Pain

32

Ashley's POV

I felt moving and shaking beneath me. I felt something across me, a hand maybe, I wasn't sure. My head kept bobbing adding extra pain to my throbbing headache. All I knew was that I couldn't move. I was unable to even open my eyes. The sound of car honking passes through my ears. That noise though, it wasn't coming from out, it was coming from in.

Realisation hits me like lighting, and my eyes flick open. I was seated in car and the first thing I did was throw myself screaming. I tried to get up, but the seatbelt was holding me back. At this point I was unable to keep the screams inside me. "Jake!!!!"

The car came to an abrupt stop and I scrambled out as fast as I could. I trip on the way and I crawled away on my knees, not wanting to stay in that car for a second more. The passenger door opens and Chris comes out with an annoyed expression. From the other side Caroline, who looked like she was the one driving came and looked at me in worry.

"I told you I couldn't go in the car. Why? Why would you that?" I ask them tears threatening to roll out.

"Sheesh, stop being such a drama queen, you were passed out. I knew we should have left her there. See what you did" he says pointing at me and throwing his arms in exaggeration.

"Shut up Chris" scolds Caroline. She comes beside me and sits on the side of the road not saying anything.

"What the..." Chris raises his arms to pull Caroline up, but she sends him a death glare, and so he ended up shaking his head and walking back to the car. I could tell he was drunk from the way he walked. He got inside and slammed the door shut, the noise echoing through the empty narrow road, the same path the bus we had travelled in came through, but I hadn't expected it to be this empty and creepy.

"Are you okay" asks Caroline. I nod my head. "Does your fear of getting into the car have something to do with Jake?" Jake? How does she know about Jake?

"Jake! Where's Jake?" I ask. "He was there with me. Where'd he go." I get up back on my feet and start looking around me, inside the car. He was nowhere to be seen.

"Ashley" she says placing one hand on my shoulder. "Jake isn't here with us anymore." I look at her and remember everything once again. My Jake was gone. I say back in the side pavement, silently sobbing. "It's okay Ashley. Everything will be ok" she says.

"How do you know? Nothing is okay, and nothing will be ok. You say that like you know how it feels to love someone and not have them with you, hugging them and kissing them. You wouldn't understand. It's not like you ever loved anyone" I blurt out before I knew what I was saying.

Hurt flashes in her eyes and she looks at anything but me. "I'm sorry" I say to her hanging my head down.

"It's okay, I'm kind of used to your harsh words. I guess that's your character." I realise what she was saying. In order to mask the pain inside me, I kept hurting everyone on the outside.

"I was not always like this" I say in shame.

"I know. Can- Can I know what happened to Jake?" She asks hesitantly. I smile at his thought and she catches my smile. "You must have really loved him huh?"

"I still do. I love him with my whole heart and soul. He was and still is my everything. He was nothing less than perfect. He always made me smile and every day I tried my best to be perfect for him. Every time I was mad at him or angry in general, he would come and peck my lips until I smiled. He always knew how to make me smile, but now... I don't know the last time a laugh came out of my lips."

"How- how did he... You know" she asks cautiously.

"It's okay, you can say it. How did he die right?" She nods. "It was the night of our wedding. It was also the day of our graduation and our senior dance. After the graduation we got married, and then straight to the dance. That was our plan, but Jake said he had to do something and made me wait for him at the dance. I waited..."

"....but he never came?" she finished my sentence guessing. I smile and shake my head.

"He came. There was some construction going on, and some drunk kids knocked off a barrel. When Jake was coming, the barrel rolled onto his car and he tried to sway away from it but the car behind him knocked into his, making his car do so many flips until it landed upside down, in front of me, with a lifeless Jake."

"I'm so sorry" she says with a gasp. I look up to her and I see the sympathy in her eyes. Thats all there is- sympathy.

This was one of the reasons that I didn't want to share anything with anyone. Sympathy. I feel sympathetic for her, for having such a crappy roommate. Once somebody starts feeling sympathetic over you, it's like you're a lost and scared little puppy in their eyes. I hated that feeling. Through her eyes it's not only sympathy that I had seen. Earlier I saw a dark cloud of judgement.

Who wouldn't judge me? I practically broke all my own morals. I drank tonight, I smoked something, it was not cigarette, but it was smoke alright. Then... Well that's all I remember actually. But that was enough. What has happened to me.

"What has happened to me?" I say to myself.

"I can help you get out of this, do you think Jake would be proud of you?" Jake would hate me if he sees me now. I know that for sure. "I bet he is looking down at you right now, probably missing that smile that was always around him. Why don't you live your life? If not for you, then why not for Jake?" she asks.

I think about everything she says. The alcohol and drugs started to wear off and my headache was less compared to earlier. I could think clearly, but maybe with a little alcohol still in my system, I manage to nod.

"I'll live" I say.