August 15th, 2007
Only seven short days after the Waffle House party, Layla Tremblay passed away in her home when she was only 8 years, 1 month, and 22 days old.
An unknowing Karen Mendes got a call from her best friend that something had happened, but Jacqueline was not specific on the damage that had been done. Karen told both of her children to get in the car, were going to Layla's house.
However, when they pulled up to the house they could hear the screams. "No, I'm not letting go!"
Jacqueline's sobs were heard throughout the whole block. Only a few seconds after they had arrived, the Mendes family could see Layla's dad carrying her limp body out of the front doors. Her mother was only a few paces behind, with a firm grasp on her hand.
Even through the tinted mini van windows, Shawn could see how Layla's flesh was now a light shade of blue, how her arm flailed with every step her parents took, how her head was bare revealing the scraggly hair underneath.
"Why isn't she wearing her hat?" Shawn muttered under his breath. Deep down he knew that she was gone, but he was still telling himself that she was just sleeping.
What concerned him the most was that her purple cap that she wore at every waking moment was no where to be found. He knew that she wouldn't dare go outside her home without, she had told him herself that she thought she was ugly without it.
"Where is her hat!?" Shawn said again, this time more frantic. He could feel his whole world crashing down on him, his heart shattered to a million pieces, and his brain was unable to comprehend the events unfolding in front of him.
Layla was dead.
For the first time in his young life he realized that shitty things happen to wonderful people. The world is unfair. There are things that we can't control, no matter how hard we try.
This was one of those things.
And as Karen struggled to get the car started again in a panic, Shawn watched the sobbing mother climb into the back seat of her ex husbands truck, to then be handed her lifeless child's body. It was a sort of torture, to watch this. To feel everything change in a spilt second, for everything to be different.
Karen would forever apologize for being there and for Shawn seeing Layla like that, after all she was just trying to be a good friend.
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After Layla, Shawn would never have another best friend. He was too afraid to let anyone in, too damaged to believe they would stay.
He secluded himself, hiding behind a guitar to drown his trauma. Before he was even out of high school he was already gaining fame for his talent.
Interviewers always asked about his stuffed lion, but he wouldn't dare tell them the truth of what it really meant to him. Layla was his, and only his.
He wouldn't tell the public that the guitar shaped tattoo on his forearm not only had the visual version of his family saying I love you, but also had the sound waves of a message left for him by his best friend etched into his skin.
He kept Layla a secret in order to avoid her story being publicized and to avoid any negativity that is thrown on him from being thrown on her as well. He took her to his grave.
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dead // s.m.
Fanfiction"L-Layla?" He stumbled over his words. Granted her features were more profound and her skin was more textured, but he would recognize those twinkling gray eyes from anywhere. Shawn couldn't believe that his best friend from elementary school was rig...
