𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 || baxter radic

43.

◈ 𝒃𝒂𝒙'𝒔 𝒑𝒐𝒗 ◈

Her words ring in my ears. This was the place her life could have ended—or started to end? This must be where whatever caused the accident began. I look out the passenger window, there's a steep cliff, one that has no end to it—not one that I can see. One good jerk to the right and you'd be flying off to your death.

We drive for about another minute before were surrounded in a forest of trees. No matter what direction you turn you'd end up slammed into one. That's when I see a bright blue coating the bark of a tree. Our car slows, veering off to the shoulder on the road. May is silent, emotionless, unmoving. Her eyes don't even blink. I stare at her for a minute, then two, then five. After ten and I shake her.

Her scream rattles inside the car. Tears instantly sting her cheeks, her cries wailing even louder. Instincts kick in, I act before I even think. It almost feels like I'm watching it from outside my body, someone else controlling my movements.

I slide the car into park, pull the keys from the ignition, and pull her across the center counsel and into my lap. I hold her in my arms, rocking her in an attempt to calm her. I don't know how long we sit in this position for. But it's enough to call the attention of a few cars.

They pull over to ask if everything is okay, but I assure them that everything is okay. Though I honestly don't even know if it is. May is still inconsolable. The tears haven't stopped. The sobs haven't subsided. Every second it continues I feel like a bit of my heart chips off.

My hand reaches for the door handle, and for the first time in minutes, life enters May's body. Her hand reaches for mine, her cries slowing, her sobs slipping.

"I'm here Maybelle. I'm not going anywhere." I pull her head into my chest before reaching toward the door handle again.

The car is beginning to cool. Without the heat blowing, the icy air is filling the car fast. Every breath the two of us lets out makes cool clouds in the air. Her hand tries to stop mine again, but she doesn't have any energy left to fight me off.

I push the door open a frozen dust entering the car, in one single gust of wind. I lift her out in my arms, carrying her toward the bright blue display in the distance. There was a reason she brought us here. The accident was the reason. I just wasn't sure why she needed to be here.

As we approach, a face pulls into focus. A face I still had yet to see. Max's face is pinned to the center of the bright blue board hammered into a tree with unremarkable damage done to it. A split had started at the roots and carried up to about the height of my hip. Car pieces imbedded deep in the tree's surface.

I set May down. Her feet plant firmly to the ground but her eyes don't avert from my chest. She buries herself into me as I reach out and run my fingers over the surface.

May reaches toward my hand, I let her fingers slip through mine. She guides my gloved fingers across the bark of the tree, still not looking toward the scene of it all. She must have this entire sight mapped out in her mind. She must have taken many trips here to know it without even looking.

There's a jagged bit sticking out just above the crack. It's a pale skin shade. She taps the tip of her fingers against it a few times before directing my hand over whatever the imbedded object is. "It's the legs of my Barbie doll." She mumbles.

I don't even know what to say. How does that even happen?

"I was clutching onto the Barbie when the car started swerve. I tried to brace myself with the impact. By some miracle a branch punctured through the glass shattering it. My hands slipped out the shattered window, the Barbie jammed so hard in the tree from the force that it's stuck in there now. If I hadn't been holding her, they say I would have probably shattered some amount of bones in my arms. But my hands slipping down the Barbie saved from some of the impact." She still has yet to look at the tree. Her entire story has been told into the black coat encompassing my chest.

"The branch that saved me from shattering my arms, it killed my brother." The words are to me, what they were to her brother. A dagger right to whatever vital organ it chose to pick.

"A twig coming off it scraped past my eye, giving me the scar." She finally looks up at me, the normally skin color scar is a bright red. "It nicked some artery in his neck. If I had freed myself and applied pressure to his neck, there's a good chance he'd be here today."

"Baby, it is not your fault." I cup her cheeks, run my thumb along the scar below her eye. A scar I have always loved, a scar that carries so much baggage and damage. A scar that she has to look at every day, a daily reminder of the worst day of her life.

"The slam of the car against the tree had knocked him out so he couldn't save himself. I just screamed. All I could see was red. Just blood pooling down my face. The inside of the car painted in my blood—in his." Tears are filling her eyes again as she speaks.

I wish I could take her pain away. I wish I could erase all the bad from her life. I want to be the burden of her pain. I don't want her to suffer any longer. I don't want her to feel like this is all her fault, because it wasn't. She didn't need to be the angry, evil girl she felt she was.

We were both just two broken souls, eating ourselves alive with guilt. We had the burden of the world on our shoulders. We weren't evil because we were born this way. We were evil because we were conditioned to be this way.

"Want to know what we were doing before the accident?" She barely chokes out the question. I simply just nod my head, having trouble finding any words to say. "Max and I were holding hands, scream singing my dad happy birthday. We were heading out to the lake for his big day."

She chokes back the lump in her throat. "The last thing I remember before everything went black was Max coming to. His voice calling out to me. His palm pressing against mine as he pulled my hand toward him. The last thing I heard was, I am scared."

The nature's trees wave in the wind, the cracking of the wood jolts May's body. She's gone quiet but I know there is more to come. So I just hold her, shivering, waiting for whatever blow is coming next.

"I never heard his voice again. His blood was caked under my nails for weeks. I couldn't fathom losing the last bit of my brother I had left. That was until I was forcefully shoved into a bath, hands held under the water until the blood dissipated away." She pulls her hand from mine, grabbing at her wrist almost like she's feeling the same sensation now.

"Maybelle..." My voice trails, wandering off deeper into the woods. She doesn't even react to the sound of my voice. She's a shell of who she was as we stand here.

"You know I can still smell the burning rubber from the tires and the belts. I can smell the gasoline pouring out of the car. I can smell the freshly bloomed flowers my mom unearthed. It's still so vivid." May buries her head back into me. I drop my head on top of hers and just rock us slowly back and forth.

The pain I'm feeling from the cold will never compare to the pain she's felt in this very same place. I would never admit to the hurt I'm feeling when she's lost so much here. Instead I will suck it all up, I will hold her, and I will wait until she's ready to walk away.

"Can we go back to the car?" She mumbles, her voice flat.

I don't hesitate. I pick her small body up and carry her back to the car. I sit in the driver's seat. I start the car and I let her curl herself into my lap with nothing but the whistling of the wind, or the rogue passing car to make a sound.