Save Me

Chapter 13

Fun Fact: Most of this chapter is based off of my hometown in NJ. Obviously not the characters and their actions, but the background info. I won't really say what since I want everything to be fiction so no one sues me (lol jk) but I just like to make it clear that I do write from experience and knowledge.

Chapter 13

Two years ago the small town of Anglewood was ridden with grief when a graduating senior went through the windshield of his car. It was my sophomore year of high school and I was still adjusting to my life at home, so the news wasn't much of a concern to me since I didn't know the boy who died.

From the whispers in the school hallways, the moment of silence in homeroom the day before the last day of school and my social media timelines, I knew a few minor details that entiably didn't matter much. Everyone wanted to talk about the amount of alcohol in his blood, the fact that his seatbelt wasn't strapped across his chest or the small bag of cocaine found in his jean pocket as if all those things made the outcome okay.

Someone died and all people cared about was what he didn't do to prevent himself from dying on Field Road three nights before he walked along the stage to receive his high school diploma.

There's still flowers and photos and stuffed bears against the tree the car struck before the senior was ejected from his seat and I glance at them everyday as I drive by on my way home from school. There more times I look, the more wrong it feels that a young man, days before one of the biggest milestones in his life, was taken away from this world. He was well-liked from what I gathered and people who didn't even know him stood on the side of Field Road to leave something they felt was fit for a memorial. I'm sure he had a family, friends, maybe a girlfriend, and plans to go far away to a college with more parties than classes to begin his life.

I think about how quickly that kid became a distant memory as his class graduated without him and kids continued to move on with their lives until eventually there were people roaming the halls of high school who didn't know his name or Jersey number.

I try to predict what will happen after the initial shock of my death wears off and I become a distant memory to my graduating class, but it dawns on me that in order for me to be whispers in the hall or news articles on timelines, I have to be known in the first place.

My hands tremble in my lap as Luke drives, directly down the middle of the street and hovering over yellow lines that are painted for a reason. The revving of his engine is loud, but somehow his anger is louder and I cautiously move my left hand to the buckle of my seatbelt, checking for the third time that it's locked in place.

I've pictured myself dying at the hands of my step-brother, but never did I expect him to be so angry that he doesn't care if he dies with me. I feel disgusted that I'm going to die chaotically beside Luke and won't even receive a peaceful ending after all the hell I've been through. I could accept this death slowly approaching if Luke weren't beside me and the reason behind a premature ending.

I try not to glance at the speedometer, but it's difficult when we pass a sign that says Speed Limit 35 and Luke is pushing more than double that. Luke speeds down a backroad with more trees than houses and virtually no streetlights to aide the first responders who undoubtedly have to remove my head from the windshield of Luke's car.

It's difficult not to think about dying when Luke is pushing harder on the gas so that we get closer and closer to death, just a few more minutes until the road ends with a neon yellow sign that has two arrows pointing in opposite directions, neither of them straight. I think about how my mother will react to the news of my death and possibly Luke if he doesn't make it out of this alive either, crawling out of bed to a knock on the door early Saturday morning by two police officers, one starting off by saying I'm so sorry to have to tell you this.