It was happening again. I was slipping. I heard my mother yelling, but I ignored her, letting all thoughts fade to the steady pounding of my bare feet against the pavement. 
We were fighting again. She wanted me to go to college. Sure, it might be nice to go to college, but with my grades, the only place I'm going is down the toilet. 
Ever since that horrible day, back in my freshman year, everything had blurred. Everything I did was a dream. It wasn't really happening. If I wanted to drink beer with my friends in the parking lot of the park, I could. Just because the police had to drag my sorry self home one night didn't change anything. It was just a dream.
My dad had always told me to watch who I hung out with. He always said that friends are just a reflection of yourself. 
Fat lot of good that had done me. 
But it wasn't my dad's fault. It was my own fault. I skidded to a stop, and sat down on the side of the road. I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. I ignored it. 
Thinking about my father had gotten a little bit easier. It had only taken two year for me to be able to hear his name without bursting into tears. 
Once my father was gone for good, I realized that something so constant, something that's such a given, can be taken for granted. Like parents. I always took mine for granted until I only had one. All I knew was that I now had a different definition of "forever" than I had before. 
After he had gotten into that horrid accident, I guess I let it slip. I didn't talk to anyone, much less my mother. But now she wanted me to do something productive. Why do something so pointless as that? The only college I could even dream of going to was community college, and how could that help me become an artist? 
I heard sirens, and I saw an ambulance zoom by, in the direction I had come. I immediately thought of the ambulances that had rushed to the scene of my father's untimely demise. I thought of the man who had hit my father, and lived. I wanted to hate that guy, but it's hard to hate someone who covers, monetarily, all if the damage he had caused. But somehow, I still found a way to hate him. 
I sighed. Why blame my mom? She loved me, and I knew that deep down, I loved her too. I started to trudge back to the house. As I did so, the sirens grew louder and louder. My heart started beating a little bit faster. I upped my pace to a fast jog.
As I rounded the bend, I saw a fleet of EMTs in my driveway. I broke into a sprint. 
I saw the front door burst open, and could only stand on the slightly unkempt front lawn and watch as my mother was pushed out on a gurney. I almost screamed. 
I heartlessly pushed medics aside in my mad dash to reach my mother in what could be her last minutes of life. 
Sure, I remembered that the doctors had said that she had a weak heart. Sure, they said that I had to keep an eye on her. I just never thought that they meant that she would die because of it. 
•••
I'm screaming at them. I want to know what's happening to my mom. They're telling me to calm down. 
"What's going on?" I yell, my voice breaking with sobs. "Tell me!" 
A man steps forward. "Your mother went into cardiac arrest about five minutes ago. I--" He stops. It must be bad. 
"Tell me!" I scream. "For the love of God, tell me!" I'm sobbing uncontrollably now. Why won't they tell me?
They're loading her into the ambulance. Someone had better tell me right now, or--
"I'm sorry, but she's passed." 
She passed. She's in a better place. She's dead. 
She's gone. 
I'm alone. 
I don't process the craziness, or the pain, or anything, for that matter. Except for one thing. The only thing I can think is this:
I never got to say good bye.