The Worst Year Ever

Brake

Month 2

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

Brake

I got into the driver's side of my car and slammed the door shut. I was so angry and hurt that I fumbled with my keys and it took me a minute to get them into the ignition to start the car. Ashley was sitting in the passenger seat giving me worried looks. I turned on the windshield whipers so that I could see through this pouring rain and reversed out of the driveway.

I immediately started speeding down main street, on my way to save my relationship.

"Skylar? Are you okay?" Ashley hesitantly asks, worry evident in her voice.

"I;m fine," I answered through gritted teeth. "I'm just perfect."

Ashley kept looking out the winshield and then back at me, still with that annoying worred look. She glanced at my speedometer which read 50 miles per hour... 20 over the limit.

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. "Whoa! Skylar, slow down!"

I sped up in response. The speedometer reaching up to 60 and the engine roaring louder and louder as I went faster.

"Skylar," Ashley said warningly, looking worriedly out at the rain again. Again, I didn't respond. The traffic light I was approaching suddenly turned yellow, but I didn't slow down in the slightest. I knew I wasn't going to make it but I didn't slow down anyways. I was too angry at David and our stupid fight and I was angry at Helen for telling me to "never come back," and I was angry at myself for allowing my life to spin out of control like it is. I'm losing my boyfriend, and my sister and it's only a matter of time before I lose my best friend and the rest of my family.

"Skylar!" Ashley screams as the light turns red and I'm still speeding. Hearing my best friend scream like that must have awoken something in me and I realized that I was being stupid and irrational and I slammed on the breaks, stopping just before the light, slightly into the road but not enough so that any cars would hit us. 

"Skylar, I thihk you need to calm down. Maybe i should drive," Ashley suggests, worriedly.

I take a few deep steady breaths to calm myself down. "No, it's okay. I'm fine, Ashley. I'm sorry."

Ashley lets out a huge breath that she seemed to be holding in. "You just--you scared me there, Skylar."

"I know, I"m sorry, Ashley," I apologized again.

"Are you okay to drive?"

"Yeah I'm fine," I tell her. "I was just a little angry at David and at my stupid fight with Helen and at myself and I might have gotten a little carried away, but I'm okay now."

"Good," Ashley breathed. "I was so scared, you could have gotten us both killed driving like that."

I laughed a stoney laugh because I still had my anger coursing through my veins. "Oh come on, Ashley, I don't think that could have happened. I know how to drive."

Ashley looked like she was about to respond and then she looked out the windshield again and said, "Oh, look, the light's green."

I look forward again and take my foot off the brake and put it on the gas. I was only halfway through the light when so many things happened at once. Ashley looked at me like she was going to talk to me again and then her eyes went wide and she was looking past me. "SKYLAR WATCH OUT!: she screeched. I looked to my left and I saw a pair of bright headlights coming directly at me. They were coming after us faster and faster and closer and closer, until... nothing.

I woke up in a dead sweat in the morning. I whiped my forehead with the back of my hand and leaned up so fast in the couch I was sleeping on that the room spun in front of me for a moment. I can't believe that crazy dream I just had. Except that it didn't feel like a dream, it felt like it was more than that. It felt almost like a vision. 

I walked into the other room where Ashley and Elena were still sleeping and started pacing really fast. I never wanted to see that. It's true that I've imagined it a thousand times but I never wanted to actually see it. I was thinking about that dream so hard that I didn't even pay attention where I was pacing and I hit my knee right into the coffee table that was sitting in the middle of the living room. I swore out loud which must have been what woken up Ashley and Elena because they started stirring and their eyelids started fluttering open.

"Helen, are you okay?" Elena asks, groggily.

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine," I said, speaking a mile a minute.

Ashley doesn't do anything but stare up at me. She's giving me a knowing look as if she knows what I just dreamed about.

"I just had a really crazy dream, that's all," I said still speaking really fast.

"Oh," said Elena, sitting up on the couch. "Did you want to talk about it?"

"No," I responded quickly. I spotted my car keys on the counter. "I'm just going to take a drive to clear my head." I crossed the room and snatched up my keys.

Elena stood up, facing me. "Are you sure? Are you coming back?"

"Um, I don't know, I just gotta go." And then I walked right out the house and hopped in my car. I started it up and pulled out of the driveway.

I started daydreaming, getting lost in my thoughts as I was driving. I don't think it was just a coincidence that I dreamed that. Maybe Skylar is trying to communicate with me from wherever she is. Or maybe I'm just crazy. It could go either way right now. 

For some reason, as I'm drving and thinking, I get consumed with so much anger that it feels like I'm about to explode. It's very similar to the anger that I felt Skylar feel in my dream. I could feel it vibrating within every inch of my body, filling my brain with poison. I can feel it throbbing in my veins and I grit my teeth and slammed on the gas, just like Skylar did in my dream. I'm now going twenty over the limit, and now thirty over the limit. I was approaching the same traffic light that Sklar was in my dream. The light turned yellow, but like Skylar, I knew I wasn't going to make it. 

Although, unlike Skylar, I wasn't planning on slowing down. I was going to run it. Who even cares anyways? I'm tired of this. I'm tired of people looking at me like I'm a dog with only three legs. I'm tired of dealing with my mom crying all the time. I know that so many people would say that I still have my mom to live for but I've lost her. She's in a place where I will never get her back. And as for my friends? Ashley's been acting shady as hell, it's almost as if she blames me for Skylar's death. And Elena just gives me those sad eyes all time and I know I've lost her too. What else do I have?

The light turns red and I still don't slow down. My heart starts racing, and my head clears slightly, the anger slowly ebbing away, the poison clearing, and I change my mind on the spot. I slam on the brakes, but... they weren't working! I slammed on the brakes again and again but I still didn't slow down. My heart starts beating even harder against my chest, the adrenaline pumping in my veins and I feel my brain start to throb. I look up at the road in front of me in a panic and I see a person standing on the other side of the intersection. As I speed closer, the brakes still not working, I see that it's Skylar! She's standing there with a look of worry and determination on her face. She holds up her right hand, palm up, towards me, and then I heard a sudden loud screeching noise and I was thrown against the driver's wheel. The car was slowing down fast as if I've just slammed on the brakes and they were actually working. 

So many things happen in the space of just one second that I barely have time to process it. The car is till making that high-pitched screeching sound and then it starts spinning and the world is spinning before me. The last thing I see is a pair of bright headlights coming right for me, spinning out of control. And then, I'm just falling... falling into a sea of black nothingness.