A/N: I do not own the song used in here. It's My Chemical Romance's, and I take no credit for it. It's all theirs. Also, Twilight etc. is Stephanie Meyers.. And I know that the Cullens aren't in this first chapter. Just bare with me, they'll make it within the next few, and yes that does include Bella and Edward. To make sure there are no confusions, Peyton is in Pleasant Grove, California to start off. Not Forks if that's what anyone thinks. By the way, this has since been edited from when I first put this up. This is new as of 1/18/09.
Prologue: When something is thrust upon you, something beyond your wildest imaginations, when you must choose between loved ones, when the choice is a life-changing decision, it is then that greatness shines magnificently bright through you, or out surges your splendid stupidity. What do you choose when it not only effects yourself and your life, but the life of all those around you? This decision would decide what was going to happen for the rest of your existence, and could possibly fate your loved ones to a terrible life, or death. With stakes like these, what would you choose? A single choice is all you've got. This was the predicament I was in. I had to choose now, or I was for not but death.
Chapter 1
Today was yet another Friday. I looked at the clock; 5:00 pm. This meant it was the beginning of a long, boring, unimportant and probable uneventful weekend that I would, as usual, spend with a bunch of people I didn't even know by going to the California beaches or out with what few real friends I had.
It of course also meant that, just about any moment now, my mother would come up the stairs to invite me to dinner with her and my dad. And as usual, I would regretfully decline the offer and make up some lame excuse as to why I couldn't join them. Then, as always, she would ask a few more times if I'd like to come with them.
It was routine. It's just what happened on Friday nights at the Taylor household, located on Pacific Avenue. Rarely was this said routine ever broken, except on those very few and extremely rare occasions when I actually wanted to go with. As I sat there doing the last parts of my art project for my class at school, it was then as if on cue, my mother came up from downstairs. Unfortunately for her, tradition and routine would not be broken tonight but would stand firm. I wasn't up for a night out with them.
"Peyton dear, won't you come with us tonight? You haven't come in weeks," she practically whined to me.
"Sorry, Mom," I replied without looking up at her, "today just isn't one of those days."
I continually looked down at the picture I was drawing and waited for her to go away. Sighing softly, she walked away slowly after a couple of minutes, apparently giving up for the time being. But I knew better than that. I knew she'd be back up here shortly, asking me to come again.
It wasn't even that I just didn't want to go out with her and my dad. It would be like that with anybody who happened to call or ask me to hang out tonight. It had been an awfully long week, I had a bunch of homework I still had to finish this weekend and I wanted to be by myself for a while. I didn't understand why my mom found this so hard to understand, and yet she always did.
And I guess that it was just too much to ask for because about an hour later, we had the same conversation as we had previously, only this time she was practically begging me to come along. Nothing out of the ordinary, but the look on her face as if she were pleading kind of bothered me. I wondered why she wanted me with her so bad tonight. But I again said I was busy and didn't want to go, so she left, totally and completely unsatisfied with herself.
It was a little past six when I finally emerged from my room for a quick bathroom stop and a snack. I walked down the stairs and saw my dad sitting at our family computer, still doing some of his work things. I felt bad for him. He honestly tried not to do this kind of stuff at home since he knew just how much it bugged me, but sometimes it just wasn't possible.
I stood in place for a while watching my dad carefully. His dirty blonde hair was in messy disarray, his greenish brown eyes searching the screen carefully. His slim figure was hunched over slightly, tired from all the work he'd done this past week I was sure. It was the busy season for his business right now and would be for the rest of the month. I started walking again and went by from behind him.
"Hi Daddy," I said to him as I walked by.
"Hey honey. How are you doing?" he asked me, looking up from the screen.
"I'm alright. Just a little hungry, so I'm grabbing a snack right now." I walked into the kitchen and pulled open the pantry door. I reached into the nearest box and brought out a granola bar, and a bag of cheddar and sour cream chips in the other. "What you working on?" I called as I began walking back toward him.
"Oh this thing?" he asked, nodding his head toward the screen. "It's just a new project they want to start. Not that you really care all that much, but it will make it so the website for the bank will actually work faster and more efficiently. It is a great new development going on," he said nodding to himself distractedly.
I smiled at him. I could have sworn sometimes that my father had ADD. I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around his neck from behind him.
