by Love, Kristy
Aunt Liv kept coming in and bringing me food, begging me to eat, but I couldn’t muster up the energy. Everything was pointless. This morning, she had brought my phone to me and begged me to go out with Jax. He wanted to go see a movie. Looking at my phone, I saw that he had texted me two days ago.
“Please, Will. Please?” she begged me. I hated seeing her like this, so full of worry for someone as worthless as me. “You’ve been in this room for almost four days.”
“Fine. I’ll text him back.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I don’t want you to be alone. I have to go back to work tonight.”
I nodded. She had taken a few days off to spend with me since it was Thanksgiving. She stood in the room and waited until I texted Jax back. “We’re going to a movie tonight.”
“Perfect.” She leaned over and kissed my head, then left the room.
And me.
I woke up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. It was dark, so I checked my phone to see what time it was. Groaning, I pushed myself from the bed. Jax was going to be picking me up in fifteen minutes and I hadn’t showered in days, so I dragged myself into the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, I stared at myself. My hair was greasy and clung to my head in spots and stuck straight up in others. Even with all the sleep, my eyes were red and had deep, dark circles underneath them. My face was pale; I had never seen a face as pale as mine … other than my parents as they died.
I stumbled back at the realization, memories washing over me and stealing my breath.
I was staying at my friend Nick’s house. Since it was only a few days after my birthday, I’d convinced my parents to let me go. It was an unsupervised party, so I’d had to lie. I wanted the experience of being a teenager. I wanted to hang out with friends and party and, hopefully, kiss a girl. I was dying to know what it was like. I’d heard stories from Nick and Chase about hooking up and I wanted to at least know what a kiss felt like.
At the party, I had a few beers. They were disgusting, but I liked the loose feeling in my body and the fuzzy feeling in my head. I was laughing and hanging out with a girl. Just being near her excited me and the tipsy feeling made me daring. I pulled her closer to me and rested my hands on her hips. She giggled and that spurred me on. Her face was close to mine and I could smell beer and cherries on her breath. Curious to know what the combination tasted like, I leaned forward and kissed her. Her lips were warm and wet and that excited me.
She pulled away and giggled. I should have been disappointed that she giggled, but the urge to kiss her became more intense. I leaned back into her and pressed my lips firmly to hers. She moaned in the back of her throat as her tongue brushed against my lip, then I opened my mouth and her tongue brushed against mine. I groaned and pulled her closer. She nipped at my lip, then soothed it with her tongue. It was a sloppy kiss as our teeth clanged and our tongues danced, but it felt amazing.
“Get a fucking room,” Nick slurred from somewhere across the deck. The girl giggled again and grabbed my hand.
“Follow me.” I stumbled after her, having no idea where I was going, but I liked the warm softness of her hand and the softness of her body against mine. She opened a door and pulled me in. Closing it behind her, she locked it and pressed me against it. The room was dark and spun slightly as she kissed me roughly. She took my hand and pressed it onto her breast.
“Touch me,” she breathed.
I was floating as my hands and lips were all over her. Before I could really comprehend what was happening, she had unbuttoned my jeans and pulled me from them, stroking me slightly. I shuddered against her. No one had ever touched me so intimately before and the sensation was almost too much to take. I groaned into her hair and she squeezed me a little tighter. My control unraveled as she moved her hand a few times and I came undone. She kissed me through the waves of ecstasy, my body convulsing. When she pulled away from me, she smiled.
“Mission accomplished.” Even in my drunken state, that statement seemed wrong.
“What?”
“Nick told me you were a virgin. I was supposed to help you out a little with that tonight.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Mission accomplished.” She smiled sweetly at me and my stomach turned. I feared I was going to be sick.
She pushed me away from the door, opened it, and left. I felt violated. I had thought she was interested in me, not doing whatever Nick told her to do. Vomit burned the back of my throat and I stumbled out into the hall to find a bathroom. Once inside, I fell in front of the toilet and vomited until my ribs ached, my throat burned, and my eyes watered. Though it was painful, it sobered me up some. I needed to find Nick. I needed him to tell me this was all a lie.
