Zoe Elaine Marshall
A distant spinning grows closer and heavier, and everything is suddenly far away. I'm aware of a faint red glow right in front of me, and the sounds of shrill screaming drilling at my eardrums. As if someone turned on the lights in a pitch-black room, the memory of the bumpy suburban road appeared in my head. It all unfolds before my scraped hands. Tragedy, destruction, the death scene in a movie. In a daze, I groped around my short-term memory for an answer but came back empty handed. Thoughts flitted through my mind at light speed.
After a few seconds of being frozen, I slowly peered out the window. Although I was sure as hell I didn't want to see what had have gone down in front of me, I knew there was no escaping it.
Adrenaline bled through the cracks of my nerves and diffused through my body while I fumbled with the seatbelt. It all felt like loose cable and my hands jelly. My jaw is on fire and I'm like a fly struggling in a spiderweb.
Red splotches against the windshield. I could barely make out the shape of blank eyes fixed to the roof of a gray van that I knew all too well. Like an icy cold baseball bat, I felt terror's shadowy grip squeeze at my fragile heart. My hands started to tremble, then my whole body. Like an infectious fire, violence seeped through me. I wanted to punch away the present. Slowly but all so rapidly, my conscience was descending into icy terror. Punch and fight my way back to a couple minutes ago, before the horrible thing that was now. I would do anything. Beat till my knuckles were bloody. I stayed still.
What was left of my rational mind took over and steered my hand towards the door handle, and out of the car. I was a robot. I walked over to the now beaten-down gray Subaru, running my hand against the window. Cold. Burning hot. Then, there was nobody left in the world. Nobody except me and the broken but God so beautiful corpse.
I wanted to reach out to her, as if running my fingers down her sallow face would be any indication of respect. Maybe the electricity of human touch would be enough to extinguish the border between the dead and the living. She didn't belong here and neither did I. Respect the sleeping child in the driver's seat. But I just couldn't. I fucking couldn't.
Because her life couldn't flash before her eyes, it flashed through mine.
Her beautiful shiny life, shot to pieces all in an instance. A crystal glass knocked to the ground, never to be the same. And if she had been able to recall a sliver of her life in those dreadful, final moments, she wouldn't have that look of betrayal on her face.
So I sat down next to the car as if to confide in a best friend. The little details that populated the tires were suddenly so interesting. Like the little designs in a hair bow. The mundane suddenly became a safe space. A safe space I'd lost the privilege of. I'd take any little distraction to fall into oblivion. It was impossible, though.
I looked back up at her. The shadow of the rearview mirror covered her eyes, as if to put the dead to rest.
Something cold and clammy dripped down my nose. I absentmindedly drew my finger up to it, realizing it wasn't blood.
At that moment, I glanced down to my thighs and saw that the paper-white skin had been peeled at the sides. Muscles squirmed out of the opening, turning to foam when they reached the ground.
Suddenly I was aware of everything inside of me. My lungs shriveled and dried, forming sharp corners that sunk in retaliation into the surrounding flesh. My heart was suddenly oozing and spurting blood from my system, as if attempting to spit up poison.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. By then, my vocal cords were making their way out. The dry, brittle remains of my throat scratched their way along the insides of my cheeks. I leaned forward to vomit, and suddenly every last thing inside me was on the ground.
...
A gasp shocked me awake.
I sprung up from my pillow, breathing hard. A steady thump thump thump droned on in my ears. Cold sweat dripped down onto my collarbones as reality sunk in. Sounds of the evening fizzled casually outside as my pulse slowed.
Another dream.
It had been three months already, and I was still having dreams. Each one was getting slightly more bearable, though I still couldn't make it through one without nearly dying of a heart attack.
I guessed that it was a matter of forgiving myself, and that I hadn't yet. A few months ago, I was in a serious car crash. A girl died.
She was my age.
I did everything that you normally would assuming you went through what I did. I went to the funeral. Sat there like a beat up doll as people spurted their judgments of whether or not it was my fault to me. Endured the "listen, we think it would be good for you to talk to a therapist" talk with my parents, (parent, but I hate getting into that.) I did it all, and I suppose that having a few shitty nightmares was just the residue.
It was one of those things that you hear about on TV. The stories that are shown to jaded fifteen-year-olds in drivers ed. It was really embarrassing to be an example of what NOT to do, even though everybody said it wasn't my fault. The other girl was drunk, they declared. Like, what did they expect?
