One Time [Montgomery De La Cruz x OC]

Moving on.

A week had passed since the shooting and the doors of Liberty High were open again. I didn't want to go back but I knew I couldn't afford to miss anymore school. I also didn't want to see everyone's looks of sympathy that I knew I was going to get. The doctors' still didn't feel comfortable waking Monty up from the medical coma because his health was decreasing for a couple of days and then yesterday evening he flat lined and they had to revive him. Now I wasn't even allowed to see him anymore until he was out of critical condition. Jessica, Hannah, and Sherri decided that we would all ride together so that we could walk in together. I pulled in and noticed that there were several news teams standing outside of the school. As if all of us hadn't already been harassed enough, now we couldn't even walk into our school for the first time since everything happened without being bombarded with questions. I rolled my eyes and sighed. "How much longer do you think this will last?" Hannah asked from the back seat. "My bet is until either after the memorial Friday or whenever Monty either dies or wakes up." I said matter of factly. They all looked at me like I had lost my mind. "Have you given up hope or something?" Jess asked, putting a hand on my arm. "He got worse over a couple of days and then he died last night, they were barely even able to revive him. I was in there, I witnessed the whole thing. Odds are he's not gonna make it." I said before getting out and slamming the car door. "That's seriously no way to think, Mar. You never know what could happen. Maybe that was just the storm before the rainbow." Hannah told me, catching up to me. Both Jessica and Sherri nodded their heads, agreeing with Hannah. I jut couldn't let myself get too hopeful again. I tried that already and was crushed. I would rather be prepared for the worst and have a miracle happen rather than the opposite. As we were walking towards the school, we ran into the rest of the guys and Emma who now had something going on with Zach. Justin was on crutches and Bryce had his arm in a sling. "I'm so done with this shit." Justin mumbled under his breath as we started to push through the crowd of reporters. "How are you two healing?" I heard several reporters yell to Justin and Bryce, they both ignored all of them. "How are you feeling entering the halls again for the first time since the shooting?" More reporters asked all of us along with any other students' that were walking in behind us. Everyone in our group continued to ignore them but I could hear students' behind us answering their questions. I ignored them until I heard a reporter ask how Monty was doing and a girl who I knew hadn't visited at the hospital started answering as if she knew and even tried to say that she was there whenever he was shot. She even went as far as crying for the camera. I spun around mad before shouting at her. "Go ahead and get your 15 minutes of fame, bitch!" And with that, Jess snatched me inside, but not before the cameras caught my little outburst.

In every single class all we did was 'talk about our feelings'. I couldn't stand watching anyone's tears anymore or have to listen to all of their horrible stories about what they witnessed or had personally been through. I was doodling on my paper in communications class whenever Ms.Bradley asked if Justin, Sherri, Zach, and I would like to share what we went through because no one had spoke up about what truly happened in the locker room yet. "I'm assuming it was extremely traumatizing since no one will talk. Mr. Porter along with the experts that we have all had to meet with said that it's best to talk about it openly." She continued. My eyes searched for Sherri, Justin, and Zach. "How does everyone know we were in there?" Zach asked confused. "It's in the police records. None of us know what happened but they told us to watch out for the students' that were in the locker room the most. We were told that in there it was the most brutal attack and that's where there was the most upset and chaos." Ms. Bradley responded, looking at all of us. "Hell yeah, it was. I heard that that's where Monty was shot. I heard there was fucking blood everywhere." Praters insensitively said. Everyone turned their eyes to me. I looked around and then shrugged my shoulders, going back to doodling. "I know you were in there, Marci. Like I said, it's on the police records. I know that what Praters just said isn't a rumor either." Ms. Bradley gently prodded. "Are you actually trying to help or are you just trying to be nosy like everyone else in this fucking school?" I snapped and she jumped back a little bit. I looked down and whispered an apology, I knew that I shouldn't have done that and that she was just trying to do what they told her to. "I think it would put a lot of the nosiness and questions to rest if someone would speak up." She whispered back to me. "I will if ya'll will." I looked to my friends' and they nodded their heads. I cleared my throat before beginning, I was so nervous that I was going to start crying in front of everyone. "Do you want me to start from the