Don't Stop Dreaming

1

My dark brown hair is greasy and falling in my eyes.  My hands wrapped around a tall necked bottle my blood shot brown eyes are starting down at my bloody knuckles. I've been silent for the passed week. I've kind of forgotten what my voice sounds like. But I still remember hers. As I'm about to raise the bottle to my lips to take the last drink of beer sitting inside the glass a voice speaks up from behind me. "She's still dead when you finish the bottle" My younger sisters lips spoke. I stood up and turned to look at her.  I finish the beer off and throw  the glass bottle. She ducked but it wouldn't have hit her anyway. The glass shattered against the kitchen wall and fell into the sink
    "God damnit Derek!" My mother yelled from the top of the stairs. I ignored her and walked into my room. I slammed the door behind me and laid on my back looking up at the ceiling. I hadn't slept in days. Because when I did visions of her came to me. Her beautiful smile and laughs. The way she'd wiggle on her skinny jeans and stretch in the morning. Her blonde hair blowing in the wind as I pushed my jeep to go faster than it should. Dreams of how she would lay on the couch with her head in my lap. I'd play with her wavy locks as she went on and on about how she was going to travel the world and be a successful actress in Hollywood and live in a penthouse. She was never in reality. I used to admire it. Now I wish I'd woken her up before it was too late. Woken her from the fantasy that nothing bad could ever happen. Not to us.
     I laid there waiting for the sun to go down.  After it was well past midnight I got up from my daydreams and pulled on my black converse. The white soles had doodles and writing in black sharpie all over them. She did that. I used to tell her she was going to buy me new ones one day. I stared at my reflection in my mirror for a second. I can hear her voice scolding me.
  'Come here let me fix your hair.'
'You wore that shirt yesterday'
I rubbed my face with one of my hands and walked to the door grabbing my keys on the way out. I unlocked my jeep and got I the front seat. I put the key in and looked over at the passages seat like she was just running behind and would be climbing in.  I started the car and pulled out onto the black top. The car lunches forward. I don't even know where I'm going. But my body does almost by muscle memory taking me somewhere. When I snap out of my haze I'm parked in her drive way. Her parents cars are in the drive way, but all the lights in the house are off. I turn off the car and hop out. My feet carry me to the back side of the house where her balcony is. I climb up just like I have a million times and slowly push the French doors open. She never locked them. As I step inside my nose if flooded with her scent. Nothing has changed. Her bed is still messy and there's a pair of jean shorts on the floor by the hamper. Her makeup is spread out on her vanity and every single picture on her walls remain. I walk over to her closet and start looking through the hangers. More than half of the clothing was mine. I grabbed the hoodie that was her favorite of mine and ripped off my hoodie and replaced it with the one that smelled like her. I threw mine onto the floor and it landed by the door. I looked over at her full length mirror and saw a picture of us from when I went on her family vacation to Hawaii last summer. It was a small Polaroid like photo stuck between the mirror and frame. She was smiling widely at the camera. A soft smile was playing on my lips but I wasn't looking at the camera I was looking at her. I walked to the mirror and slowly took the picture. I held the photo tightly in my hand and walked back out onto her balcony. I didn't bother closing the doors. I quickly climbed down and ran back to my jeep getting in and starting it. I pulled out of her drive way. Once again my body was in control my mind was not. My thoughts lingered on her. I drove with my left hand and my right was still gripping the photo. The car was getting faster. And faster. I whipped around the corner. It wasn't until the bright lights of a hauling truck were shinning in my eyes did I snap from my zombie like state.
  "Fuck" I spoke my first word since she died. My left hand swerved the jeep..the same way the truck did. My car slammed head on with the truck. I passed out on impact  but my body kept moving. I was launched from the top of the car because I had the top of my jeep off. My body hit the ditch like a pile of bricks. The truck rammed into the ditch on the other side of the road. The driver fumbled with their phone and called 911. Sirens could be heard as my breathing became shallow. Blood ran down my forehead. A few of my ribs broken. My arms scratched from glass. Blood ran down my arm into my right hand leaving drops on the picture us.