The sound of rain droplets filled the small space of the car as the driver pointed the vehicle home late on a cold September night. The radio was turned up high and two best friends sang their hearts out to the latest pop song. Laughing when one of them missed a lyric, they stopped singing long enough to grin at each other. The small brown haired boy reached out tentatively to take his best friend's hand and she looked away from him, a pink flush filling her cheeks.

"Did you have fun tonight?" the scraggly 12 years old asked his best friend of five years.

"It was so much fun! Thanks for taking me to the movies," she said sweetly.

The young boy cut his eyes over to the front seat where his father was driving and looking at him through the rearview mirror. He knew what he needed to do next and his father seemed to be mentally cheering him on.

"Would you maybe like to be um... to be my girlfriend?" His heart raced a million times a minute as he looked at her. The rain had picked up and was now matched the rhythm of his heartbeats, thumping loudly on the aluminum roof of the black Sedan.

She looked at him for a few seconds, in silence, but then squeezing his hand, nodded and whispered, "I'd love to Liam."

"Great!" Liam almost screamed and then smiled sheepishly at his laughing now-girlfriend. "I mean, cool." He tried to control his enthusiasm as he stared at his first ever girlfriend and then leaned over and kissed her on her cheek. She giggled and turned bright red.

"Ok, settle down you two!" he heard his dad say, a slight chuckle in his voice, but he paid no attention.

He couldn't stop staring at her. She was perfect and he'd been wanting to ask her out for months now. He watched as she jumped back into a new song on the radio and started to dance to her favorite part. She was so beautiful and her voice was amazing. He could listen to it for hours.

All of a sudden, her beautiful voice turned into a shill of terror and he was knocked out of his daze. The car began to slide and the breaks squealed in protest against the wet pavement. The world spun around them and the sound of metal tearing filled the air, blocking out the pounding of the rain. The car slowed to a stop and he released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Liam looked and saw his dad glancing back at him.

"You two ok?" he asked frantically, quickly scanning them for any scratches or cuts.

Liam's answer was unheard over the blaring of a horn. Headlights streamed in from the passenger side window as an 18-wheeler hurdled towards the car. Liam had just enough time to meet the dark brown terrified eyes of his girlfriend before he felt the blow of impact.

Shooting upright into a sitting position, a sob exploded from Liam's chest. He rubbed his eyes as he gasped for breath, reminding himself for the thousandth night in a row that he was in his room, not in the shattering car. He was alive and safe under his blue down coverlet and Spiderman sheets. His body slowly relaxed, the adrenaline fading out of his system as he laid back down. Staring at his ceiling he tried to rid his mind of the horrible nightmare.

Not being able to banish the images of shattering glass and blood, he stood up and turned on his bedside lamp. Walking across his room, he made his way to his bathroom door and pushed it open. Once inside he flipped on the light switch and was greeted with the bright fluorescent lights that made him squint for a moment. Once his vision came back to him, he began to strip and turned on his shower. It was only 5 in the morning and he had a while before he actually had to get up for school, but on his bad nights he knew he'd never be able to go back to sleep.

Staring into the mirror, he traced the light pink line of a scar across his abdomen. A scar created by shards of glass, a scar that held too many painful memories. He hated the mark on his skin and he fought back his bubbling fury, knowing that it only stemmed from the helpless feeling of losing a loved one and not being able to save them. For a moment, he no longer saw the reflection in front of him but instead his mind was consumed with a picture of those brown eyes, terrified and pleading to be saved. Liam fell to his knees and bit back a scream. He planted his butt on the tile floor and breathed in deeply through his nose to try to relieve the terror and fury that was seeping through his pores.

Struggling to his feet again, he practically leaped into the shower. The blistering heat encompassed his body and his muscles relaxed. He closed his eyes and allowed the water to take the pain away, if only for a few moments. He tried to think of the list of things he had to do instead. He had a paper due in English by the end of the week and there was that science project he had to do by himself since he was, as of a few days ago, without a lab partner.

After about an hour of hot water reducing his skin to wrinkles, Liam stepped out into a steam filled room. He grabbed a towel off the rack and wrapped it around his waist. Walking into his bedroom he rummaged through his drawers and threw on black t-shirt and a pair of jeans. He squirted some jell into his hand, cool and gooey, and ran his fingers through his wet hair. At the sound of footsteps downstairs, Liam glanced over at the clock which signaled that it was time to head to the kitchen for breakfast before school. He shoved his books into his bag and walked downstairs, following the smell of eggs and grits.

He winced internally at the gesture of a good home-cooked breakfast. He normally stuck to cold cereal or a protein bar. His mom never made the effort for a big breakfast because he was normally leaving while she was just getting up. Liam knew that the breakfast was pity food and his mother was just trying to make him feel better but that didn't mean he couldn't accept the delicious eggs which appeared to be smothered in cheese. He eyed her cautiously before sitting down at the table. Fighting off the twisting in the pit of his stomach, he dug into his warm breakfast. His father came downstairs as he was taking his first bite and Liam felt a hand on his back.

"Good morning Liam," his dad said quietly while removing his hand from his son's shoulder. He pretended not to notice his son flinch at the touch and put on a fake smile.

