When we get to school, we go back to our normal lives, basically acting as though nothing had ever happened between us. He went back to his football team of jocks and I go back to invisibility, walking down the halls using my rather short stature to blend in to the bottom where no one looks. I head straight to first period and wait for the class to start.
Tyler walks in just seconds late, as usual, and sits down in front of me. As usual. We go on for the rest of the day acting like we don't know each other and avoiding each others occasional glances across the hall. By the time school ends, I forget that he's my ride home and I end up waiting by the front of the school. He passes me a few minutes later...and he has a girl on his arm. She follows him to his car and they drive off, leaving me behind. Guess I'm walking then.
I'm fuming as I walk out of the school parking lot and to the theater where I left my car. I walk down the street in front of the school and watch as Tyler's car fades slowly into the distance. Eventually, I get lost in my own world and start thinking about the way things used to be. Before.
I remember that day more clearly than anything else. Right up until the accident.
I remember the way we used to be, Ty and me. We were inseperable. After a year together you'd think we could have gotten through it, but my anxiety and frequent panic attacks got to be too much for me. I got rid of him so fast. We only stayed together for a month after the accident.
Before I knew it, I was in the theater parking lot, walking toward my car. The theater shut down so long ago. Now it's just an empty shell of a building, encasing a thousand broken and beautiful memories. I sit in my car and turn the key but of course, it doesn't start. The one time I actually want it to. I get out and start to push start it and it starts up shortly with a sputter.
I drive home, standing by the front door, listening to see the state my mother is in. All is quiet so I decide its safe to go in. Wrong decision.
The second I walk in, my mom stands up off the couch and starts screaming at me about how I did it. "You killed her! Its all your fault! Do you understand me? We never should have let you get her in the car! You are worthless! You killed her!" Her voice breaks and she stops right in front of me, sobbing, her voice more quiet and menacing now, "I want you to leave and I don't ever want to see you face again, do you hear me? Get out. Of my house. Now."
When she finishes she's so close to my face that I can smell the liquor on her breath. She backs up and sits back on the couch silently. She sips the beer that is in her hand and stares solmenly at the wall.
I don't notice the tears that are steadily streaming down my face until then. I wipe them away and go upstairs and I call Tyler. It rings and rings but he doesn't answer.
"Tyler, I'm so sorry that I treated you the way I did and I can't handle it anymore. Its all my fault that she's gone and everyone hates me for it. I love you. Goodbye." I say into the answering machine.
I calmly go to the bathroom and pull out the bottle of pills I've been saving for a few months. There are roughly 300 pills in the bottle; asprin, midol, ibuprofen, anything I could get my hands on. I start out with a handful and I calmly go to put them in my mouth when the door opens slowly. Tyler walks in and stops where he is, staring at the handful of pills I have.
For the first time since we met, I see him start to cry.
He walks to me, stands me up, and takes the pills from my hand. He moves me out of the bathroom, opens the lid of the toilet and throws all of them in, including the ones in the bottle, then flushes them away. He walks out without saying a word and goes into my room to my closet and pulls down my old suitcase. He sets it on my bed and starts throwing my clothes in it.
"What do you think you're doing?" I say from the doorway, though I make no attempt to stop him. To be totally truthful, I can't see much around the tears that are blurring my vision.
"You clearly can't handle staying here so you're coming with me. I don't know where we're going yet but there is no way in hell I'm leaving you here." He stops packing just long enough to come to me, kiss me on the forehead and walk back.
I let him finish and we leave my room behind. I walk past my mother on the couch one last time. She's passed out again and I thank God she doesn't see me leave. Partially because I know she would just watch me walk out.
We get in the car and speed down the mile long driveway, under the orange and red maple trees, touched by the season. I look behind us and all I can see is dust and leaves flying everywhere, our once beautiful, now untamed, big white ranch house seeming to get further and further from reality.
