A scream pierced the quiet air. Derek jerked away. His bleary eyes quickly cleared, showing a trembling Casey staring at him with wild eyes.
"Casey? What's wrong?" He asked, worried.
"I saw it, Derek," She whispered, her eyes begging for him to relieve her of her pain. "I saw them die. The car exploded, again, and again, and I couldn't…" Her voice broke. "I couldn't stop it."
By the time she uttered this last sentence, Casey was sobbing again. Tears flooded down her cheeks, the blue of her eyes so clear, it was like looking through the ocean. Her face was crumpled with grief, and she slumped down onto his wrinkled shirt.
"Casey. Casey, look at me," His step sister obliged, meeting his eyes, though it broke his heart to see her suffering. "Casey, there was nothing you could do to stop the car crash. There was nothing you could do to keep our parents from… from dying." On this last word, Derek was gasping for air, attempting to stay strong, at least until he was alone. He cleared his throat. "Casey, do NOT blame yourself. There was NOTHING you could have done!"
"Derek, I didn't even get to tell them I loved them. They were murdered, not knowing if I cared…" She cast her eyes downward, away from him, towards the windows dripping with darkness, filtering out the light, and letting in only the blackness of their souls.
"Hey. Casey. Look at me," This time, she did not. He gripped her chin with a firm yet gentle force, making her bore into his own . "They knew, all of them, that you loved them. Every single one knew you would die for them, take their place somehow."
"If only I would have known. I could have.. " She trailed off.
"You could have what? Taken their place? Told them you loved them, even though they already knew that? Kept them off the road? Made that drunk driver knock into someone else's car? Make sure that he didn't die too, so he could pay for killing our family, as well as so many other people?" Derek was on a tangent. "There were so many things you could have done if you had known. I would have traded my life for my dad, Edwin, Marti, Nora, Lizzie. I would have done all that too. But we DIDN'T know."
Casey was beginning to sober up. Her eyes began to look droopy, and sad, but at least somewhat drier. "I know Derek. But there is always that what if, and I will always wonder what could have happened. Nothing you say will change that." She looked at him, her big blue eyes staring into his soul, all the way down into the innermost chambers of his heart. And with one, heart breaking sigh, said, "I miss them, Derek."
All Derek could do was wrapping her in a big bear hug, comforting her with a physical connection that words never would be able to. They fell back onto the pillows, laying in each others arms. Casey's head lay right above the empty spot where Derek's heart used to lay, and was soon asleep, lulled by the consistent filling of his lungs. Derek stayed awake for a long while, stroking her hair, while silent tears rolled down his cheeks.
So now you know how everyone dies. Drunk driving accident, all the people in the crashed vehicles died, the car exploded, killing any remaining chance that the family still would have been alive. BTW, both Derek and Casey are 18 years old, and it's the summer after their senior year of high school. Comments/Questions/Concerns??
