Oblivion

20

The second he looked at that photo, Kyle felt his world come crashing down around him. How he kept his composure, he had no idea. There was no way he could alert Dan to what was going on. He helped him off the ground and put his arm around his waist as they walked back to the car.

His heart was pounding in his chest the whole journey home. He was finding it very hard to catch his breath. Though he felt horrible for thinking it, Kyle was glad Dan was too upset to notice how unnerved he was.

Dan went straight to his room when they got home and didn't come back out for dinner, for which Kyle was very grateful about.

'If you want to talk, you know where I am, ok?' Kyle had checked up on him, worried that the days events had pushed him a little too far.

'I'll be fine. I just need to think for a while. I'll see you in the morning.'

He couldn't tell Eve. He couldn't put her through any more stress. Juggling the kids, her job, the house, Kyle and Dan, was hard enough without Kyle laying another burden on her. He tried to forget what he'd seen. He'd put the picture away in his drawer. But it didn't stay there long. As the night wore on, he tossed and turned, trying desperately to shake it off. But as the hours of the night ticked away and the idea of sleep became more of a desperate plea. He got up out of bed, pulled the photo out and crept down the stairs.

It was her. There was no doubt about it.

He opened up his laptop and began typing all the information Dan had told him about Sam, the rough date of her death, feeling utterly sick to his stomach as more and more of the story seemed to click into place.

There were a few articles from local newspapers about her death. About how the driver had been unharmed and the police deemed it to have been nothing more than a tragic accident. The date was indeed days before Dan had gone missing. And Kyle knew that, because it was the same day he'd been driving down the very same road when a young blond woman had run out in front of his car. He clicked the picture next to the article. Her face enlarged on his screen.

He knew that face. Because it had haunted him for almost five years.

It had been him. Kyle was the one driving the car that Sam had run out in front of. His heart pounded. He felt like it had been crushed into a million pieces.

'No, no, no, no.' He sobbed. All of this was his fault. He was the reason for everything bad that had happened. As if it wasn't enough that he had lived with the death of a poor young woman, that he had been to counselling for, that he could still see in front of him when he went to sleep every night, but that poor young woman had been the catalyst for Dan's final spiral down into the gutter.

Dan couldn't find out. He couldn't know it was his fault. It would end him.