"Morning," Liam mumbled. He heard his dad sigh as he walked over to make his own plate of eggs and grits. "Good morning sweetheart," Mr. Reynolds said, greeting his wife with a kiss.

"Good morning. Hope you like the eggs, I added some cheese to them just like you boys like it," she smiled at her husband and then shot a wary glance over at her son who seemed to be lost in thought. "Liam, honey, there's something we need to talk about."

Liam looked up confused, as if trying to remember where he was. "Hmmm?"

"Liam, I need you to focus. It's important," she said, walking over to sit down. She took his hand and felt him tense. "I know today is hard on you, it's hard on all of us-"

Liam yanked his hand away from his mother and stood up. Angry, he raised his voice and the walls shot up. "We are not talking about this. I accepted the pity eggs and grits but I will not sit here and talk about the significance of today."

"Liam!" his father's voice sounded, which only made Liam angrier. "You treat your mother with respect and you do not talk to her this way."

"Look, I've said this over and over. I do not want to talk about this. Every year since I was twelve, you've wanted to talk about what happened. Well let's just get this out there. It's been six years today since the accident. My best friend is gone. I can't get her back. It's time to move on. I'm fine. Let's drop it." He clenched and unclenched his fists to try to get a grip on his anger. Taking a deep breath he turned to his mother. "I'm going to school now."

"Liam, don't walk out on this. We need to talk," his mother's voice was pleading but he just turned his back. "It's about Em-" her words were cut off by the slamming of the door.

Liam walked down the shiny waxed hallways of his high school, listening in to random gossip as he passed by his fellow seniors. There had apparently been a huge party over the weekend with a lot of alcohol which was totally awesome until the cops arrived. It was all anyone could talk about. He rolled his eyes at the trivial minds of his fellow classmates and proceeded to his locker. Waiting for him was his best friend Conner.

"Hey dude! How was your weekend?" his friend asked, clapping him on the back.

"It was pretty good I guess. Nothing extraordinary. Totally hate I couldn't make it to that party everyone's talking about though," he mused as he opened up his locker.

Chuckling, Connor leaned against the locker next to Liam's. "Have you heard the other gossip going around school?" he asked, rather excited.

"Um no, not yet, care to enlighten me?" Liam grabbed his Chemistry book for his first period of the day. He was lucky enough to have a free period after the first two hours of school to catch up on all his work.

"Apparently there's this new girl and all the guys say she's pretty hot," Conner wiggled his eyebrows which made Liam shake his head and laugh.

"Well I'm glad you'll have a new girl to stalk for a while," he mocked and started walking towards his Chemistry classroom. He loved his friend, but Connor could be a little obsessive over girls sometimes. "Hey, I've got to go study. I think Mr. Marsey is going to give us a quiz today. I'll catch you later."

Conner nodded and walked off in the direction of the gym where he had P.E. Liam sat down at his desk and pulled his notebook out. He needed a good grade in Chemistry and wasn't doing so hot at the moment. If he was going to have a shot at getting into Berkley the next fall, he needed to boost his GPA and this class was not helping.

"Good morning class," Mr. Marsey walked in and set his papers down on his desk. He then proceeded to take a sip of coffee while listening to the class mumble their greetings back. "Today we're going to talk about Moles and Molar Calculations."

He turned toward the board and started to write a calculation and definition onto the board. Liam copied everything down into his notebook and then started to doodle on the edges of his paper. His mind often wandered and he ended up scribbling pictures in the white spaces. He was actually pretty good at drawing but he liked to keep it to himself. He felt that drawing was a way of self-expression, and he wasn't ready to share his inner thoughts with anyone just yet.

He'd just gotten done doodling a picture of a rocket ship in the upper corner of his paper when his daydreams of soft brown curls were interrupted. "Mr. Renolds, can you tell me what the molar mass of this equation would be?"

Trying to play off the fact that he hadn't just been off in his own little world and not paying a bit of attention, he squinted at the board. It was filled with number gibberish and a lot of fractions and lines. He didn't have the slightest idea of how to answer the question.

"Um..." he tried to pretend he was doing the math on his calculator by punching in random numbers.

"The answer is 46.0055 which equals the molar mass of nitrogen dioxide." Everyone turned to see who the mystery person with the answer was.

Liam looked up from his made up calculations to see a petite girl with wavy brown hair standing in the doorway. She wore a plain blue V-neck shirt and white skinny jeans complete with black flats. Most of her body was blocked by the teacher who went over to greet her. Not finding much to see, he went back to scribbling his rocket ship he was so rudely interrupted from completing.

After a minute or so, Mr. Marsey turned to the class. "Ah, everyone, I'd like to introduce you to our newest student. She just moved here from Pennsylvania and I'd like you to all welcome her to our class." He stepped aside to let everyone get a good view of her. Liam, not looking up for he was completing the final touches on the flames from the booster rockets, mumbled a greeting along with the rest of the class.

"Hi, my name is Emily Marcot," she said tentatively. Marcot? Liam's eyes shot up to look at the stranger who'd entered the classroom, only to have the breath knocked out of him. His eyes were suddenly connected hers and his mind went blank. Without warning, Liam was thrown back into the car watching the 18-wheeler headlights collide with the shattering class of the rear right passenger window, knocking those brown eyes out of his view forever.