"Well, as interesting as that sounds, I'm going back up to my room to finish some homework for next week." I gave him a kiss on the cheek and started to walk away with a bag of chips in my hand, half of them already stuffed into my mouth.
"Love you Daddy," I told him barely comprehensible, my mouth completely full of dried out and seasoned potato slices.
"I love you too baby girl. I know you will but just to be safe, I'm saying it anyway. Make sure you get that homework done. There's no reason to ruin your grades now. This is the last term before you start applying for colleges.. You can easily get a scholarship if you keep the grades up as you always have. And you wouldn't have to hold a job through college then either."
"Yep, I know Daddy. That's the plan. You know how I am; not going to work if I don't have to! Have a good night tonight with mom," I told him smiling. He turned his chair around to look at me.
"You could come with us you know. We're not all that bad are we?" he asked with an eyebrow raised.
I gave a small chuckle. "No, I suppose you're not. But I really do need to do that homework."
His lips curved upwards slightly in understanding. "I guess you're right," he said, turning back to the screen. "Now go and do I say. That homework better be done by the time I get home with your mother."
"It will be Dad. It will be," I told him, slapping his arm playfully. He grinned back at me then turned to face the desktop again.
"Bring me back some food!" I called to him as I reached the stairs.
He started to nod absentmindedly and I knew it was pointless to say anything more to him. He'd only be half paying attention, and I didn't want to disturb him any more.
I walked back up the stairs and continued to the end of the hallway, straight into the bathroom. After flushing the toilet, I grabbed a brush and ran it through my hair before walking out from the way I came. I took a left at the first door that lead into my bedroom. I closed myself into my small place of solace and plopped myself onto my bed again. I put the bag of chips next to me, picked up my pencil and squishy eraser and began to draw again.
It was maybe twenty minutes tops from when I had locked myself away again that my mom and I had our repetitive conversation for yet another time that night. She called out to me as she and my Dad were walking out the garage door to the car.
"Peyton! We're leaving! Are you sure you won't come?"
"No, Mom! I've answered this already! Bye, you two!" I yelled back at them through the closed door of my bedroom. By now, I was really starting to get agitated. It wasn't as if we didn't always have this conversation, but for some reason, tonight it was as if she were pulling teeth. After all, that was what; the third time tonight we had had this conversation? I no longer cared how many times I had had the conversation before. It was beginning to get ridiculous.
I turned up my music so I could ignore the next 'departure' as if I'd never heard it. Then there was that infamous knock on my door. We were both well aware that I heard it and there was no point in trying to ignore it.
"Come in," I groaned from my bed.
"Why don't you please come with us tonight, honey? You can pick the restaurant and then we'll…"
My eyes turned up to glare at her. "No, Mother! If I wanted to come with you, I'd ask to. Why do you insist on pestering me constantly? Honestly, it's getting really annoying now."
She sighed, "I just don't want to see you by yourself so much Peyton. You've changed so much since I started working again. It feels like I don't even know you anymore. I want to be able to get to know my daughter again, as I once did. I just want us to be a close family again, like we used to be, honey."
I gave a harsh forced laugh. "And if I don't want you to get to know me better then what?" I growled. "You'll ground me? Please, be my guest! Half the time I'd rather stay home than leave to hang out with people that don't even matter anyway!" I spat.
"Sweetheart, I just want to see you happy," she said softly.
"Oh yeah? Well, maybe I'd be happier if you weren't constantly around, never giving me a moment's peace. I have enough people bothering me at school, 'trying to be my friend' and I don't need more of it at home! Ugh, sometimes, I really wish you had died in that accident three months ago. Maybe then things would be a bit smoother around here! I wouldn't have to keep listening to your babbling anymore!" I yelled at her. I could feel my anger getting out of control now, and I could just imagine the hurt I had just caused my Mom.
When I actually dared to look at her face, I saw it stricken with pain, her face contorted into something awful, and I saw her eyes begin to well up with tears even from where I sat a few feet away.
"I wonder," she whispered, as she looked deeply in my eyes, "if I were to die tonight, would you regret having said that?"
She looked down to the ground as her feet began to shift back and forth where she stood. She started to walk away slowly then stopped. As I looked at her, I saw a tear roll down her cheek. Her hand was on the doorway, her head down and half facing me with her back towards me.
