Is This Seat Taken?

Chapter 7

July 4th, 2012. 11:48 PM; Matthew J. Hart was pronounce dead at my city's local emergency room.

Cause of death? Driving under the influence.

The story goes that Matthew had been at a typical high school Fourth of July party. Typical meaning that there was alcohol, and a lot of it apparently. The party had gotten busted by the police from calls from a neighbor complaining about the various disturbances coming from the kids attending the party. Matthew, along with many others, had apparently escaped the party before the cops caught him.

I got a call that night around 11:00, which I answered seeing that it was Matthew. I could hear that he was drunk, and that made me furious. Matt always promised me he would never be stupid enough to drink or do anything like that. We both knew how stupid decisions like that were. Or at least I was under the impression that he knew. I guess he didn't. That night I yelled at him over the phone and when he asked me to pick him and his buddies up from the local gas station instead of apologizing to me, I hung up.

If I had gone to pick him up that night, Matt would still be here today. A lot of people know about the phone call, but no one blames me. So it really hurts when someone does put the blame on me because I know that they're right.

I unintentionally second handedly killed my boyfriend. And I live everyday knowing it. Thankfully, the Hart's still keep an open line between us. The death was just as hard for me as it was for them, and they acknowledge that. Matt was their only child. In some ways, I think they latch onto my relationship with them so strongly because, I'm the little bit of Matt that is left in the world.

Matt was quite the intellectual. He always preferred dates to museums over the movies. He was mostly likely going to be out class valedictorian with his straight A record. He was president of almost all the school's academic honor societies as a sophomore. Basically he was the Austin Gray of academics.

Now I probably make him seem like a lanky nerd who didn't have enough strength to carry all his Advanced Studies books without pulling a muscle. But he was the opposite. Matt was 6'5"; he had short hair, just enough to curl at the tips. He wasn't muscular, but he was lightly toned. He rarely worked out, purely because he didn't have any time to. But somehow he made time for me.

We started dating at the beginning of sophomore year after he asked me to Homecoming. Everything was going great until summer came around. I took a lot of softball clinics that summer, which Matt never really understood why. He told me he thought I was just making up excuses not to see him, which was never my intention. Well towards the end of June, things went downhill fast. Matt became really distant. He assured me it was just family problems but I knew better than to believe that. We never got the chance to work things out. The call I got from him was the first time he had reached out to me in five days. I didn't expect it to be the last time forever.

"Come on Kylie," Austin scooped me into his arms as he made his way out the doors to one of the benches outside.