I pushed through the bodies in the hall and living room, searching for Nick. When I didn’t see him in the house, I stumbled outside. He was in a chair with the girl I had just been with. She was on his lap, her arms draped around his neck and he was kissing her neck as she giggled. Nausea burned in my stomach even though I had just emptied it.
The next thing I knew, I was standing in front of him, my hands balled into fists. Blood pounded against my skull from anger and alcohol. I felt used and betrayed by the person I thought was my best friend.
“The man of the hour,” Nick said. A sly smirk spread over his lips. I had never wanted to punch someone as much as I wanted to punch Nick at that moment. He was my only friend and I thought I could trust him, but he’d humiliated me. My fists twitched. “How are you feeling? More relaxed?” He smirked at me. I hated him.
“What was that, Nick?”
“What was what?” He patted the girl’s back. “Oh, the assistance I got you? I figured the best way to get you over whatever is holding you back was to enlist some help. I told Tammy here that I’d take her out if she helped find you some relief.”
I didn’t say anything. I turned and headed back into the house. Pushing back through the bodies, I tried to find a way out of the house and away from the party. I saw Chase.
“Can you take me home?” I asked.
“Sure.” He stumbled a little bit. “I’ve had some to drink, though.”
“It’s not far. I need to get out of here.” Alcohol, humiliation, and anger ruined my judgment. I knew I shouldn’t get in the car with someone who had been drinking, but I couldn’t stay at the party another moment.
“Not a problem.” He handed his drink to someone else, grabbed his keys, and threw his arm around my shoulder. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” He smelled of alcohol and his eyes were glossy. He leaned on me as we walked to his truck. I helped him climb in, then walked around and climbed in my side. He started the truck and fumbled with some controls to find the headlights. After adjusting the music so it was blaring, he shifted the car into drive and took off. We rode in silence. I was too upset to talk about what had happened. I didn’t want to find out Chase had something to with it, especially since I was relying on him to get me home.
The betrayal from Nick stung. I was allowed to hang out with him almost whenever I wanted because he was active in the church and in school. My parents thought he was a good role model, someone I could look up to. Little did they know he was a backstabber.
The truck jerked to the side and I heard honking. I looked over at Chase and he was passed out, his hands still on the steering wheel, his head bobbing on his shoulders.
“Chase, wake up!” He didn’t move as I shook him. The honking was getting closer and I grabbed the wheel, jerking it away from the headlights that barreled toward us.
I was thrown forward and slammed into the airbags as they deployed, hitting my head off the window. Warm blood trickling down my face as the awful sound of metal crunching echoed through the night air. As the airbags deflated, I saw the front end of the truck had folded in on itself like an accordion and was wrapped around a large tree trunk. I looked over at Chase and he was lying on the steering wheel, blood pouring from his nose and lip. I shook him again, knowing we needed to get some help. When
he didn’t move, I reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. I looked at the numbers on the keypad. They moved and I couldn’t make sense of the markings on it. Somehow, I was able to dial 911.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“I was in a car wreck. My friend is passed out at the wheel. He’s bleeding.” I held my head in my hand. It throbbed with pain.
“Is he breathing?” I heard her clicking on a keyboard.
I held my hand up to Chase’s nose and felt air. “Yeah, he is.”
“Good, stay there with him. Can you give me your location?”
There were lots of trees and I couldn’t make out where I was. Scanning the area, I looked for something familiar. When I saw Mr. Henderson’s crazy totem pole mailbox, I knew where we were and I told the dispatcher our location.
“I have police and ambulances on the way. Is there another car involved?”