"I love you, Peyton. Never forget that," she said so gently, so quietly, it was barley audible. I wasn't so sure if she'd even said it or if it was all in my imagination. And with that, she walked away down the stairs and through the kitchen to the car parked in the garage
I sat there on my bed, shaking uncontrollably from anger and pain, as I listened to the car pull away from the house and drive off. I was still amazingly angry, not just at my mom, but at myself too for causing her pain. I had never seen her like that.
I immediately forced myself to shrug that feeling off. I wasn't going to dwell on something as trivial as her being sad or mad, or whatever it was she was. Instead, I decided to go on a run so I could think and clear my head without distractions to get in the way. Surely the fresh air would do me some good.
Bad idea.
It's not like it was my fault this happened, I told myself as I ran through the neighborhood. She's the one that kept on asking over and over. I had given her my answer and if she didn't want to accept it, then that was her problem. That at least was what I kept on trying to tell myself. But for some reason I couldn't get the words she spoke to me out of my mind. And the look in her eyes, they seemed to be burning, and I couldn't understand why they had suddenly changed tonight. After all, this was only routine, right?
It was cold out, amazingly cold for California. However it was the beginning of November, so it was only to be expected I supposed. I had on a hoodie and some sweat pants with my shorts underneath. My hood was on and the earphones were in my ears, listening to my upbeat and 'pump me up' music. I could tell this run was longer than most I had done in a while but I didn't care. It didn't matter that my lungs and throat were burning, begging for warmth. I had to keep trying to calm myself down. But I realized soon that it was only making it worse, if anything.
Would I regret what I said to her? I wondered. There had been plenty of times over the last few months that I had felt like I had told her.
"But would I truly regret it?" I whispered aloud into the brisk evening.
My run accomplished absolutely nothing except have my head hurt even worse, and make my muscles worn out and sore. When I got home, I went back up to my room, lay on my bed, and turned whatever was in my CD player up to full blast. My mind kept racing through that argument. It wouldn't get out of my head no matter what I would do.
I was just lying on my bed trying to relax when I felt a vibration go off in my hoodie pocket. I looked down and saw the cell phone light on through my sweats. I stuck my hand in and pulled out the phone to look at the picture ID of who was calling.
It was Mike; the closest thing to a best friend that I had besides my cousin.
I flipped it open and brought it to my ear. It was really loud on the other end and I could hardly make out his voice that seemed somewhere far away in the background.
"Hey Peyton! What are you up to?" he called into the phone. I pulled it slightly away from my ear, away from the noise.
"Not much Mike just about to finish up this picture I have to draw for art. Where are you? I can barely understand a word you're saying!"
"I'm over at Jaden's house!" I heard him scream over the noise. "He's having a bash for the end of the football season since state is next week! Why don't you come over and have some fun?! Everyone's here and people are asking for you!"
I sighed softly and made a face that was known only to me. Jaden Starks; greatest running back the state of California had ever seen. I rolled my eyes; at least that's what everybody else thought of him. Personally, I couldn't stand the kid. In my eyes, he was nothing more than the epitome of the typical all-American jock.
"Hey, Mike do you care if I pass tonight? Honestly, I really need to get these drawings done this weekend," I told him, wishing he'd understand just this once.
"Oh come on! It will be fun Pey! People are asking you know. They think you've found other people to hang out with, and it looks kind of bad for your reputation."
I rolled my eyes. As if I really cared what all of them thought about me. It wasn't like any of them actually cared about the real me anyway. They just wanted me there to say that they had hung out with me, which I didn't even understand. I don't see what they all found so fascinating about me. I didn't even want the popularity I had. In face, I'd give up most anything to be rid of it.
"Oh no, my reputation? Whatever shall I do?" I mocked at him. I could hear him laugh a little on the other line. He knew how little I cared about other peoples' opinions. In fact, I told him that on a regular basis so to be sure he'd never forget it. "Listen, Mike. Since you know how much I care about what they have to say about me, just tell them all I wish I could be there, but seriously, I need to get this stuff done or my GPA for this term is going down the drain. Tell them that next week when we win state, I'll stay out all night with them. But this is the last weekend before term ends, and I absolutely have to get this done! Call me if you need a ride home later, I'm sure I'll be around."
