The empty space where she usually slept was haunting, our apartment was strangely quiet, her boy friend sat across from me on the love seat.
We stared at each other for a long time before he spoke. "It's okay, Alice, I forgive you," He told me.
I put my hand on my shoulder, over the tattoo... Our tattoo. The one we designed at the ages of six and eight. My throat threatened to collapse on me as tears rose into my eyes.
******
I take the keys from a pair of tan hands, which move sloppily, or maybe it's just my vision. "I've got this!" I slur and climb into the cab of the truck.
Carrie climbs in beside me, her blonde hair a wreck, her usually perfect makeup smeared and smudged. She's laughing.
I press my shoulder to hers, a kind of a secret handshake, and she smiles at me.
I take off, laughing and swerving. I'm speeding around corners.
No...
Carrie's laughing and squealing. She's telling me to go faster, her eyes are closed and she has the window down. The next street is coming up.
God, please stop.
I try to stop when I see head lights, but a car rams the passenger side. She's screaming, crying, and worst of all, bleeding.
"Carrie!" I scream, she looks at me with wide eyes.
"Alice..." She shakes her head, suddenly everything is clear.
******
I looked up at Peter, tears welling in my eyes. "I know you don't, I don't even forgive me." I whispered, pulling my knees to my chest. "I'll never forget... I'll never forgive myself."
"You're too hard on yourself," He told me and stood, putting his hand on my shoulder before he left. "You went to Jail, your family put you through hell, you don't need to beat yourself up too." He kept insisting and I put my hand on his. "I'll be back tomorrow, Alice." His hand left mine and his foot steps echoed in the apartment long after he left.
Was this his promise to Carrie before he died? I head him talk about it in his sleep the night he stayed here, 'I promise Carrie, I promise,' over and over.
I pressed my palm into my forehead, sighing in distress. I missed her terribly, the yin to my yang, my sister, my best friend. I let out an agonized scream, the tears left my eyes freely and I couldn't believe she was gone. Everyone I loved left after what happened, besides Peter of course, left.
I put on her song, the song Beneath Your Beautiful by the Labrinth, and sang along awhile, imagining the night she and Peter fell in love. Consequently it's kinda cheesy.
Carrie had been stood up, again, for prom. The boy who was supposed to take her came with his flavor of the week and she stood there in her knee high yellow dress, yellow like the sunshine, and listened to the song that was playing.
Peter was with a demanding girl who demanded he swing her around and get her things. He got fed up and then he saw her; Carrie.
"The whole room stopped." Peter always said when he told the story. "She looked up at me and I just knew."
He swallowed his fear and in ten insane seconds of bravery he strolled across the room and offered his hand. "Care to dance?" Carrie smiled up at him, and he pulled her onto the floor as the song Beneath Your Beautiful came on.
The girl threw a tantrum and was removed from the prom.
Carrie, who was a little heavier at the time, swung gracefully on the dance floor.
Peter, who felt like a million bucks, spun her around and around; neither of them were very special alone, but together they were perfect, spectacular.
They talked like they've known each other all there lives, and she sung along to every song she knew.
Before the accident they had a daughter, Paige, she looks just like her mother. God it hurts to look at her. I love her so much though, she's beautiful and strong, and pleases everybody, or tries to, like her mother.
I wonder if she remembers me, I wonder if she knows. I curl up on the couch and stare at Carrie's room down the hallway. Maybe I should go in there, I wonder if it still smells like her, I thought, I wonder if Mom moved anything while I was gone.
I got up and moved like a zombie, shuffling into her room. It was just as she had left it, stacks of papers everywhere from college, I felt like she should swivel the chair around (it was big enough to hide her) and yell 'Gotcha!' any moment.
The moment never came, so I turned the chair, there in her chair, was her sketch pad and a diary. I bit down on my lip, taking the sketch pad and then the diary. Childish things for a childish woman.
I open the sketch pad, and there is a realistic picture of Paige when she was a baby, and I realize these weren't here before the accident... Peter must have put them here.
I look at the dust covered shelves, the closed curtains, the rainbow bed sheets and pictures of everyone of us. I take a picture of my mother, Paige, and myself and run my thumb over the dust covered glass.
I then look at her prom picture, on the highest shelf.
------
"Are you proud of yourself?" Mother snaps and I flinch, looking up at her slowly.
"Mom, it's not like I meant for this to happen," sitting across from her at a jail visiting table. "I mean, you know I loved her, Peter and Paige, why would I destroy that?"
She's crying. "You killed her! Your recklessness killed her!"
"Mom... Mom I never..." I'm crying, the tears are hot and wet on my cheeks.
