and she's no closer to good.

Nearly a week has done nothing to improve Nya's state. Sure, Pixal scrubbed off the gore from Nya's skin, bandaged her injuries, scoured the blood from her hair and forced her to eat, but a shower won't wash away the hurt. And food won't fill her void.

Zane told me she has PTSD. He said we all have PTSD. Kai said a diagnosis wasn't going to make it better and stormed away and Lloyd didn't follow him. Skylor didn't say anything, she just stood behind the couch and thought, and I wished I could focus like her.

Pixal says I've experienced emotional and physical trauma and that's why I can't focus, and maybe she's right. I don't freeze and shake and cry in my sleep like Nya, but nothing seems to make sense anymore and so I pace, because movement makes everything a little clearer. Shining a light on murky water, finding what's deep inside.

A lot of things don't make sense anymore. Like how I can't cry. And a part of me wants to so bad but it's like there's a dam behind my eyes and it's blocking my tears. Or why everyone says I'm the only one that Nya trusts, but they don't let me see her unless it's vital. They want Nya to be better but they keep us apart. They say a lot of things, but I don't reply.

They say I've gotten quieter. They say I used to talk so much and now it's like my voice is gone. I still have a voice, it's just not for them. It's for Nya. I don't owe the others any more of my words because they won't listen anyway.

I don't speak out loud unless it's to Nya. I talk in my head otherwise, mostly.

I have a lot to say.

And every day, my mind is filled with an endless list of apologies.

I'm sorry.

Nya says that sorry won't cut it but I can still be sorry for what happened to you.

I'm sorry, Lloyd. I'm sorry that your life was taken scarcely before you'd even started living it. I wish we could've saved you, but none of us saw it coming. I wish you could have seen how we cried. I wish you would speak to us now. I wish a lot of things for you, Lloyd, but most of all I wish for you to not blame yourself because this was not a battle that you were ever supposed to win.