I could actually hear him huff on the other line when I told him I wasn't going to come over. I felt my lips curve upwards into a smile. Such a drama king.
"Peyton," he begged. "I'll do anything to get you here. I promise! I'll even get you that new Foo Fighters CD if that's what it takes! Please? There's an amazing live band in the backyard and everything!"
I rolled my eyes at the prospect and laughed silently to myself. What Mike Taggart would do to get me to go places with him.
"Get real Mike. It's not happening. And I'm sure they're not that good. You, Braden and I could do better just making something up like we do in your garage!"
"Maybe, if you really feel that way, then come!" he tried to convince me. My eyes rolled again, although he couldn't see.
There was absolutely no way I was going to Jaden Starks house to play at random for his lame party. And Mike very well knew that, and yet that didn't stop him. "Come on, it'll be fun, I promise you! Please?!" he pleaded with me yet again. I chuckled lightly.
"No, Mike. Next week, I promise. I'll chill with you all next week, and everything will be great. Just wait until term is over, and I'll be back to my normal self; partying, shows and all."
He knew he was now fighting a losing battle and gave up finally. I heard him sigh again before he spoke. "Alright. But you promised! And don't you forget it! Next week, we're going to come up with something wicked awesome after we win state, and there's no way you're getting out of it! Especially not after tonight," he told me, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
I grinned at him on the other end. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Next week, my place, huge kick butt party. Got it. I'll let the rents know this weekend. I'll see you tomorrow alright?"
"Yeah for sure! And I'll deliver your message to everyone. Peace out Pey Mae!"
"Later Mike."
I closed my phone and placed it down next to me on the bed as my head flopped onto my pillow. The moment I did so I felt it vibrate. I sighed again and picked it up. Flipping it open I read the text message my cousin Braden sent me.
Hey wut r u doin?
I rolled my eyes at how he spelt everything. It was so annoying how nobody used grammar in texting. It was just like an email and yet no one treated it as such, and it drove me crazy. Heaven forbid someone spell out the whole word.I hit reply and began hitting the little numbers to text back.
Not much. Just finishing up some homework.
I hit send and waited for it to say it to say it had done so. I closed the phone again and stared up at my ceiling, waiting to see what he'd reply back; something to do with the party and trying to get me there I'd bet. I was sure he'd be a little more understanding that I wouldn't want to go out tonight though.
The shaking began again and I looked at what he sent back.
Hw huh? Rough nite again? That y u rnt here at Jadens?
I smiled at the little screen I held in my hands. Braden always had an idea as to what was going on with me. I wouldn't even have to say anything and he'd understand what was up. 'Reading between the lines' we'd always called it.
Yeah, I got in another fight with my mom tonight. But I actually did have homework to finish this time. End of term, you know.
I listened to what music I had on playing; I hadn't noticed before. It was some crappy rap song with a beat that sounded so off it was ridiculous. I opened up the CD player and stared at the disk. Mike's Mix. That would explain the problem; he had put it in the day before. The boy loved rap, and must have forgotten it here. I tossed his disk on my nightstand and grabbed my CD case from off one of the shelves. Flipping through it I found something that seemed to be just perfect for my night. My Chemical Romance. I was in an emo kind of mood.
My phone buzzed again and I took a look at it.
O pey im sry. Thats awful. Need me to come over tonite?
I shook my head as I read the text. As if I'd take him away from his fun on a weekend to come and chill with his loser of a cousin that couldn't stop fighting with her parents for one whole freaking day.
No, I texted him back quickly. I wouldn't be caught dead doing that to you Braden. Go have a good night. We'll talk about it tomorrow okay?
I hit play on the CD player, laid my head back down on my pillow and let my eyelids slide closed. I started to breathe in deeply and exhale, trying to calm myself from the nights events. A tremor then came from my stomach where I had placed my phone.
I brought it up above my head and opened my eyes slightly to read it.
But Id rather u have a good nite than just me. but if thats wut u want, ok. i promise ill call u tomorrow. Love ya.
I felt a smile creep upon my face as I read what he said to me. He was always the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better friend. He was like the brother I never had, but the kind that protected you rather than pick on you. He was amazing.
Thanks Braden. I owe you one. Talk to you tomorrow. Love you too.
