The engine’s low rumble permeated the night, casting a warm glow on the barren green hills and empty streets that flowed with the visible gold poured down upon them from ever present and ever vigilant street lamps. A breeze gentle enough to have been blown by a mouse lifted the remaining leaves on the sturdy maples that surrounded the town into flight only for them to come spiraling down to the hard earth below. The night felt as though it was one omnipotent being, and it was a pleasure to be consumed by the beast.
As far as I was aware, my car was the only one on the road, and James and I were the only ones out at this hour. This surprised me, as Harrison was usually dotted with young people and midnight laborers shaking off sleep and driving endlessly to nowhere as if they were expecting to find life in the middle of the road at 3 A.M. My car, a lime green 2008 Dodge Charger with jet black rims, a hemi engine, and only 2 small scratches on the passenger door, sped aimlessly down the road, the smell of fried chicken still lingering in the back seats. I had called James up at midnight knowing he would gladly agree to a pilgrimage to our local KFC for some fried chicken to go. This trip was not out of hunger or a sudden craving for chicken, but rather because we had the freedom to do so and liked to remind ourselves of it. So it was to feel the youthful freedom flow through our veins that that night we embarked for chicken.
“Hey Andrew,” James inquired, “What do you think you’re gonna do after high school. I mean I know your mom and dad want you to go to some university, but what do you think’s actually gonna happen?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t exactly planned all that out or given it much thought ya know.” This made me give more thought to the matter than I ever had before.
“What? How do you not have any sort of plan whatsoever? I mean you only have one more year to figure everything out.”
“Well sorry my life doesn’t quite run on an itinerary like yours ‘Mister I’m gonna go to Stanford to get a law degree and marry Erica the day after I graduate,’” I jokingly replied.
James was the kind of guy you could joke around with one minute and talk serious world economics with the next, a likeable guy with a surprising amount of intelligence and an ever brightening future.
“Aw shut up man,” he laughed back at me, “All I’m saying is that if I were you I would seriously start giving some thought to this, I mean Erica and I have already discussed our future and I already got accepted into Stanford. All that’s left for me is to wait for senior year to wind down to a smooth ending.”
I had known James since kindergarden and ever since he had always been more successful than me. Whether in grades, sports, or girls, James had excelled far beyond me for the past 12 years and showed no signs of stopping. I don’t know how or why he tolerated me all these years, but for whatever reason, we were still best friends despite his obvious superiority to my sub par life.
“I don’t know man, it’s just I don’t really know where to go from here.” I turned my head to face the back seat, looking for my phone which I had noticed to be absent from my pocket. “I think I might just-”
Like ten thousand glass balls being simultaneously shattered, my ears erupted with sound as my stomach was kicked in. My head flew forward and for a brief moment I saw dozens of stars shooting towards my face like a magnificent array- black.
I’m not quite sure when I awoke, but when I did, the sharp scent of sanitation permeated my nostrils and all I glimpsed before drifting off again was bright light. When I returned to consciousness, I found myself gasping for air having awoken from some terrible nightmare long gone to my memory. I frantically sat up and looked around me, finding myself in what I assumed was a hospital room due to the white walls, stretcher bed and various blinking machines that ticked as persistently as the black analog clocked mounted precariously over a small wastebin. I watched the clock for a moment, each second seeming to tick by faster and faster, louder and louder until I finally forced my head away from the wall.
It was then that I noticed my parents, slumped over in small cushioned chairs placed against the right wall of the room. They both appeared drained, looking like ghosts sitting emptily and staring into nothing. My mom’s hair was a mess compared to its usual carefully straightened and radiant look. She was also without makeup which is the thing that surprised me the most. Before this moment, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her leave the house without a touch of makeup. I had thought it physically impossible for her to pass through our front door without flashing it a bright and perfected smile. As for my dad, he too looked like a mess compared to the formal businessman like image I expected out of him. His face was rugged and unshaven and a red tie hung sloppily without a suit to go with it from his pulsing neck. Both of them seemed to be staring at some invisible spectacle of brilliance on the left wall of the room as their eyes never lost focus or as far as I could tell blinked at all. When I finally coughed up the fateful words ‘what happened?’ the intensity of the room fell to pieces and my mother broke down in tears, sobbing into my father’s sweat soaked white button down shirt. After another moment of silence, my father took a deep breath of air, let out a deep sigh, and painfully uttered the only thing he could manage in that moment,“There was an accident,” a pause, “You were in an accident.”
I was still greatly confused but didn’t dare disturb the concerning tension present in the room.  After a few moments that dragged on like an eternity, my dad continued, “You were driving on East Lake Road and didn’t make a turn.”
My mom was still huffing breathlessly into my dad’s shoulder that was now a growing puddle.
“You drove straight into a tree.”
Before I could react or say anything, my dad blurted out, perhaps because he didn’t know how else to say it or he couldn’t hold it in any longer, “James was killed on impact.”
My mother released a final whimper as my father returned his gaze to the wall. My stomach dropped and my breathing became quick. I felt as though the walls of the room were closing in on me and I began to see stars. I vomited on the fresh white linen covering me and my world returned to black.
The next few weeks passed by unbenounced to me. I can’t quite pinpoint the date of my release from the hospital or any of the days that followed it for that matter. From that point on, life became a blur of events and people tangled in grotesque strings.
