All I can hear is his voice. All I can see is the note I picked up on my dashboard. All I can smell is the blood. All I can taste is the guilt.
I keep driving, with the note on the dashboard wobbling with the car. I was driving slow, now. I knew there was a human sized dent on my right headlight. And blood, I knew there was blood too.
The way his body crumpled on the floor. My heart throbbing as I threw the door open, nearly stepping on him as I got out. He was dead. I knew he was dead. The life was out of his eyes. So I took the note from his hands, the note he'd been waving around before I hit him and I drove off.
I just killed a man. A boy. He looked my age. He looked better than me. Drunker than me. Smarter than me. I deserved to be on the floor dead, not him. Not him.
But I wasn't dead, I was the killer. And I was driving off.
Once I was out of the buildings I pulled over at the side of the road.
I put my head in my hands and viciously tugged at my hair. I was sweating, I had been sweating in the club but this was worse than anything. This wasn't sweat. This was water guilt.
"Oh god. Oh GOD." I cried, leaning forwards until I hit the steering wheel. Then I kicked my feet at the floor board. "IT'S NOT HAPPENING. IT'S NOT." I said through gritted teeth, shutting my eyes closed so hard that they started to ache. I sat up and started to attack the steering wheel.
Before I could do any damage the note from the dashboard fell to the ground after I shook the car. I leant down, squeezing my face against the wheel. My hands were shaking as I opened the paper.
I'm sorry Dan. Tell our parents it isn't their fault. I'm sorry. God I'm sorry. But I can't. I've tried, you know I've tried and I just can't try anymore. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I love you.
Canyon.
Even in my blurred state, I knew that Canyon wasn't a name. By the tone in the note, the tear stained, smudged ink, it wasn't a happy note. His voice was back in my ears. "MY SISTER MY SISTER." He was screaming when I hit him.
I put the note on the passenger seat and grabbed my head again. I killed a boy. I killed him.
I knew what I had to do. A life for a life. I jammed the car on and slammed the gear stick into first, speeding from the side of the road too fast to be safe. Anything in this car was too fast to be safe, with the trees merging into the tarmac and people turning into targets.
The canyon, for all I knew, was five minutes away. A life for a life.
I hit the brakes too hard and locked up as I stopped, sending the car closer to the edge than I'd liked. I got out immediately, with the note in my hands and looking around frantically. I couldn't see anything, it was midnight and the only light source was the silver from the moon.
I looked down, hoping not to see a body.
"Who are you?" It was high pitched and strained, incredible tearful, but it was a relief. I turned to my right to see a girl in ripped black jeans and an over-sized grey t-shirt. It was way too cold for a t-shirt.
"Hi- hi, I'm Brady, you're..." I held my hands up in surrender to look less intimidating.
"Me?" She asked, still practically breaking. She was so close to the edge, her feet were inches over already. Her hair was being whipped around about her head so that it was impossible to get a look at her face. "I don't know who I am." She laughed hysterically, but it was a sad laugh, a laugh that was so painful it hurt in my own head.
"Please don't." I was begging. Not for her, for me. If I could kill tonight, I could save also. A life for a life. My slate needed to be clean.
"What's the point?" I'd never seen someone so upset, not even my mother when she found the bag in my room, and she was extremely hysterical. But this... this was a terrifying sadness.
I stepped forwards abruptly, which probably wasn't the best idea, but she didn't fall. She just looked at me with widened eyes. She was at arm's length now.
"Who are you?" She asked again, obviously this time not wanting my name. She was shaking, her t-shirt flying around in the wind. I was shaking too, but not for temperature, for fear. I could see two people die in one night. Two children from the same mother. Two names from the same house.
"Brady, I-" I didn't know what to say. Any of my words could tip her over. "Please don't do this."
"Why do you care?" She looked down again, away from me. No, I thought, No! Don't look that way! "You don't even know me. No one in this god damned town knows me."
"Your family!" I blurted out, my voice still sounding slurred, but better than her high pitched cry. I kept thinking about her brother. Her dead brother on the tarmac. Her parents who slept thinking both their children were safe. They weren't. One was dead and the other was standing on the edge of a cliff.
She laughed, a quick resentful laugh. "I'm the worst part of the family. They told me that, you know. To my face. Who tells their child that?"
I was stepping closer to her now, because everything I was saying was urging her towards the water. "I don't know- I..." Don't screw this up. Don't kill her.
"You what?" She snapped, her voice lowered in pitch, but she was getting closer and closer to the edge.
"I can't let you jump." I said, shaking my head. I could feel the blood squeezing through my brains.
"I won't jump." She tilted her head, looking at me with a smirk. I didn't feel relieved, though, that smirk wasn't reassuring. "I'll fall..." She leant then, her whole body turned forwards, looking up.
"PLEASE!" I cried, grabbing her and practically throwing her back. At this point I didn't care if I hurt her, she just couldn't die. Not tonight.
We landed so she was on the floor and I was pinning her down with my arms.
She relaxed her head back and closed her eyes. Her face then scrunched up. "I'm so dead." She said, crumpled face and tears appearing on her cheeks.
"No. You're not. Listen to me." I waited for her to open her eyes. She had the greenest eyes. They were dark, not shining, but boasted a beauty I'd never seen before. Or maybe it was because I was drunk and practically laying of top of her. "You're not dead. And you're not going to die, ok? If I have to strap you down into my car then god help me I will."
I got up then, because something about holding her down felt incredibly wrong and slightly abusive. She just lay there, crying quietly.
"I'm sorry." I whispered, bending down and sitting next to her. "I don't know how hard things are but you can't do this."
She stayed quiet. Her hair was splayed around her on the floor, tangled in dust. She kept staring at the sky, blinking occasionally. Her blinks were slow, as if she was hoping that when she opened her eyes that everything might've changed. But it didn't. She was still at the canyon sat next to me, who was now feeling quite sick.
"The only person that cared is a drunk stranger. Don't you think that's pretty pathetic?" She turned to me and hugged herself. She was cold, but I only had my shirt on. And the thought of taking any jacket of mine off was extremely cheesy. Even drunk Brady wasn't that cheesy. "You still haven't told me why you're here. People don't come to the canyon for fun."
I knew the answer. I knew why I was here. But somehow saying: 'I'm here because I killed your brother and I took a note from his dead body that told me you'd be here and I had to clean my slate' didn't sound great in my head, let alone out loud.
"Come on, I'll take you home." I got up and offered her my hand. She didn't take it. She stayed exactly where she was.
"I don't want to go home." She sighed.
"You have to." I replied. If her parents didn't get at least one child back tonight, it'd all be my fault.
The wind sped up then, whipping her shirt around. "I know." She whispered. But she didn't know, not at all. Not one bit.
