The Moments

Chapter Twenty-One

JORDAN WILLS

Positive change is the slowest thing in the world. It's like walking behind a 90 year old or sitting in traffic for hours. There is an obvious destination, there is an eagerness to arrive, yet you are stuck and can't do anything about it. You start to wonder if the success is worth the struggle, but then you choose not to think about it because you've been promised that the place just out of reach, the goal, is worth more than you could ever comprehend. 

I can now say with 100% honesty, that I want to get better and I want to be happy. I want to survive this inevitable tragedy and I want to cope. I want to make amends and I want to function. I want these things because I want what Madelyn wants, which I know isn't a great motive. I should want it for me, but I'm not sure I'm there yet. The point is, I'm trying. But all of these things, these things I want, they are the destination, but the line of cars just keeps getting longer, the honking keeps getting louder, and I am stuck in one place.

Negative change on the other hand, it is so quick, so simple. In an instant it can diminish all positive change. It can erase all that you've accomplished, all that you've achieved. I understand that better than ever now because I was improving. No big change in me, nothing noticeable, but improvement is improvement no matter how small. It was hard to do, but so easy to destroy.

All my progress dissolved when met with two words.

She's gone.

She's gone, Madelyn Sheen is dead.

And there is this feeling. This feeling that can never be put into words. This dark, cold, twisting sensation in the pit of my stomach. I sit in my bed and let the pain wash over me, I give it time to consume me, but it doesn't. It just pokes at my heart and taunts me while the black ball of anguish sits in my stomach, it is dull and vague, but it is there and eventually it will bubble to the surface and eat me alive. I hope it hurts, I hope it is so painful that I can't breath. I hope it is the most powerful sensation I've ever felt, because anything is better than the feeling of nothingness.

So I stand, with dry eyes, a blank expression, walk out into the driveway, and sit down in my car. The faint smell of her still lingers on the seat, the smell of marijuana nearly covers it, but not quite. And if I close my eyes and breath in deep, she is next to me again and the awful nothingness fades. Her smell, her perfume, her being exists in the subtle scent of her fragrance as it clings to the air and burns my nostrils on each inhale. And she is beside me, smiling, her eyes sparkling as the midday sun hits the window. She is sick and she is going through what many people could never begin to imagine, but her smile makes everything so bright. Her slender hands reach up, bony fingers, pale, but warm, they tap the window of the car to the beat of the music she has turned on for me to hear. A piece of her world shared with me and I am so grateful even though the lyrics are dumb and the melody is boring. I nod my head along because it isn't just a song, it is her, so I will love it.

Then I open my eyes and the smell is just a smell and she is gone. I grow accustomed, the scent fades. It's like a drug though and I feel as though I need more. More of her to remind me that she was here. Because what if I forget? What if I forget that I loved so much that the world seemed less horrid? What if I forget the weight of the promise I made? The promise to live despite.

So I drive and without meaning to, I drive to her house. 

An ambulance is there, no blaring sirens, no lights. Just a quiet little piece of machinery, parked in the driveway, collecting a corpse. 

He must have called me right after she died. It is cruel for me to show up on a grieving man's doorstep. I wish I cared.

I get out of my car and I try to find something of her. A footprint in the mud, an earring she dropped and lost in the grass, anything.