Clumsy [completed]

Epilogue

        Mallory sits at the window, still thinking about Adam. Anything from that time seems like a black-hole for her memory, one that she finds herself in every time she thinks she's close to the solution. Something snaps her out of her endless thoughts, a voice, calling her downstairs. Thankful for the break, she rises from the cushion, still imprinted from where she sat, and walks across the carpeted floor of her bedroom, opens and closes the door behind her, than gracefully walks down the stairs. She thinks that's all she does, nowadays. She's like a zombie that just walks aimlessly around. She hates that.

        Immediately, she spots a battered cardboard box sitting on the kitchen counter. Reluctant to open the box, Mallory stalks closer, taking precautions just in case something happens to quickly, so that she can quickly back up in defense. Her dad comes out from the other room, and places a hand on the other side of the kitchen counter. "I found this for you, Mallory," He says, gesturing towards the box.

        At first, she doesn't know what actions to take. She could just waltz over to the box and just look inside, but what if it's something that she doesn't want to see? Of course, since her thought basically revolve around Adam and his suicide, she finds herself thinking that's what this whole charade is about: Adam. But what she doesn't realize that inside of the humongous box is a photo album and a few trinkets, which she knows nothing about.

        She holds the album in her hands and fiddles with the two objects: a soft, silver ring and a bag of gummy bears, which she assumed to be old and hard. Her dad slips his car keys into his hands and gestures towards the garage. "Let's go for a ride," He says.

        And Mallory follows him out to the family's old Jeep. It has a few cracks from when Mallory tried driving, all of which have been failures, which has shed some light on public transportation for her. She thinks that it's weird that she is going out in a car. She thinks back to when the last time she was in an actual car, not a public bus, but comes up short.

        "Where are we going?" She questions, staring out the window at all of the moving trees and scenery that passes by in a flash.

        She clutches the bottom of the passenger seat and begins to shake. "Is this familiar?" Her dad questions.

        "I'm not sure," She says honestly.

        The highway grows longer and longer with each second. With each mile, she finds it harder to breathe. "Dad, why are we in the car? Where are we going?" She questions.

        He looks away from the steering wheel and to Mallory, to see her hands desperately clutching the seat and that her breaths are short. "Are you okay?" He questions.

        "I'm not sure."

        She thinks that this is weird. First of all, her dad hates driving. Her family's Jeep sits in the driveway either waiting for someone stupid enough to come along and steal it, or for the next century to roll around. Second of all, she hasn't had much social reaction in weeks. Not since therapy, she thinks, trying to trace back to when the last normal moment of hers was, which must've have been before Adam came along. He was a part of her, something she sees now.

        "Do you remember any of it?" Her dad takes a deep breath and starts to pull the car over into the shoulder. "Of the crash, I mean."

        There's a soft murmur of a Green Day song on the radio. She automatically pinpoints it to be "Wake Me Up When September Ends", one of her favorites, just by the guitar intro in the beginning. She listens closely to the variety of frets and carried notes, which make her heart sink.