very beginning or just from whenever I got to the locker room?" I whispered to everyone. "I think it would be very healing for you to tell your story from start to finish." Ms. Bradley gave me an encouraging smile so I nodded back at her. "Jessica Davis, Hannah Baker, Sherri, and I were standing by my locker talking whenever we heard a gun shot and saw people running away. We stood there for a minute and then after hearing another one we realized what was going on and started to run out of the exit by my locker. Before I got out of the door Tyler came up behind me and called my name. I don't know why I decided to give him a chance but I did. He told me that he didn't want to hurt me but he would if I tried to be a hero and that he would find him and then he walked off. It took all of us a minute to figure out what he meant but then we realized that he was warning me that Monty was on his hit list and to not try to protect him or he would hurt me too. So, we decided to head to the locker room. Justin, Zach, what were ya'll doing during that time?" I asked them. "We were playing around in the gym, just shooting some hoops. Someone came running in saying that shots were fired in the school and that's when we took off towards the locker room. Whenever we got in there, the baseball team ended up coming in right after us and we filled them in on what happened. That's when we barricaded the doors." Zach told the class. "We took the barricade down once the girls got there." Justin explained to everyone because they looked confused as to how Tyler could've gotten in if the doors were barricaded. "We ran the whole way from the science hall all the way to the gym, only stopping once so Marci could catch her breath because she was having a hard time. On our way to the gym we heard several more shots so that's when we knew it was worse than we originally thought. We had so much adrenal pumping we never once thought of doing anything different than what we were doing. Even if it made us a gang of idiots." Sherri looked at me with a small smile and I couldn't help but to laugh, Justin and Zach both started laughing after me. "Gang of idiots?" Praters asked laughing. "That's what Monty called them whenever he found out what they did. His exact words were 'you and your gang of idiots'." Justin said, still chuckling at the memory. Everyone started laughing and I could hear people saying 'typical Monty'. It felt good to laugh at Monty's angry comment instead of crying every time I thought about him. Maybe Mr. Porter and the specialists were right, maybe being open and talking about it would help. "Once we got to the gym and saw that no one was in there, we went straight back to the locker rooms and that's when we heard whispering coming from the boys' locker room. We tried to get in but it was barricaded, like they said." "Marci and Jessica started freaking out on each other at that point because they were so scared." Sherri said, taking over for me. "That's the only reason that any of us knew that it was them out there and not Tyler, just because we heard the two of them literally screaming at each other." Zach chuckled. "There was some arguing between the door before Hannah finally snapped us into our senses and told us to let them in. That's when we took the barricade down. Marci had told Monty that she knew Tyler was after him so once we let them in, we all wanted to hear about that and that's how the door ended up not being barricaded back." Justin looked down sadly. "We all sat there for awhile, talking about what was going on, and we even thought that it was probably over and that the cops just hadn't made there way to us yet. It was probably half an hour after we got into the locker room when Tyler busted through the door, immediately firing a shot that caused all of our hearing to just about completely go out because it echoed so bad.... Mar, I think you should take the rest from here." I nodded and took a breath before beginning, this was going to be the hard part. "As soon as the first shot was fired, I could just barely hear enough to make out that everyone was screaming and running around but Tyler was blocking the door with probably about 10 guns and ammo wrapped all around his body, so I thought it would be best to hide since we couldn't get out. I laid down on the floor in the corner and Monty got on top of me. Then Bryce was shot in the shoulder, after that I saw a bullet just barely miss Zach, then Justin was hit in the leg and he immediately dropped to the ground, blood was coming out fast and Jess started screaming. Tyler shot at a locker and it bounced off and grazed Jeff's face a little bit. I was literally in the perfect spot to watch everything but not be seen by Tyler. How did ya'll feel during that time?" I looked at my friends'. "In pain." "Scared." "Thankful that he missed." They all answered at the same time. Everyone chuckled a little bit but then looked to me for more of the real story of what happened in that locker room. I was glad I was doing this now because I wanted the truth to be told. I was tired of being asked questions and I had heard so many rumors I started to question whether maybe