I put my finger on the end button and held it down, turning it off. I didn't want to have to deal with people anymore tonight. I placed it down next to my alarm clock and looked at it.
I ended up staring at the clock, and sighing. I couldn't believe that it was really only ten o'clock. This night seemed to be getting continually slower by the minute. Like every second that passed was as a lifetime for a person. It was ridiculous, and all because of a stupid, lame fight.
I couldn't help but keep thinking about that stupid fight. I kept on telling myself that it was nothing; that everything would be perfectly fine tomorrow morning as it always was when my parents and I fought. But I knew that deep inside that was a lie. How I knew it, I hadn't a clue, but I knew. It seemed to be kind of like a déjà vu.
After quite some time, I came out of my comatose state as I felt hot tears fall non-stop down my face. I realized then what it was I was listening to; Ghost of You onmy My Chemical Romance CD. My subconscious was touched by the words it was hearing, even though I hadn't really been listening. I kept on listening to the words as if they were scripture, and as I did I felt a wave of horror wash over me. I looked over at the alarm clock that sat on my nightstand. 11:34 PM it read.
Child stories began to run through my head as I remembered what supposedly happens at 11:34. It was said that that's when the devil came out to play because 11:34 read upside down was hell. Panic flooded my mind once again. I wasn't usually a very superstitious person, but they should have been home at least a half hour ago. They never stayed out this late. Ever.
Panic flashed through me again as the words from the song, "And I remember now, at the top of my lungs, she dies, she dies," kept running through my mind. Ridiculous, I thought. Nothing is going to happen. I continued to tell myself.
Grabbing my cell, I started dialing the number to my parents' cell phones, and tried calling them. It rang, again and again. Third ring, fourth ring, the machine with no answer; so unlike them. I waited anxiously for the beep to happen so I could leave a message.
Finally it came.
"Mom, hey. It's Peyton, I just.. well I don't really know. I was just seeing if you and Dad were okay. You don't usually stay out this late. Just, I uh… call me back when you get this. I… I love you," and I snapped my phone shut.
Without really thinking much, I grabbed the keys to my car and stuffed my cell phone into my pocket, slipped on some shoes and ran out the door. When I started the car, I took a quick glance back to see if there was any oncoming traffic, and then pulled out with a screech from the tires. I had to make sure nothing was wrong. I was sure there wasn't; neither one of them called which they would have had something happened.
I took a right and hit Riego Road, and then turned left onto route 70. Within seconds of turning onto the CA 70, I couldn't help but speed up much faster, pushing the speed to the limit of the law. I needed to find my parents and I needed to find them now. First stop I was going to make was at the movie theatre we always went to. I was pretty sure my Dad had said something about a movie coming out this weekend he'd wanted to go see.
As I continued to drive along, I knew that I should slow down and go at a more conservative speed but I couldn't help myself; I was pushing fifteen mph over on this road.
After a minute or so I could see the freeway of I five come into view in front of me. That's where I needed to go. I still hadn't slowed down any, and noticed that there was a car coming up very fast in from directly in front of me. I switched lanes so that I would be able to just pass them up and be on my way but as I did so, the unexpected happened.
Just as I was beginning to fly by the car, it swerved into my lane from the right. I wasn't thinking when I did my next move. I turned with that car, trying to make it so we didn't get into an accident, and ended up crossing over the dirt lane between the two highway sides, and began driving on the wrong side of the road. I didn't see until too late that there was a car coming that same direction, straight for me. There wasn't any time for me to do anything more.
I didn't have a chance to twist away from another vehicle. I had dodged the one car with relative ease, but now, it was all happening too fast. Before I knew it, the car coming at me curved its path away from me, and started to skid. I had taken a sharp turn to dodge the car as well, and spun out around the highway for a ways. Once I was able to get control of the car again, I quickly slowed my own vehicle and turned around to see what was happening out on the road behind me.
I swung my head around just in time to see a body fly out from the passenger side of that car, and land out on the dirt on the side of the road after sliding across it, getting serious road rash. My eyes widened in shock as I saw the car continue to careen down the highway, and ram straight into a light post. It was stable for a second, I saw the airbags deploy. It looked like it was safe, and that the driver was going to make it out much easier than the passenger, but not five seconds later the pole fell on top of the vehicle, causing electricity to spout all around, and light the car on fire. I had started to walk toward it slowly, but the car blew up right in front of my eyes after taking two steps.
