Standing By

Trapped

(Tim)

My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, hard enough to make my knuckles blanch under the pressure. I did not feel comfortable driving in this downpour. Not with everyone around me driving like bats out of hell. The car right behind me was riding on my tail. There was adequate room between me and the car in front of me, but if I braked, the dude behind me would ransack the living hell out of me. My foot was very lightly sitting on the gas pedal. Barely able to see through the sheets of rain, I just couldn't go very fast. Adam was a nervous ball of energy next to me, and Chance, Austin, and Rob were in the backseat. Austin and Rob were yammering on the phone, Rob to his wife and Austin to Avi, for some reason. Chance was singing along with the radio but was pretty off-key. Distracted by his abnormally poor singing, I glanced back at him just as another car veered towards us. Rob and I screamed; Austin startled and his phone flew out of his hand and smacked into Chance's lap, who stopped trying to sing only to grab onto Austin. The other car rammed into us from the side. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. The steering wheel developing a mind of its own, I tried to wrench it to the left frantically.

"Tim!" Adam shrieked, hands flying out to catch himself on the dash.

"Seatbelt!" I shouted, still tugging desperately at the wheel, Austin now crying loudly.

"We're gonna die!" Rob shouted as our car collided with a minivan on the right side, sending them flying into the ditch, us sliding after them, the third car that had sideswiped us following after us. I started to wail along with the rest of them as the car just kept sliding out of control into the ditch and finally came to rest with a very loud crunch against the minivan we'd hit. The airbag punched me in the face and I felt my head snap backwards from its force.

"Tim!" Chance yelled as Austin screamed Adam's name.

I lifted my slightly woozy head up. "I'm fine." I glanced back at my friends in the backseat, all of whom looked OK save for a couple of scratches on Rob's arm, and they were moving around. Then I glanced over at Adam, face buried in the airbag, windshield glass all around him. "Adam?"

Austin leaned forward, crying hard. "Everyone OK? Adam? You OK?"

"Adam!" Chance yelled when he didn't answer.

Still no answer. I reached out with a trembling hand, scared he'd been hurt badly, and gently tapped his arm. He didn't move.

"Adam!" Chance, Austin, and I yelled, Rob struggling to open his door.

"I—can't open the door—can't get out to check on him!" he yelled out frantically.

"Adam!" the four of us yelled again, Austin reaching for him and shaking his shoulder firmly.

I punched the airbag into submission. When it deflated, Adam fell forward with it. It was now apparent that his face, head, and arms were all cut up pretty badly; blood was pouring out of a wide gash on his forehead. My heart pounded as I felt for his wrist and arm, Rob yelling the whole time not to move him in case he had a broken neck. Tears streaming down my face, I grasped his wrist in my hand, desperately feeling for a pulse. Nothing. I felt nothing, no matter how much I moved my fingers around. I lunged for his neck, still clamoring for a pulse. Nothing. Nowhere. Nowhere. His heart was decidedly not beating. I screamed, screamed as if my lungs were on fire, screamed as if I would never stop. I'd killed my best friend. I'd killed Adam. I'd killed him. My fault. If I'd done something, anything, different, Adam would still have been alive.

Chance was pounding on me from behind. "You fucktard! You killed him! You killed Adam, Tim! How could you!"

Chris walked up from a nearby parked car. "You killed my brother," he growled at me, then leveled a gun to my chest. "Now I'm going to kill you."