What my shallow friends don't realize is that this shit leaves you scarred regardless of the cold hard facts. They're not heartless, of course, and they dutifully offered long hugs and food from their moms, but they didn't quite get it. To them, it was a news headline to talk about with their families for 5 minutes then forget about. For me, it's my entire fucking life now. I wasn't the one driving drunk but I gave her a reason to drunk drive. If only I'd taken the bus. Nobody else thinks of it that way, though.
I'm able to do normal things again. I can function as properly as anyone else, really. I do enough homework to barely pass school, get dragged along to parties, and manage to not be a sore subject at family gatherings. But at the end of the day, I'm still the girl who killed Amelia Young in a drunk driving accident. Maybe not explicitly, but implicitly.
She was a 16-year-old dancer at my school. She wasn't super well known, but those who did know her loved her and guarded her with their lives. I'd often hear her name pop up in daily conversation, and all comments related to her were nothing short of admiring. She was the type to be overlooked in a public setting, yet anchor people to her with her personality, drawing in the most devoted entourage. She didn't turn heads or anything, but she was like a song that you thought was alright at first but listened to again a few months later and became obsessed with. If you one day noticed her bouncy curls and doll lips, you'd see that she was a bit of a gem.
Admittedly, I'd always been jealous of Amelia. I wanted others to see me the way they saw her. It disgusted me to feel this way about her, and frankly I wished I'd killed someone, anyone, rather than her. As if taking a life less bright and shiny than hers would somehow absolve me of a little guilt. I know it's really shallow. I push away this thought because once it flits through my mind, it takes me down a train of dark wonder.
If it was anyone but her that I killed, maybe I wouldn't be breaking down every day. 283Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbdeN4m8hOE
Amelia why?
This is on you, girl.
Ever since the incident, I decided I needed to renovate my life. Start fresh. I needed a change of scenery. I started doing things that I wouldn't have normally done, like raising my voice and being honest with my friends when they asked for my opinion on an outfit. Sometimes people were surprised with my behavior, but nobody questioned it. This was why I didn't believe in the term "self-absorbed." I believe that everybody is meant to be selfish at their core. Some more than others, but it was nonetheless a biological default. It used to bother me, but lately it doesn't anymore.
In honor of my a-bit-too-late-for-New-Year's resolution, I was going to go to a party alone tonight. Last night, I'd rolled my DIY construction paper dice with ideas that intimidated the hell out of me written on each side, and this was the card I'd dealt. I guess it was better than "get a secret tat."
My hands were shaking a little, but I still wanted to get this night over with. I stumbled off of my bed to get ready.
One of my side goals was to hook up with someone, so I picked something that subtly enhanced my body. Having a one-night stand was a thing I was secretly kind of intrigued to do, but I was mainly doing it to supplement the goal of getting out of my comfort zone. I wasn't a virgin, but screwing someone the night you meet them is pretty balls-y to me.
I wasn't stunningly beautiful, but I was at least noticed for having a chest on the bigger side. I didn't like my appearance very much, but as long as others thought I was at least somewhat bangable, my insecurities would stay at bay.
I placed shiny silver hair clips to the sides of my camel-colored hair and applied some gooey lip gloss. Then I wriggled into the blue-gray skimpy-but-not-too-skimpy thrift store dress. It revealed just enough of my cleavage for me not to look like a hooker but was covering enough to keep my dad from making that dead-inside expression as soon as I said bye. Of course, I could easily just guilt him for his reaction, but he was a tired person as it was, and I didn't like being a brat.
It occurred to me that my reflection was almost alien, and I could barely recognize myself compared to last year. Traces of my mom's subtle forehead wrinkles appeared, and it was clear that I was getting older. I felt like a little girl playing dress-up. But when getting ready for a party, there was a bit of a system. If I checked off the requirements of fuckable and bored, I could easily score a hookup. At least I met that standard.
Something made me want to stay in my bedroom, but I'd planned too much to just throw this away. If I could start a new chapter as charming and quietly seductive, then I could distract myself from my inner turmoil. Something to pride myself on was the best solution to entertain at this point. My feet continued to march forward in new white sneakers, and I sucked myself back into the present.
"Daddy, I'm heading to Rebecca's house. I'll be home by eleven. Love you," I called out to my dad from outside his office.
I hadn't spoken to my friend Rebecca in months.
He turned his slumped head to glance at me and just smiled wearily, to my relief. "Have fun."
Before I could marinate in the depressing environment of my place for another second, I slipped out the front door with my hoodie.
With a couple condoms tucked into the zipper pocket of my purse, I let my eyes follow the dark sidewalk as I made my way to the address my friends had sent to me.
It would go fine. If I needed a trump card, I'd brought some Aspirin in a little baggy. Who would turn down hard drugs?
Pray for me.
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