Chasing Cars

Chapter Twenty Four

The sarcasm in my best friend's words brought on my first reaction to the name. Denial. How could she just list his name off like it was nothing? How could she add the "I think you knew him?" That was horribly cruel. So it was denial that came first. If Krystine was being so casual about it, surely it wasn't him and she was trying to scare me. Terrible, but a possibility nonetheless.

"Hilarious," was all I had said to Krystine before hanging up on her and staring at my phone screen. In that moment, I had forgotten how to breathe. Her words rang in my ears, his name drowning everything else out and buzzing like a swarm of bees in my head. It held me in a trance. The TV volume suddenly sounded like it had been turned up to full volume and the walls began to feel like they were closing in on me.

As my claustrophobia started sending chills down my back, I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and tried to concentrate on something, anything else. The blue-green spots that appeared when my eyes were closed were the perfect distraction. I watched them move back and forth until they too began to drive me insane. "It's not real," a voice that was completely unrecognizable but must have been mine spoke. "It's not real."

Taking a deep breath, I hesitantly opened my eyes after a period of silence. I expected to see the TV still on commercial and Krystine's picture on my phone as she waited for me to pick up her call. But I didn't see that. Instead, what I saw was reality. And reality already had me answer Krystine's call, and the TV was back on the news channel.

So denial became anger. Anger at Krystine, anger at my mother, anger at Charleston and her need to destroy my life. Anger at Andrew. It replaced the denial and started it's fury with a bang. Without even realizing what I was doing, I threw my phone as hard as I could at the wall and watched it shatter as it fell to the carpet. My mind was cloudy and my breathing ragged. If I were looking at myself from afar I'm sure I'd have looked like an animal. Of course, no one could blame me.

I didn't care that I probably destroyed my phone this time. Phones are simple objects that can be replaced on a whim, just like that. But not people. People were a one time thing, and once they're gone, there is no reset. It's not just game over. It's real and it's unfixable. And that damage had been done. Of course, Andrew and I weren't some married couple that had been together for seventy years, we were friends. And in my personal opinion, friendships have the ability to be closer than relationships. This is coming from someone who doesn't have a lot of relationship experience, but still.

Our friendship was different than even mine and Krystine's. With him, I always knew our friendship would become more than just an "I'll-say-hey-to-you-in-the-halls-but-nothing-else" kind of thing. He was too optimistic, he brought things to life. My stories of Charleston's office, to Krystine they were entertaining horror stories, but when I told them to Andrew they were real. They were memories, horrible, horrible memories but they became something. Something that happened for a reason. That was just how Andrew made things. One would say it was strange, and it was. But it was amazing.

He would have done something with himself. Eventually. But I ruined it by dragging him into my mess and endangering him. All I could think about was that if Krystine was telling me the truth, that Andrew was truly one of the bodies found in the school fire, then it was my fault. Andrew had no affiliation with the office until I came into his life.

My phone buzzed from its place on the floor. Whatever it was, I didn't care enough to check on. I was lost in thought and had no reason to look at the device. Everything had seemed to turn upside down, and I didn't know what to do or how to start moving on. I don't hold onto emotion for long, unless it's bitterness or some form of happiness. The sadness and the tears though, I tend to avoid.

My phone buzzed again, and it was irritation that led me to check it. My original plan was to just turn all the sound off, but I ended up reading the text that lit the shattered screen.

Krystine: He died under a fallen piece of the ceiling. That Nate kid- he tried to save him, the text read. Id reading it was supposed to make me feel better about what happened, it didn't. I actually felt worse. Another kid died trying to protect him, and all for nothing. They were both gone.

Throwing the phone (lighter than before) onto the couch, I buried my face in my hands and tried to make sense of everything. I brushed my hair out of my face and inhaled deeply. It made no sense to me, how Andrew died for no reason when it could have been me. There were plenty of reasons why it should have been me, but Andrew had none. It was unfair.

"He's not dead," I whispered again. My emotions were confusing me. One moment I was horrible and the next I was calm, and I didn't know which feeling to trust. "He's not dead," I said again, louder this time. I laughed, a dark sound. Being taken over by some other version of myself again, I laughed harder. "What a sick joke!" I exclaimed, rolling around the living room and harshly throwing pillows around the room.

Looking back now, that episode reminds me of a day years ago, when I was seventh grade and everyone in my grade knew about my enormous crush on Zach Slater, a guy who made himself popular by bullying younger girls during passing time. Of course, because I was the lonelier person of the grade, everyone turned on me and convinced me that Zach liked me too. Innocent little Karev confessed her feelings to the guy, only to be laughed at and made to feel like a complete loser in front of everyone that could have potentially been my friend. I had reacted the same way as I was doing with Andrew's death. I couldn't deal with the horrible feelings.

Because even Krystine was in on that little prank, it took months for me to get over that scenario, and I vowed to never allow something like that to happen to me again. I calmed myself down and stopped throwing pillows, right before I would have hit the cat with one. I switched the TV off and brought my pizza roll plate into the kitchen to wash it off. Humming a song the whole time, I cleaned the entire floor of the house and even washed the appliances. That was unexpected.

When I had finished, I admired my work and cracked my knuckles, grinning. Pushing all the bad thoughts out of my head, I laughed again and said, "Andrew isn't dead."