Over, Gone, and Lost

P A R T 11

"Which is it, are you really ready to die, or do you just need a reason to live?"

Caroline didn't answer him. She didn't know how to. So she just turned up the music a little bit and turned her head out the window. That's when she started thinking about Augustine and how she used to draw.

Life had not been good to Caroline. She was never happy for an entire day, she never felt she was good enough, she never thought she had a future. She was never angry or sad because of it. At some point, Caroline thought she had gone numb to the way life treated her. She just took all the pain that it brought.

The hate. The loneliness. The tiredness. She took it all.

"If you could change one thing from your entire life, what would it be," Ben asked, breaking the silence.

Caroline didn't have to think very hard about this.

"I would go back to the day my best friend died, and I would make him hold me instead of the bottles of alcohol," she said blankly. It was a thought she had thought a hundred times over. She thought of the words she would say to convince him to live, the way he would break down in her arms and tell her how much it hurt. She thought of the way her life would be now, less lonely.

"Tell me about him," Ben says. Caroline takes a deep breath, remembering her friend.

"Augustine Jackob Black. He hated his middle name because it was spelled funny, but I loved it. I was the only person in the whole world to call him Auggie. He said he hated how it sounded coming from everyone except me" Caroline worked hard to fight back the tears.

"He was a football player, the best one our town had seen in years. He was good enough to go pro until he shattered his knee and tore his ACL. Football was his life, and everything changed when he lost it. He... broke. I tried to be there for him. It seemed as if everyone had turned their back on him, but I was always there." there was no point in trying to hold back the tears now. Ben noticed and grabbed her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze of encouragement because as much as it hurt her, she had to get this out.

"He was my best friend. The only person that ever loved me, and now he's gone. I miss him every day, and sometimes when shit gets really bad, I try to hate him for leaving me, but I can't because I loved him too." she lets out a body-shaking sob. Ben pulls the car over before pulling Caroline over the middle console and onto his lap.

Caroline holds onto Ben for dear life, sobbing, finally letting out the tears she has been holding for Augustine since the day he died. Ben rubs her back as she continues.

"I lived for him. When I met him, I was on my way to die. He saved my life, and I tried so hard to save his" she sobs again. "But I couldn't" Caroline struggles to breathe as she goes into another panic attack. Ben holds her tighter in his arms as he strokes her back.

"It wasn't your fault Caroline, you can't blame yourself for what he did," Ben whispers in her ear.

Caroline shakes her head, "but it is my fault. I was too blind. I never thought he would actually do it until I got that call from him."

"What call?" Ben asked.

"He called me the night he died, he was wasted, and I could hear it in his voice. He tried to say goodbye to me, and I didn't understand what was happening until I heard the line go dead," she sobbed.

"It's not your fault," Ben repeated in her hair. For the next twenty minutes, Caroline sobbed. She allowed herself to hurt for her friend, she allowed herself to be comforted by this new familiar stranger, and she allowed herself to feel. 

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