Lost Together

Chapter 9 - Mistakes

The Changed

The moment she saw him, she knew it had been an accident.

He was sitting in the inquiry room with his head in his hands, shifting positions restlessly. From what she had heard, he had a hard home life. His father was constantly missing, and his mother constantly drinking. She had a feeling that they beat him too, even though he insisted his bruises were from fights at school. He was no murderer, just a kid who made a mistake.

She had made mistakes, too. When she was younger, she struggled to get through school. She hated her teachers, hated her family, hated her friends. She hated everything. Drugs made her forget her hate. Drugs threw her into a different world, and she had lost herself so desperately in that world. She had begun to forget all that she hated, but the freedom she was buying was bought with life. While trying to lose herself in this better world, she had begun to die in the real world.

"Are you ready to go in? We can give you twenty minutes." Geraldine jumped, shocked out of her memories back into the present. Back to the tormented boy sitting in the room, suffering through mistakes. He hadn't fallen as far as she had back then, but he might if he didn't get the help he needed. The help someone had given her.

"Alright, I'm ready." Geraldine whispered. The officer opened the door and let her through, and finally she saw this boy face to face. His eyes were haunted.

"Hello, Andrew. My name is Geraldine. I'm here to talk with you about what happened. To tell people the true story, and to make it known you are no monster, just the victim of a terrible accident." He looked up at her through his hands, his brown eyes wet and his face full of sweat. She didn't know how he felt, so she waited.

"Yeah? Everyone else seems ready to call me a monster, why not you? How do I know you're not going to twist my words and ruin me?" His voice was chilling, broken. She knew that type of scratchy voice, it came from crying.

"Andrew, even your friend knows it was an accident. He tolds us what happened, he said it was an accident and that you drove away because you were afraid of what would happen at home. You're not alone in that. You're not the first seventeen year old boy I've met who lives in a broken home. If you talk to me, I can help you." He sat up a little straighter as she spoke, and then leaned back in the chair, his hands running through his curly brown hair.

"If you've met people like me, then you know what will happen if I'm charged, or if I go to jail. Why should you care what happens? Won't you get in trouble if you write a nice story about a terrible kid?" This time he sounded a little less angry, and a little more doubtful and yet hopeful. She hoped she could say the right thing, knowing he was waiting for her to say something wrong so he could shut her out, like he was used to doing.

"I care because I'm not perfect. Do I seem great to you? Do I seem like I have a good life, like I've always been writing?" Andrew nodded slowly. "Well, I haven't. I might seem all well and good to you, but it wasn't so long ago that I was in the same place as you. No, a worse place than you. I nearly killed myself using drugs, because I hated my life and wanted to escape. I would have died, but someone decided to go out of their way to help me. Just a stranger, who found me puking in the streets, a bag of skin and bones and bruises. He asked me why I was doing it, and something about the way I answered made him tell me I should write. And he helped me get here, he helped me find a different world. This world isn't perfect, Andrew. It sucks. People die every day, people make mistakes. But it's worth living if you give it a chance. That's why I care. Because you haven't fallen as much as I have, and you can help yourself better than I could when I was your age." She stopped suddenly and reached out her hand, palm up, on the table. "I can help you. Will you let me?"

He stared at her, hesitant. He was registering her words, trying to decide if he could trust her. After a heart beat, he reached out his hand and placed it in hers. She grasped it and lifted it to her lips, kissing it gently. "I will help you, Andrew."

He broke down and started to tell her what happen, as she listened care full, thinking back to that man who saved her life, proud that she was saving someone else's.

This is why she was still alive.