My breathing started to become heavy, and I couldn't seem to make myself move any farther. I forced my head back around to look away from the grotesque scene that had been placed before me. My hands were gripping the wheel painfully, but I couldn't loosen them. Slowly, painfully slow, I managed to calm my breathing down, and opened my car door to let my nose receive the smell of burnt metal, rubber, and flesh. It was all I could do to keep myself from gagging.
The small sized car was burning on the side of the road maybe a quarter mile away from where I was at. I jumped out of my car and started sprinting toward the burning hunk of metal as fast as I could, and I realized at once, it was my parents' car. I couldn't miss the cracked and melted navy blue paint, and the Converse sticker I had stuck on the back window. It was them. It had to be.
I looked inside the car from a distance and saw my dad, still clutching the wheel. I froze as I realized there was no way in heck he was alive, his body burnt and scalded so badly, there was no hope that I had for him to be alive. I stared at the passenger seat confused, wondering what had happened to my mom.
As if answering my unvoiced questions, I heard my mother faintly cry my name, about fifteen feet away from the car near the side of the road. I remembered in horror then that a person had flown out into the air from the car during the skid. I rushed over to her, but the moment I saw her clearly, I went completely numb.
Half her face was bloodied from the road rash she'd received. Her left arm and both legs were broken I knew for I could see the jagged bones from each crack that had caused them to break. Her clothes were ripped and torn beyond repair. Her face was contorted in such pain; I didn't know how long I'd be able to look at her without getting sick. She looked utterly awful.
I wanted to cry but my body didn't seem to be capable of a reaction. I couldn't move at all, until I saw my mom motion to me, just barely, to come to her with her one good arm that was left. I walked over to her and slowly crouched down beside her, and cradle her in my arms gently.
She looked up at me and smiled. "I love you, Peyton" she sighed. Then her smile faded as pain contorted her face once again. I could see her struggling for air, could see the light leaving her eyes, dying. She looked deep into my eyes, burning the look of them into my memory, her love flowing from her eyes into my body, being engraved on my soul. Slowly she reached her hand up to my cheek and brushed away a tear that had escaped from my eyes and down my face.
I brought my hand up and rested it upon hers, leaving it pressed against my cheek. As I held her hand there, I saw the tears start to flow from her eyes as well. She began to cough and have more troubles breathing. Then there was a sharp intake of breath. Her eyes went wide, and as they started to settle back to a normal size, she mustered up one final smile for me, and sighed as that last breath left her body, making her motionless.
The light went out, her hand went limp and her eyes stopped blinking, but forever stared into nothingness. I let her hand fall from my face as I closed her eyes for her, one last time.
I wrapped my mothers' broken body up in my arms and held her close to me. I began to rock back and forth with her in pressed against me. I began to tremble and the tears flowed freely down the planes of my face. I could hardly breathe. It felt like the weight of the whole world was pressing upon me, forcing me to give in and give up.
Painstakingly slowly, I reached into my pocket and got my phone. I called the police and told them there was an accident on the main highway leading away from Pleasant Grove. They told me that they were on their way and would be there as soon as they could and hung up from the line.
I continued to rock my mother and myself while seated on the ground. I couldn't do anything else. I couldn't stop shaking, I couldn't force the tears to stop gushing forth; I wasn't in control of anything.
I don't know how long it had been, but it seemed to have been much longer than necessary when I heard some policemen and paramedics talking from behind me. I wanted to look back at them, to let them know that I was still here, but I couldn't budge. My body would do nothing other than rock. Even the tears had stopped, but still my body wouldn't move.
Finally I felt as my mother was starting to be pulled away from my grasp by someone. I tried to hold on to her, but my body was too weak. I reluctantly let her go, and saw as she and my dad were carried away from me.
I watched as the paramedics loaded the bodies of my parents into the vehicles, pronouncing them dead at the scene, something I had known long before they had even arrived.
It wasn't until I saw the lights blink away in the distance, driving away from me with my parents with them, did I begin to realize what had really just happened. All at once it seemed my face was drenched in my tears again. The shock had finally begun to wear off, and I was beginning to feel the pain and the agony and the hole that was now festering within my heart.
