Looking For Alaska - Alaska POV

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Alaska’s POV

Dreams are like fantasies. It felt so surreal that before I realised it was a dream, I got reality and fantasy mixed yet again. I was replaying the best day of my life over again. I felt like there was nothing else in the world but the two of us just admiring our favourite animals. I liked the bears and Mom liked the monkeys.  That was it, nothing more nothing less. But as per usual, something had to bring me back to the present.

A simple telephone ringing down the hall; it was Jake. I got up, almost tripping on the bottles of Strawberry Hill wine we drank hours before. I made it to the phone in time, and there was his voice.

“What took you so long Alaska? You usually pick up on the second or third ring.”

I couldn’t even understand him properly because of the slur his words. He’d obviously been drinking too. But the thing with Jake is that he can get a bit…out of hand. He tends to exaggerate, over dramatize and accuse me of things that aren’t that big of a deal.

“I was just sleeping that’s all.” I say with a yawn.

“Sleeping? How could you sleep when you know that we talk on the phone at this exact time every week?” Before I could even get another word in he’s off again.  

“What’s going on? Who were you with? Was it that Pudge guy? I told you Alaska, stay away from him, your mine. Got it?”

My mind starts to drift off as he’s talking, like I care what he thinks of me. He may be my boyfriend but he has no right to be talking to me like that and controlling me in any way. I start to doodle away on the spare pages of the phone book, when I see something that catches my eye. Someone who was previously using the phone has drawn what looks to be a flower. A tulip to be specific and immediately I freeze.

****

It was the beginning of spring and I was seven years old, Mom was out in the back garden pruning some flowers. I ran out to her and both of our faces lit up so bright, with the biggest, toothiest grins we'd ever had.

With me on her hip, she started to tell me about her favourite flower.

“Tulips are my favourite. There are very few types of tulips that have more than one bud on them, but most have just the one. They’re just so beautiful, and they can come in any colour you can think of.”

“Yellow?”

“Of course.”

“What about…Purple?”

“Yup, definitely.”

She continued telling me about all the types of flowers we had in our garden, but still no matter how many times I asked her she would always stay by a tulip.

And as soon as I saw that tulip sitting there, aimlessly drawn by someone else but meaning so much more to me than anyone could imagine, I knew I had forgotten.

I let the phone drop, barely hanging there from the telephone cord and ran back to the room. In a hurry I whipped the door open, hitting the wall hard and half screaming, half sobbing I said,

"I've get out of here, like right now. This very second, I have to go.."

The Colonel and Pudge start trying to talk to me, asking me what's wrong but I cant talk right now, I have to leave.

“Just get rid of the Eagle for me. God oh God, I’m so sorry.”

How could I do this to her? After all these years of routine and repetition, I missed it. The one day in the year that was the most important to me, something with actual meaning in my life has now passed. I had to go now; I had to make it up to her. I have to do this for her, to put my mind at ease.  I get everything that I need, run out to my lemon of a car, haul everything into the back seat and jump in the front.

“Okay. Start when you hear the second string.”

The Colonel told me my cue and off they went. I didn’t tell them what I was doing; they wouldn’t understand, they’ll try and stop me. I couldn’t let that happen, I have to get there now.

BANG. I didn’t even say goodbye to Pudge or Colonel or anyone. I was coming back, that I was certain. I don’t know what I’m going to say to Pudge when I get back. But there’s no time for that. I only have one thing on my mind and nothing is going to stop me from finishing it.

BANG. Second string, check. Start the car, do not turn on lights and drive slowly. If it weren’t for the string of fireworks being let off, the sound of the gravel crunching underneath the tyres would ricochet all around campus.

I hit the I-65 with the speed slowly increasing every meter I drove. My mind distracting me from the task at hand, not only from the amount of alcohol I drank, but from the endless blame game being played in my head – it was Me vs. The Labyrinth. I tried to refocus on the road every couple seconds, but my brain would just run away from me and take me back to that fateful day, the day I wish I could forget. Her pulse slowing, her body temperature dropping and me doing nothing to help her. She was my mother for Christ’s sake! How could I just let her die in my arms and not do a goddam thing about it?

"Damn it! How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?" Mr.Bolivar I think I've finally discovered a way out.

Against the black background of the night, you could see the flashing red and blue lights of the police car miles away. At the speed I was going and the distance between myself and the two cars, I had plenty of time to either slow down or just swerve out of the way. But neither option I considered. There was only one way out of this stupid, never-ending labyrinth of suffering. I don't want to suffer anymore, I don't want to disappoint her any more than i already have. 

"Straight and fast Alaska, straight and fast."

As the cars get closer and closer, a sense of guilt has been lifted off my shoulders and now I can stop blaming myself for my mothers death. I can finally tell her im sorry, and that I miss her.

Pressing on the pedal harder than its ever gone, my last words finally leave my mouth. And I can definitely say Pudge would not be impressed.

"Oh shit."