The Touch

"Narcissistic much? Keep your eyes on the fucking road!" I lunge forward to grab the steering wheel as the truck starts drifting over the double yellow line.
"It's kind of like you don't want to get in a car wreck." He says, readjusting the rearview mirror.
"And it's kind of like you do."

Emerson Pratt cares a little too much about just about everything, whether that is her grades, her SAT scores, her friends, or her golden ticket to college: track. But the one thing she never planned on caring about was other people and their last words. When a car accident, which should have ended her life, leaves her instead with the ability to hear people's last words, she is left with the burden of knowledge no one should have to carry; if anyone could read her mind they would be in tears.

Owen Preston cares a little too little about just about everything. A secret past keeps him unavailable, rebellious, and heartless; that's the only way to avoid heartbreak, pretending he does not have one. A bit of an attitude problem and violence is his middle name, so how could this boy, with drugs and alcohol basically coursing through his veins, have anything to do with the girl made up of 50% coffee and 50% protein bars?

Two words. Two simple words is all it takes for their paths to intertwine inexplicably, until each of them has to question whether they were ever as alone and incomplete as they had thought. We all get addicted to whatever takes the pain away, but what happens when your addiction is also causing your pain?