I knew I saw headlights headed toward us and I had heard honking, but I had no idea what happened to them. Turning to look out the back of Chase’s truck, I saw taillights from another vehicle, though I couldn’t quite make sense of them. They were too far off the ground. I stumbled out of the truck and headed toward the lights, wondering if my mind was playing tricks on me.
“Sir, are you still there?”
“Yeah, I am. I think another car was involved. I’m on my way to them.”
“Sir, it would be better if you stayed with your vehicle.”
“I need to make sure they are okay.”
“Sir, please go back to your vehicle and wait for rescue personnel.”
Her voice faded away as I saw the other car. I’d know that car anywhere. It was flipped over on its roof, with Christian bumper stickers all over it. The license plate was for my dad’s blue Toyota. I rushed over to the car and knelt down. “Dad? Mom?” Looking through the smashed window, I saw my parents hanging from their seat belts, unconscious. There was blood, so much blood. I heard the dispatcher talking, but I didn’t know where Chase’s phone was.
Just before I reached his shoulder, he coughed and blood sprayed everywhere. “Dad?” I heard sirens in the distance. Tears flowed down my cheeks.
If I had just stayed at the party, they would still be okay.
I laid down on the asphalt as snow fell around me. It stuck to the ground and added to the surreality of the moment. The only thing that kept me anchored to the moment was the biting cold seeping through my jacket and the sting from my cheek pressed to the road. The smell of gasoline, oil, and blood mixed and made the nausea churning in my stomach worse. My head pounded and blood trickled down my forehead. I reached forward toward my dad again. I wanted to touch him, one last time. I wanted to feel his skin when he was still alive.
I couldn’t get my hand close enough to reach him. My hand fell limply onto the ground. My skin numbed with how cold everything was. When had it gotten so cold? Looking at my mom, I saw that her eyes weren’t open and she was upside down, her hair stretching toward the roof of the car. Blood flowed from the gash on her face and saturated her hair. Her breathing sounded like gurgling liquid.
As the car settled, metal creaked and the engine ticked. My fingers twitched on the ground, wanting to save them.
I wanted to pull them from the wreckage and apologize to them. I wanted this entire night to be a bad nightmare. I wanted to wake up in my warm bed and talk about the awful dream over breakfast. My mom would put her hand on my shoulder and tell me I needed to stop reading books with violence. I would laugh and tell her the last book I had read was The Bible. She would roll her eyes and get my father more coffee. We would all laugh and continue on with our morning. I would do my lessons and my dad would go to work. My mom would tinker around the house all day.
Sirens pulled me from my dreaming. I wasn’t sure if I had lapsed into unconsciousness or if I had hallucinated, but the scene in my kitchen had seemed real. I could smell the eggs cooking and the coffee, but I was back on the hard road, freezing. The sirens got closer and my dad’s eyes opened slightly. He blinked slowly. When his eyes closed, my heart jumped. I expected every blink to be his last. Both of them were covered in so much blood. There was blood on their faces, their clothing, in their hair, and pooling on the roof. The smell made me heave, but my stomach was empty.
The sirens were close. The flashing lights moved around the scene. I couldn’t take my eyes from my parents. Every time the light spilled over their faces, I could see the life drain from them more. My dad’s eyes stopped opening.
Strong hands grabbed me and wrapped a blanket around me. They lifted me onto a gurney and wheeled me into an ambulance. I tried to fight. I tried to scream and beg to go back to my parents. I couldn’t leave them in their last moments. I had to be with them. I owed them that, but I wasn’t strong enough to break free. I was too cold, too weak. Instead, I cried as I was loaded in the ambulance and they were loaded in another ambulance. We were taken to the hospital. I asked about them so many times, but no one answered. I knew they were dead before anyone told me, I just needed to hear the words.
God was punishing me for being a bad son. God had turned his back on me.
I collapsed in front of the toilet and threw up. Body wracking heaves tore through me as I remembered the sight of them as they died. When I stood, I saw my razor. The thoughts of my parents and how I killed them floated around my mind and I felt like I was being strangled. I couldn’t breathe.
