Breaking The Bad Boy (Completed)

Chapter 35: Well What Else Are Friends Are For?

[A/N: Surprise dedication to ssocerr because you've voted for every chapter since the start and I love you for that :') Songs for the chapter:
- Evanescence // Going Under
- Bring Me The Horizon // It Never Ends
- The Fray // You Found Me
- Parachute // Strange World]

I've always loved the feeling of the wind combing through my curls; freshening and calming like floating on my back in a perpetual ocean. Winding the window of my father's car downwards, I shot him a secretive smile as we cruised down the highway singing to Radio Disney at the top of our lungs.

It was nice to be with him again but I had relived this scene too many times, so I gripped the leather seats until my knuckles were milk white and awaited our fate. The details were the exact same; the car flipped and somersaulted in the air before it plummeted to the ground with enough impact to shatter my teeth.

My screams were merged with his, strangled and broken when my skull careered through the windscreen before it slammed back to the passenger seat. Blood seeped out of my nostrils, splattering my shirt as I screamed.

As always, I scrambled out of the car first before realising that my father's legs were entwined with the metallic door, gluing him to his spot. He was unable to save me and unable to save himself. Then the plot twist kicked in and his rugged, handsome face contorted with pain. He shrieked at me to return, to save him but I couldn't. If I went back to try, I would have died.

I didn't want to die.

Behind me, a shadow fell on the asphalt and I spun around, startled to meet sea-green eyes. They were hard and critical, peeling back my protective layers like an onion until I was shivering mess.

"Why would you leave him? He's your father!" Tyler accused me as I collapsed onto the ground, crying hysterically. He sidestepped my slumped body and headed towards the driver's door.

"D-Don't!" I screamed. "Tyler come back!"

My heart lurched when he stepped into the flames, unfazed by the curling orange, red and yellow hands that tugged at his shirt and nipped at his skin. Tyler didn't know how the story was going to end; but I knew about the impending explosion.

"Tyler!" I scrambled to feet and tried to grab a fistful of his shirt but he shrugged me off and worked quickly to detangle my father's legs from the strips of metal that were woven through his thighs; but the mushy pulp that his flesh had become wouldn't budge. "Tyler! It's too late! Please!"

When he stepped back, I breathed a sigh of relief and clasped his wrist, tugging him back but Tyler snatched his hand back as if I had burned him. Sea-green eyes bored into mine, unyielding and cold with disbelief.

"You deserved to die, not him. He would have saved you and you know that! So why didn't you do the same for him?"

The ice from his cold tone was enough to prick my heart and wedge it apart. When he strode away from me it split into half, bleeding and choking me with blinding agony.

He strode towards the wreckage just as a shuddering explosion tore through the ground, cracking the asphalt to reveal a sea of lava below. It was like a deafening earthquake was shaking through the world. The car hurtled into the gaping crack, taking my father with it as it sunk slowly into the sea of lava, emitting a steam that forced my eyes to sting.

Tyler stumbled and hurtled into the crack, managing to catch himself by clinging onto a rock as his legs dangled inches from the glowing lava.

"Ashley!" He screamed, slowly losing his grip as I crawled towards the crack and held a hand out.

The distance between our fingertips amounted to the width of a paper and they brushed momentarily before I blinked, forcing tears back into my eyes. When my eyelids flung open again Tyler was hurtling downwards, screaming my name although it was too late.