You can't predict something like this. Sure, every human has this natural fear of death. Most probably have spent hours predicting how it will happen. Maybe it'd be a car crash, or I'd drown, or maybe I'd burn up in a fire. All plausible options, but my mind always seemed to come back to a glamorous end. I thought I'd go in the place of someone else. In my mind, it had always been some beautiful girl that I'd sacrificed myself for. Losing my own life to keep theirs in tact, if you will. I sure as hell never saw myself as an elderly man dying of some heart condition, but I didn't see this one coming either. Marissa Cooper with a gun in her and a distinct lack of color in her face.
Life's got a way of handing things to you all at once. Ryan, he got all the good. A new family, a new girlfriend, and new friends. I got myself a year behind bars. A girl who'd done more lines of coke than pages of homework. Dependence on whatever substance could get my mind off of the fact that I didn't fit in at Newport and I never would. And now this. Blood seeping through my t-shirt while I struggled to get the words out.
Those words remained unspoken. The most I was able to do was look at her through my blackened eyes. Marissa Cooper, once Newport's very own living Barbie Doll with nothing more than disbelief covering her face. I'd never seen her so vulnerable. Not the night at the beach, not earlier at the club, and not that time in her room. This was different. It was hard to believe that only days earlier we had shared margaritas and bad movies on my couch.
Some couch, it was. It had secrets beneath its cushions, not to mention a pretty heavy stash of blow. It'd heard all of Jess' plans. It knew all about my indiscretions. And once upon a time it even cradled Marissa's fragile frame. My blood smeared across its pillows was only something else to add to its list.
I've been carrying Ryan down my entire life. Pressuring him to get into all the things I was doing. Dragging him down the roads where I was well traveled. I had hurt her once. I know I was fucked-up when it happened. I know I'd apologized more than I'd ever apologized for anything before. It didn't change the fact that I'd taken her down too.
Losing my own life to keep theirs in tact.