With shaky hands, I picked up the razor blade and drew it across my skin. The drops of blood didn’t soothe me the way they normally did. The pain and guilt still consumed me. Since the razor made small, shallow cuts, there wasn’t enough blood to get rid of the pain and sadness in me. I needed something else, something that would cause more damage.
I dug through the medicine cabinet, looking for something, anything to find relief. There wasn’t anything. I ran downstairs and looked around the kitchen until I found the scissors. Worried about the mess Aunt Liv would find, I ran back upstairs to the bathroom. I turned the shower on and climbed inside. Frantically, I made more cuts and blood mixed with the water and flowed down the drain. My forearms were both covered in blood and cuts. They stung, but it wasn’t enough. The pain was still overwhelming. I continued cutting until there was enough blood in the sink and on the floor. I was lightheaded.
I remembered my parent’s lifeless bodies hanging in the car and the way my dad’s breathing rattled in his chest as he fought for each breath. The way my mom hung there, silently. Not moving, not making a sound, not opening her eyes. I remembered the way Chase laid against the steering wheel, bleeding and unconscious. The images from the crash and the hospital floated through my mind as the blade flew across my skin. Tears poured down my cheeks as I relived my own personal hell.
I stumbled to the side and dropped the scissors. I turned my head, but it felt sluggish and my body wouldn’t cooperate. There was blood everywhere, running down my arms, down the drain, on the shower walls.
I knew I had gone too far.
I knew I needed to get help.
Trying to climb out of the tub, I lifted my leg, but it got caught and I pitched forward, sprawling on the floor. The tile was so cool against my skin, but it warmed as the blood spread underneath me. My eyelids were heavy and I couldn’t keep them open. I lifted my chin, willing myself to go to my room to get my phone. My body wouldn’t move.
Darkness took me.
Ryanne
JAX HAD JUST COME BACK from trying to pick up Will to go to the movies. He had been so relieved when Will responded and said he’d go. Now, he was pacing around the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets like he was looking for something. I leaned against the counter and watched him.
“I’m assuming you’ve tried calling him.”
“I’ve called three times. Once on the front porch, once on the way back to the house, and once on our front porch.” He shook his head. “No answer.”
“Are you sure he said he’d go?” Jax handed me his phone and I
looked at it. From earlier today, there was a text from Will saying that he would go and just to let him know when Jax wanted to head out. When Jax texted back a time, Will said okay. “That’s strange.”
“Yeah.” He went into the living room and plopped on the couch. “This is probably a waste of fucking time, but would you call him? Maybe he’d answer if it were you.”
“I highly doubt he’d answer for me. I haven’t spoken to him in over a month.”
“I know. I’m just hoping he’ll get excited to see your name and he’ll answer.”
I nodded and pulled my phone out of my pocket. Scrolling through my contacts, I found Will’s name and my heart fluttered. I hadn’t spoken to Will in so long that the thought of hearing his voice excited me. Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I pressed Will’s name and put the phone to my ear. I closed my eyes as it rang. After several rings, it went to voice mail and Will’s voice greeted me.
“Hey, this is Will. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
My stomach was in knots listening to his husky voice. I missed him so much my whole body ached. I ended the call before leaving a message. “He didn’t answer. I’ll try the house phone.” I scrolled to Liv’s house number and called it. “No one answered there either.”
“When I called Liv earlier today, she said she was working tonight.”
“Okay, I’ll call her cell.” Pulling up Liv’s number, I called her and waited for her to answer.
“Hey, Ryanne. Everything okay?” Liv said, sounding worried before I had even spoken.
“I was just calling to see if you’ve heard from Will. He and Jax were supposed to leave an hour ago, but he’s not answering calls or texts.”
“I haven’t heard from him since right before I left for work.” She was panicking now, I could hear it in her voice. “Can you go over and see if he’ll answer the door?”
