A Summer Romance

Chapter One - Skylar

Chapter One - Skylar

“Dad…remembering you is easy, I do it every day. Missing you is the heartache that never goes away.”

-facebook.com/InspireMeBabe

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Skylar

The fire was spreading quickly, getting closer and closer to the gas tank. You could smell it from 20 feet away, the smell of smoke, gas leaking from the tank, the sweat from Luke’s shirt. You could hear the sirens from miles away, the fear in my voice, the hatred, the want to help him. They weren’t going to make it in time to save him. 

The black smoke from the fire drove down my trachea and finished in my lungs, making me cough and weez, “Help him!” I screamed at Luke, “Dammit, why won’t you help him?” I stared out at the black Skyline and looked at his old, funny face. He should’ve listened to them. He shouldn’t have raced tonight. I should have tried to convince him better. I shouldn’t have let him get in the car. God, it was all my fault! He was going to die because of me!

And then he started to mouth something, ‘Don’t’ something. I couldn’t figure out the rest. I was too busy fighting for his life.

I tried to run to him, to try and pull him out of the wreck, to hold his hand and make him feel better, to do something, but Luke still had a firm grip on my upper arms, “Skylar, they’re doing everything they ca-” it wasn’t enough.

Suddenly, we all flew backwards into the group of people that were surrounding us. Followed by a loud Boom.

My ears started to ring as I slowly sat up and looked at the car, or what was left of it anyway. I opened my mouth to scream, but not a peep came out. I was too concentrated on his body. 

It had thrown ten feet from the trashed Skyline, and was covered in burns. His cloths had immediately burned off, leaving burning flesh. I wanted to look away; I didn’t want to see him like that. I didn’t want my last memory of him to be of a burned body. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. Instead, I ran to his body and grabbed one of his big hands in my two small ones, “Dad.” I whispered, tears running down my face like the rain, “Dad, please. Please. Please…” I begged, like magically he would open his eyes and crack another joke like he always would do. That he would say that all of this was a joke, and he was just wearing a costume. An early April Fool’s Day joke. But that was impossible.

I stared down at him. There was nothing left on his face but hot, burning flesh. I couldn’t speak anymore. My throat clogged with more tears as I looked down at my father. He would never be able to see me grow up, to witness the Seahawks win a Super Bowl, he wouldn’t be able to walk me down the aisle. He wouldn’t get the chance to grow old and gray with his wife. He wouldn’t be able to experience any more of what life had to offer.

He was dead.

So I did what any child would do.

I screamed.

I shot up in my bed panting, one hand on my racing heart and the other on my forehead. Sweat covered my body from head to toe under the covers, yet I was shivering from the coldness in my dream. I closed my eyes in an attempt to get rid of the picture of his burning face, the final look he gave me before the explosion. But it just wouldn’t go away.

It would never go away.

I fell back onto my pillows and let out a deep breath. The same dream. It has been the same dream, at the same time, for the past ten years, yet every time it felt like the first time that I had experienced it. The terror, the heartache, the pain. Everything felt so…real.