Imperfect | est. 2015

46. Empty Space

          When you hear about the death of somebody you're close to, the majority of the casualties—ends in mentally falling apart for a while. When you hear about the death of somebody you don't know at all, there's only sympathy for those who are lost in the mourning of it all. But when it comes to the death of somebody that you only partially knew—after the facts that were only harsh enough to be mentioned when one was given the courage, there was no written or planned reaction. It was simply based off the person, themselves.

So, I did nothing but spare myself the energy of talking. I stared out the window of my living room—sitting, uncomfortably in that little wooden chair in the corner of the room. I figured, that if my grandmother could off her brain into just sitting and staring out the window—I could do the same, but it did nothing to settle the emotion. I was completely in shock from what I'd seen. Police wanted to question both me and Connor, but none of them took a moment to realize how traumatically early it was for me to even process what I'd seen that day before.

The TV screen was fuzzy—but buzzing through every news channel that could've possible included the story behind Tyler's action that day before. It was everywhere. Everybody knew about it—but it was a small town. Not much could be kept a secret.

And I felt like I would never rebuild the energy to pry my eyes away from what was outside. There was nothing interesting to look at, other than the dead, summer grass.

Connor sat on the velvety sofa, across the room—while I never peeled my eyes away from where they were. I could tell, by the way he was moving so restlessly, that he handled things differently than I did. Connor Anthony had never experienced anything as horrific as that very day that Tyler had done what he'd done. He'd never suffered from an actual big loss other than the ones that I'd dragged him through to struggle through with me. He only had sympathy for how I was reacting.

I was lost, I guess.

"Skylar," he tried to get my attention, clearing his throat and adjusting his seating position, only slightly.

I said nothing.

"Skylar,"

For the amount of time we'd been sitting in that living room, I still couldn't bear the idea of the image that was replaying over and over in my head.

I felt like I was going crazy, at the thought of it.

He was holding on, weak-handed and empty-minded just before we could've saved him... then he let go.

He fell.

That was the end of everything he knew and thought of.

The last time he knew what it felt like to have somebody fight for his life.

I didn't even know him as well as I knew others. I didn't even spare myself the time in my own life to stop and think about what his life must've been like. I never questioned, maybe he's hurting. After a mistake like that, I can't imagine that he isn't going insane—not at all. Not even with one punishment, he had to deal with all the coping on his own. How could he be holding on for so long?

The truth was, he wasn't.

When my family died, they left all the gory and non-gory details for me to handle. My grandparents, too—but mostly me.

I was asked several times if I was willing to press charges, but my opinion struck to the blame I gave to myself... I didn't want to blame the "mystery boy" who drove the truck into my family then drove off as if he could run away... he did run away... and he was free the way he wanted to be.