Moments and Impacts

Prologue: Moments of Love

Prologue

Moment of Love

I believe in moments. Good ones and bad ones. I believe in moments that define who we are, what we do, and when we do it. I don't believe in fate, I don't think that our lives are planned out for us before we are even born. But I do believe in moments.

I believe that we have to pick and choose which moments we want, and which moments we don't. But I also think that some moments were chosen for us. By some mystical force to help our lives become better, no matter how terrible they seem.'

I picked this moment.

"There's nothing good on the radio anymore," she whines flipping through station after station. I don't even know if she actually understands what the song are before she flips to the next station.

"Hey," I yell, but smile as she flips past one of my favorite songs, "I love that song. Go back."

I reach my hand forward towards the radio to flip back to the previous station, but she grabs my hand instead and kisses it. She knows what she does to me, and she knows that as soon as she kisses I am putty in her hand.

"Genesis, I'm driving," I groan but secretly don't want her to pull away from my hand.

She giggles in response, "You're parked at a stop sign. I think we'll be fine."

She stops kissing my hand and just set it down in her lap, still entwined in hers, and I never want to let it go.

"Now," she spins in her chair as much as her seatbelt will let her, and looks at me, "where is your little cassette thinger?"

I laugh at the name, and even though I know exactly what it is she's talking about I ask, "Cassette thinger?"

"You know what I'm talking about. The thing where if I plug it into my phone and your car I get to listen to good music."

"Hey! Hit me up is a good song! You sang it for like a month after it came out."

I'm able to move from the stop sign, but nobody is around and I don't want to leave this moment with her.

"Yeah, yeah," she waves her hand in dismissal, and opens the glove box in front of her trying to find, what I know is in the little compartment between our seats, "It's one of the better songs that you like. But I wanna listen to Bass Boys. I finally got their new album onto my phone. Please," she juts out her bottom lips, and I have to look away to say no to her.

"If you tell me where the cassette thingy is, I'll kiss you."

My heart beats faster just at the idea of kissing her. It's been two years, four if you're counting the years when we weren't together, and I still love the idea of being to kiss her. Almost to the point where one might think it would be the last time I would be able to kiss her.

I take three deep breaths, "Nope," my voice is an octave higher. I'm trying to hold back the yes that so badly wants to slip out of my mouth, "You are not playing you annoying rock music in my car."

"I'll kiss you twice," she sings in a voice that has me covering my ears.

That the thing about her. She loves to sing. Sings about just about everything. Whether it be what she's doing, or a song that she heard on the radio. But she can't sing to save her life.

She pulls my hands down with a fake hurt look on her face, as I say, "You're my girlfriend," the word still sends tingles running up and down my spine, "I can kiss you whenever I want," to prove my point I lean forward in my seat and kiss her lightly on the lips. My breath catches in my throat, and it takes everything in me to pull away.

"Okay," she says and the smug smile on her face has me swallowing, "fine. If you don't let me listen to my music, then I will never kiss you ever again."

Having dated her for two years already, I've already gotten multiple of these threats. And I also know that the longest she went without kiss me was one week. But even knowing this, that she can go that long without kissing me, I still say, "Fine," I reach down and open up the compartment between us and hand her the cassette.

She squeals and takes the cassette from my hand, "Thank you!" she leans forward and kisses me, unbuckling her seat belt along the way, "I love you," she whispers against my lips.

My heart beat spikes even higher and I grin, "I love you too. Now play you're stupid music before I change my mind."

She grins at me and reaches over the back of my seat to dig through her bag. I don't move the car, my foot still firmly pressed against the brakes, as she grabs her phone and spins back around in her seat.

"This isn't their new album," I accuse as soon as I recognize one of Bass Boy's oldest songs, and her favorite.

"So I lied," she smirks and shrugs her shoulder. I give her a stern looking telling her that it wasn't okay, but truthfully I do like their older songs. Just don't tell her. She looks at me apologetically, "I'm sorry," she wraps her arm around me, and kisses my cheek, "I love you."

I wave my hand, "Yeah, yeah," I drawl, and inside I'm screaming, "Sit back down. We need to get to going if you want to get popcorn and see the previews."

"Yay!" she buckles up her seat belt and bounces up and down, "I love the previews. I heared that there was a preview for Kiss This and Jameson Becket is in that movie," she swoons.

I know that she has a thing for Jameson Backet, a five time award winning actor, but I'm not really worried about anything, considering that he's almost thirty. She just has always loved teasing me, saying that she's going to end up with some actor. I have never once heard her talk about anything other than actors that way, and the first time that she had said those types of things we got into a small little fight. Once she had told me that it was just to get a rise out of me, and to see if I liked her as much as she liked me (which is completely idiotic since I've liked her since freshman year) we quickly got over it and we've been stronger ever since.

I smile at her and grab her hand as I start to pull from the stop sign, "I love you too."

But that's the thing about moments. Some of them we chose, and some of them we don't. And they are just moments. They're just a split second of time that just moves onto the next one. A fleeting second. A tiny point in time that can be blown away in a whisper of a breath.

They're like a thunderstorm. A wonderful clap of thunder, one that most kids fear instead the actual danger. Followed by the dangerous flash of thunder, sometimes moments after when you're in the center of the storm, and sometimes can take days, hours, minutes, to follow, but it always follows. There's always the rain, to cool down the heat of the lightning, but the lightning still hurts.

I didn't chose this moment.

I don't see the care that comes tunneling down one of the side streets that we pass. If I would, I would've stopped, I wouldn't have just drove past that intersection like I would have for any other.

But I didn't see the car come. And that's the thing about moments. You don't see them coming until they're already there.They're unstoppable, uncontrollable.

This is what I think about when I see the car smash into Genesis' side of the car.

***

Already 1,000 words in! Yes! Okay I should admit that I had stayed up until midnight to start writing and might have wrote until like 2, so yeah I'm REALLY tired.

I'm going to try to update everyday, so hopefully it will keep me on track and I will finish my goal.

Tell me what you think so far.

Love,

#StayingAnonymous