I was crazy and the way I thought everything happened wasn't really the way it happened. I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "It's about to get brutal, are ya'll sure you want to hear it still?" I asked the class. Sherri, Justin, and Zach all backed me up that it might be hard to hear what actually happened. No one except the people who were in there knew for a fact that Monty had sacrificed himself, that Tyler specifically wanted him, no one knew what he said to me, no one knew how hard I screamed and cried and fought for his life, no one but us knew how much blood there was and what it looked like coming out of everyone so fast, no one knew the panic that we all felt while we watched everyone bleed out but the EMT's still weren't there, no one knew what it felt like to have a dead body of the kid who killed himself laying there, no one knew what it felt like to hear the EMT's screaming that they were losing Monty. Only we were the ones who knew all of that and had felt that pain. I knew in order to understand, they all needed to know too though. "Okay, well here it goes... right after Tyler shot the locker and Jeff was grazed with the bullet, Tyler screamed at all of us asking where Monty was and he told us that it wasn't over until he had him. After a moment, Montgomery kissed me on the cheek, told me he was sorry and pretty much said his goodbyes and then got up and started to walk towards where Tyler was. I begged him not to, I grabbed both his hand and his waist trying to hold him back, but nothing worked. He was absolutely determined. I followed him all the way until we got to Jeff. That's when Monty whispered to Jeff to get me but I was so upset that I forgot about whispering so I yelled at Jeff not to touch me, which let Tyler know where we were so he started to come around the corner. Jeff grabbed me as soon as he saw Tyler come around the corner and that's when I started begging Tyler not to do it. Monty whispered to Jeff to get me out of there and Jeff hauled me behind the lockers so that I wouldn't be able to see. Sherri and Hannah both came over there and sat with Jeff and me. I kicked and screamed and kept begging Tyler all the way until I heard a shot and then a thump. A minute later there was another shot and thump. We all knew that he had shot Monty and then himself right after." I paused for a second, taking a breath and wiping my eyes because I had started crying. "I sat there in shock for a minute and Jeff started sobbing. I could hear total chaos going on around me. Running around, screaming, crying, Jess begging Justin to be okay. I finally got up and ran over to where Monty was and I saw a group of his friends around him telling him to stay awake. That's when I realized that he wasn't dead and I called Jeff over too. We kneeled down next to him and everyone else backed up some. He looked horrible and could barely talk or keep his eyes open, I think the worst part was the bloody smile that he kept trying to give. Once he started coughing up hunks of blood I looked around and I realized that I was sitting in a pool of his blood that just kept coming. I kept having to shake him and slap his face to get him to open his eyes again. Jeff was yelling that we needed medical attention but I knew that it was no use. Once the EMT's finally got there he had lost so much blood he looked like casper and had dark circles under his eyes. He told me he was sorry again and that he couldn't hold on anymore and that's when he went out for good. I couldn't shake him awake. The EMT's got me out of the way and they started saying that they were losing him and that if they didn't hurry then there was no way he was going to make it and that's when I passed out so I don't know after then." I coughed a little bit to keep myself from crying too hard. I looked up and saw that everyone had tears in their eyes. "Can I ask what the extent of his damage is?" Ms. Bradley whispered through tears. "He was shot with a bullet called RIP, basically it explodes once the target is hit and causes severe damage. Monty is the only one who was shot with that, our theory is that Tyler did it purposely so that he would suffer since he was kind of his main bully... um, his heart had to be operated on, along with his liver and spleen, they had to take his appendix and part of his intestines out, one of his lungs completely collapsed, and he had to have 4 blood transfusions upon arrival to the hospital. They have him in a medical coma because he's not doing good." I whispered the last part. "None of us are allowed to see him. They let Marci in for a little bit but last night he flat lined and they had to revive him so they won't let her back there anymore either." Justin told everyone sadly. "He is a hero." Ms. Bradley said while nodding her head. I could hear everyone agreeing and it made me so happy that even if Monty didn't make it, he was going to be remembered as a great person. Just like I know he is. Zach was telling everyone about what happened after I passed out when my phone vibrated in my jacket pocket. I pulled it out to see who was texting me and my heart started to race as soon as I read the text.