The logical part of my mind screamed that this couldn’t be possible. Joshua was dead and buried. Six feet under. I had pulled him out of the twisted wreckage of the car myself. The car… Josh’s graduation present for being valedictorian.
“Justin, answer me.”
The anger creeping into his voice had me scrambling to my feet. Tears poured down my face as I began to babble. “Josh, I’m so sorry. I thought it would be alright…”
“You thought it would be alright?” Indignant, Josh took a step closer to me. “How is driving drunk ever alright?”
“I’d done it before and gotten home alright. You were tired and…”
“And you really wanted to drive my car.” He finished for me.
I should have hung my head in shame at the truth of his words. Instead, I fell back on my old anger. The years of never being good enough, of being the “bad” twin. The same childish rage that caused me to push Josh down the rocky trail had me yelling at him now. “It wasn’t fair! I was always in your shadow! Always!” I could feel my face redden as I screamed.
“The only shadow you were in was your own.” Josh’s reply was simple and tinged with sadness. “You were the only one comparing yourself to me. I tried to get you to see that. Remember all those art contests I kept entering you into?”
I nodded, not quite understanding the point Josh was trying to make. “Yeah? What about them?”
“You were always so good at art. You could sit down and scratch out the most beautiful portraits with nothing more than a pencil, paper, and an eraser. You have more talent in your pinky that most have in their entire body. I always wished I had that gift.”
The tension in my body from my growing anger melted away. I stepped towards Josh, reaching a hand out, unsure what, if anything, it would touch. “Josh, I am so sorry. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret that night.”
“Then prove it.” Josh’s steady gaze met mine.
My mouth went dry. I felt my stomach sink into my toes. “I… I can’t. Everyone thinks you were driving the car.”
“I know they do. Even though I died instantly, you pulled me out of the car before it caught fire. You told the police I had been driving that night to keep from getting arrested for driving drunk.”
“I haven’t had a sip of alcohol since that night…” I always had an excuse, a justification for my actions. At least this one was a good one, or so I thought. Too bad Josh wasn’t buying it.
“If you are really sorry, you will tell them what really happened.” Josh reached out for my hand that was still floundering in front of me. I felt the chill of his grasp as it passed through mine. “Take this chance to start new. Prove that you are no longer a shadow of what you could have been. Prove you are the man I always knew you could be.”
*******
That hideous shag carpeting got trampled down even more as I paced up and down the small hallway in my apartment all night long. I kept replaying the previous day in my head, the conversation with Josh. It all seemed so unreal. I gave myself a bruise on my arm from pinching myself to make sure it wasn’t a dream.
The soft light of dawn began to peek through the rickety blinds on the window in my bedroom, spilling a golden glow into the hallway. I walked my window and pulled back the blinds to look out the smudged glass. The day was promising to be beautiful. The rain soaked streets from the night before sparkled a bit as the sun started to dry them.
I let the blinds drop against the window as I walked towards my tiny bathroom. I turned on the cold water tap and rested my hands on the porcelain sink. Much like the day before, the sink was cold to the touch. Also much like the day before, I began to study my reflection in the mirror above the sink.
Suddenly, I pushed away from the sink. With a flick of my wrist, I shut off the tap. I pulled my phone out of the pocket of the jeans I still wore from the day before.
Flipping open the cell phone, I pushed a speed dial number. A couple of rings and a weary female voice answered. “Hello?”
“Hey mom, it’s Justin.” My voice shook a bit as I spoke. I took a deep breath and charged onward. “There’s something I need to tell you about the car accident a year ago…”
###
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shannon L. Arrant is a wife and mother to three human children and many animal ones that also happens to be living with Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (an autoimmune disorder similar to Multiple Sclerosis) and Fibromyalgia. A self-described ‘jack of all trades; master of none’, she happily expresses her creativity through writing, directing, acting, and crafts. Although an adult and allegedly too ‘mature’ for such things, she firmly believes in the power of dreams and makes time to get lost in her head, daydreaming, on a regular basis.
I dwell in possibility. – Emily Dickinson
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. – Douglas Adams
For more info on CIDP and what you can do to help raise awareness for this often debilitating disorder, please visit the GBS/CIDP Foundation International at
www.gbs-cidp.org
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Shadows of Self Page 2
