Short Stories of Unraveled Lives

A Warm Summer's Day

On a warm summer day, the grass flows, the flowers bloom, and the sun shines bright. The birds sing cheerful songs upon voluptuous trees and the loving dogs run freely to catch the frisbees thrown for them. A nice day in hot weather brings brightness to the world and people out of their homes. On a warm summer day, a man holds a steering wheel with only one question frozen on his mind:

"Where did I go wrong?"
The man is not too old, as he had just hit his second decade the month prior. He drives his car down the road of a mountain as he tries not to look at the distance beyond the guardrail. He simply looks straight ahead as he drives, there is no one on the roads, not on such a beautiful day. He doesn't know where he's going but he's driving. Away from the pain. Away from the struggle.

His phone is held in his other hand, he is glancing between it and the road as he checks his message thread. It holds a series of one-sided messages to someone he was once with, someone who won't respond. He's tempted to throw his device out the window beside him, but instead tosses it in front of the dashboard, careful to miss the windshield. He would call but she never picks up the phone. Nor have they ever called. In this day and age, no one bothered to call one another. The only ones he would get were ones from an old friend who used to call to catch up, to help him in times of need. But that didn't matter anymore. They stopped contacting one another years ago.

He continues to drive absently, his mind purely on his love, on the shock he still endures. He is relapsing the hours passed, reminding himself of the girl he could once call his own just that morning.

He had known that he had depression. That he hid it from everyone including her. But he didn't realize that it had gone too far, that she had seen through it. Not until he had snapped over the "lack of time we spend together" topic, his own days being left in secret solitude. His aggression had increased because of his condition and this was the breaking point. She felt as though she didn't know him any longer. That he had changed. She didn't need to yell or scream for those words to hit him like a bullet. His heart cracked, his emotions exploded, he didn't know who he was either but he wanted to find out if it meant keeping her. And yet she declined the offer.

There was no one at that point he could turn to. His friends talked to him less after he deserted and ignored them too many times. His parents were ready to kick him out of his house at his age and the one he loved most had just left him. He was alone.

He was driving for quite a while now, his loved one lost along with his sense of self. He had been going on for too long, trapped on the inside. He couldn't take it. The thought had already crossed his mind a few times that the guardrail wasn't too high, wasn't too sturdy. He could clear it if he tried. But just like the other few times, he shook the thought out of his head.

"This can't be the end, can it?"

The man grips the steering wheel tighter as he contemplates what he wants from this drive. He felt as if he lost everything. He had been clinging onto to his last lifeline and had fallen in love with her in the meantime, not knowing what to do with himself if that person broke up with him. When they broke up with him. And as he thinks, he can see the sand falling from the hourglass.

"Do I have anyone left?"

He had tried over and over to see if there had been something to fix him and yet he had no motivation to try. There was no way a stranger would be able to simply talk him out of his situation. There was no motivation left in him and no reason to try to thrive. He knows not what to do and yet the cliff below seems more tempting by the second. All he can think of is her voice. Her touch. Everything he loved, and still loves, about her. He takes a breath as he braces himself, ready to turn.

He hears a long vibration on his dashboard.