I hadn't managed to comprehend until that moment what my mom had been trying to tell me with her eyes. She really did want me to be happy; she was sorry for the way things ended between us. That's all she ever wanted for me; to be happy.
I began to cry harder at the thought of how ironic it was at the way things happened to end between us. How the final thing she whispered to me were words of love, full of kindness and caring, while the last words I ever spoke to her were in anger, frustration, wishing her dead…
There was a small voice in the back of my head though, that kept repeating to me, You left her a message. Your last words weren't in anger, but in love.
I couldn't help but fight myself on these words. Maybe so, but who's to say she listened?
My tears had become bitter by the time I saw a hand reach down and offer itself to me. I stared at it for a moment before hesitantly grabbing it. The person pulled me up to my feet, leveled with them. I stood there for a second, staring at the person. He was a boy, not much older than me by the looks of him, dressed as a paramedic with brown hair and pale blue eyes. I saw him give me a sad smile, and start walk away, but once I blinked and reopened my eyes, he was nowhere to be seen. I could have sworn that he had been there but now he was gone. I looked around in all directions from where I stood and saw nothing. It was as if he never existed, as if he was a figment of my imagination.
I shook my head rapidly trying to clear it. I must have been imagining it, I told myself. Then the thought occurred to me; if I was too tired to really get up on my own and started seeing things that weren't really there, in which case I really did get up on my own, how was I to walk to my car and drive back to my house without getting myself hurt in some way?
Shaking my head yet again I saw that there were still a few police cars around that were checking the scene for anything. I even saw the car that had swerved into my lane pulled over and the man that had been inside was getting an alcohol blood level test. From the looks of things, he wasn't passing. He couldn't even stand up straight.
I felt my anger begin to rise as I watched this man stand in a stupor in front of the cop. He's what started this whole ordeal to begin with.
But then I decided to face facts; I didn't have to swerve away. I could have just hit the breaks. It was my fault. It was my fault that my parents were dead. They were dead.
I looked around from where I stood and saw the last few things that were in my mother's possession sprawled about on the ground. I bent down and picked up her light jacket and small purse. They were both dirtied torn in a few places.
I saw a police officer walk over to me and I held my mothers things tightly to so I wouldn't lose them. I guessed that he was going to be asking me some questions, trying to figure out exactly what had happened. I didn't know if I was going to be able to tell him though. I was starting to think that I was a little too out of it, especially after that little mirage I seemed to have had.
Somehow though I must have made it through talking with that policeman because the next thing I knew I was back at home, on my bed, with the phone in my hands.
How did I get here? I wondered. I looked out the window and saw my car parked in front of the house. I must have been in oblivion, I figured. Must have been the shock. Vaguely did I even remember talking to that officer. But I remembered it, recounting to him of what had happened. I knew that I had talked and he had as well; I just wasn't sure how much I'd said, or what exactly he'd told me. At the end I think he said something about the man going to jail for a serious DUI and possibly man-slaughter.
I looked down in my lap and thought for a moment, trying to figure out why I'd have the phone in my hands. Then I remembered that I was going to try calling my best friends Shae and Hayden, despite the fact that it was a little past midnight. They would probably still be up, and I needed somplace to go.
I dialed the number. Shae picked up the phone on the other end and screamed in excitement to hear from me although she was half asleep herself. I tried to be happy and enthusiastic back, but I couldn't hide what I was feeling inside.
"What's happened Pey? What's wrong? Come on tell me," she urged me, concern filling up her voice.
I cleared my throat and spoke very softly, "I'm all alone now. I need somewhere to live, Shae. I'm an orphan."
It hit me again in that moment, as it had multiple times that night, that I really was alone and a gaping hole carved itself into where my heart had been. The pain I had felt earlier on the road was increased a hundred fold. Until I said the words out loud to someone else, I hadn't believed it--refused to believe it within my subconscious. But now I admitted it to myself.
I was an orphan; my parents, gone forever. I cursed that song I had listened to so many times before and its prophetic meaning in my life tonight. "And all the things that you never ever told me and all the smiles that are ever gunna haunt me. I'm never coming home, never coming home…"
A/N: Alright, so what did you all think? If you're re-reading this new version, let me know how you like the differences! It'd be very much apprectiated :] Thanks all!