The trial is such a blur to me that I’m not sure it ever happened at all. I wasn’t at all sure what I was being tried for but I knew that I was indisputably guilty. Unfortunately for myself, my parents’ money seemed to think otherwise, so it was that some top notch professional grade lawyer was purchased for me and along with him my innocence. It disgusted me, the money, the unrecognizable lies verbally woven into the truth, all of it. Although I could tell myself an infinite number of times that innocence was what I wanted, the only one I’d be lying to would be myself. I wanted punishment, I knew I deserved it, and I needed nothing more than to have it lashed down upon me. I spent countless days thinking about what I had done and what it all meant. Nothing. It had meant nothing. I had so carelessly ripped James’ life away without any warning to him or myself. Something inside of me was clawing its way out, thirsting for any sort of closure. I was in debt, and so far I had only paid it off with counterfeit.
The first day I consciously lived was the funeral, and no day made me want to be unconscious of the world around me more. The somber gathering was held at the church James and I had gone to for as long as I could remember. It was a rather square white building with a steeple on top that looked like a very stereotypical portrayal of a church building from some movie. The man heading the ceremony was Reverend Lucas Fern, an elderly and highly respected member of the church who spoke with an accent reminiscent of a small southern town somewhere between Georgia and Alabama.
“We are here today to remember a great young man who was so suddenly taken from us,”
His words bounced around in my head as my eyes were drawn to the large cross behind the reverend with a life sized sculpture of Christ mounted on it faced toward the crowd of people in the room. Each word the reverend spoke elevated the tension building inside me to its peak.
“Such a promising future” My breathing became urgently paced “so violently destroyed,” my hands twitched as my palms grew moist “a priceless life” I heard each second pound by on the clock mounted above me “so devastatingly stolen away from us.” My entire body was quivering and covered in sweat, my mouth left open as if to speak words that I could not find. The reverend continued but none of what he said reached my ears. I was gone. Still shaking,
I stumbled out of my seat and swiftly headed for the hall. Not knowing where I was going, my hand found the handle to the bathroom door and I hobbled inside. I managed to make my way to the sink and reached out to turn the hot water on full. Steaming water shot out in front of me and the world spun around me as I collapsed to the floor. My cheek rested against the cool tile floor and I wept.
“It’s all my fault,” I sobbed to myself as if someone would hear and reassure me that it wasn’t. But no one came and I was left lying alone in my own personal hell, too much of a coward to return to the ceremony and face the reverend and crowd of people gathered in the church knowing that I had brought this upon them.
Eventually someone came and helped me up and out of the church. I assumed it was my dad as I was afterward returned to my house and helped into my bed.
That night I got no sleep, instead I sat staring out my window into the crisp night air. The sound of a passing train blared in the distance and seemed to grow closer as my eyes grew heavier. Just as I was adjusting to the scene, my window shattered, shooting towards me, stars flying aimlessly in a shining burst of confetti. I quickly closed my eyes and turned my head the other way, reopening them to the sound of screaming. Upon realizing that the noise was coming from my own mouth, I quieted myself and began breathing heavier, once again staring out the intact window and listening to the now closer blaring of a train.
The light of dawn graced the gentle landscape surrounding my home before I drifted into a slumber. For the first time, I clearly saw the dream that had haunted me since the accident. I was standing by the side of a road, staring down at the bloody and mangled body of my best friend. I was somehow unfazed by the gore presented to me now. A man approached from behind me and stood beside me, staring down at the body.
“Why did you do this?” the man’s haunting voice questioned me.
“ I-I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t paying attention. It was an accident.”
“So fix it. If you don’t want this, then take it back.”
“How? I can’t take this back can I? Please, is there a way to take this back?”
Laughter came from the man, “Why should I tell you? You’re worthless, you’re nothing, and you destroyed this great boy of limitless potential.”
“Please, it was an accident I-”
“An accident? Do you think it matters that it was an accident? Death is death, and you’re responsible,” the man yelled harshly.
I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to ignore what he was saying, but I knew it was true. I looked back down at the mangled corpse, once something so delicately woven into a masterpiece now laid in ruins. A single tear fell from my eye and landed on the hard earth in front of the body. I looked at the man and was shocked to see that he was looking back at me. James. No, it couldn’t be him tormenting me, yet the longer I stared the more sure I was that it was him. He released one more cruel chuckle and I was left once again sitting up in my bed, staring out the window.
It was night again. Exhaling a deep sigh, I got up from my bed and stumbled down the hall to the stairs. Slowly stepping down the dark oak slabs, I glanced into a mirror to the left of me. What I saw I didn’t recognize. Right 2 Left 37 Right 9 click.
I opened my front door and walked through my lawn to the empty street. I proceeded onward, drifting in a river of golden street light. The air was cold on my face and I felt indefinitely alone in the world, unwelcomed into the vast emptiness that inevitably awaited me. I looked up at the moon frightened of my surroundings but sure of my decision. I leaned against an old maple on the side of the road and exhaled a sigh of relief. The wind picked up and made the air around me even colder, yet not as cold as the metal in my mouth. I choked out the only words I could and let my thumb click the pieces into place “I’m sorry.”
The shot echoed over green hills and through empty trees. The wind calmed to a slow breeze as the remaining sound resonated throughout the night, silence restored, serenity reinstated, debts paid.