Hurt

A Story by ChloeCharlotte

He was my best friend. So why did this happen? Was it because of me? All I can think of is what happened.

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    The rain was pouring down like bullets shot from a gun. The drops hitting his windshield as if to say 'It's almost over.' Taunting him. He was on his way to get me mint chocolate chip ice cream. I hadn't been feeling well, so he wanted to cheer me up. He was thinking of how excited I would be when I saw the carton.
    Then his world went black. He would never get the ice cream. He would never drive home. He would never get to see how excited I would be. He was gone.
    The other car had spun out of control into his lane. The brakes hadn't worked on the slippery road caused by the rain. They collided. His car flipped over and the seat belts force against his neck snapped his spine. It happened almost instantly. There was no pain. No suffering. Or so they told me.

----

    I found out an hour after it happened when the police showed up at my house. They told me that he was already gone when they arrived at the accident. They didn't say dead, but gone. Was that supposed to make me feel better about it? Because it didn't work if it was. I refused to leave the house with them when they asked me to come with them, and they allowed me a grieving period of a week. After that they were coming to get me.
    It wouldn't be a week. They would come back sooner. I knew how they worked, I'd been through this once before when Mom and Dad died....but that's another story.
    I escaped to the field that lived next door to our-my old farm house. The crows were there to greet me as usual, black as ink. This time was different, though. When their glossy eyes peered at me, I felt them shudder. Then they would fly away from me and my sorrows.
    So I walked the perimeter of the field, seeing the crows fly away. When I got to one corner, I stopped and looked around. It was so quiet. Too quiet almost. So I ran through the field until I got to the little ivy covered archway in the middle. The crows there all flew away frantically, afraid of what I might do to them.
    I giggled and twirled around in front of the old stone bench that had settled itself into the grass over the years. I stopped abruptly. This reminded me too much of the one time with him...

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    I ran and looked back as I yelled, "Catch me if you can!"
    He yelled something back at me that was drowned out by the sound of angry crows we had disturbed with our laughter and shouting.
    I kept running until I reached the bench, and started to slowly rotate myself, taking in every detail of my sacred field. Then without warning, he came up behind me, snatched me up in his arms and twirled me around, both of us laughing at the small things that we had back then.
    Suddenly he slowed and put me down. He looked me straight in the eye with his ice blue eyes, that I saw myself every time I would look in the mirror. He put one hand on my cheek, and with the other he pulled me into a hug while telling me, "You'll never be alone. You'll always have our memories, like today, even if you don't have me in the flesh."
    I tilted my head up and we both started to cry, in each other’s arms, basking in the joy that our memories brought us,

----

He was right. I did have our memories, but I didn't want memories. I wanted him back with me, so he could swoop me up in his arms and tell me everything would be OK because he was there to hold me. But that wouldn't happen. He was gone, and I knew it deep down that we would never play in the field again.
So I lay down, and let my orange hair spill over my shoulders and span across the grass, I closed my eyes and remembered us.

----

    We were lying next to each other, I was playing with a flower I had found next to my head, while he was plucking grass and shredding it. We were talking, just talking, nothing more, and nothing less. About nothing in particular, but anything we could come up with.
    "So if you could have anything in the world, what would it be?" He asked me. That's the question I remember so vividly because of my answer, which had been, "For you to stop bugging me!"
    He knew I was joking, so he hopped up, scooped me into his arms and spun me around until we both fell onto the lush green grass of the field. We were both laughing uncontrollably as we looked up into the blue skies, and saw white clouds that slightly resembled cotton candy.
    I looked at him and whispered, "I would have mom and dad come back. For us to be a family again."
    He smiled weakly at me and replied, "Me too. Me too. But our family of two is fine for the time being." I nodded as tears started to gather in my eyes.
    The beginning was that one solitary tear that found its way down my cheek. Then there was a steady flow as he took me in his arms to comfort me. That was when the waterfall came. I could have stayed like that, forever in his arms.

----

    I couldn't begin to imagine a world without those days. They had become my life, and I would be devastated without at least one a week, so I closed my eyes.
    Someone once told me that if you wanted something so badly, you could get to it if you just wished hard enough. Now I knew that I could go to him if I truly wished to. And I did. I wished for that more than anything else in the world, I wished that I could be with him forever.
    So with that, I let go. I let go of all my sorrows, all my memories, all my happiness, the field around me, the crows that had come back, the cotton candy clouds, the stone bench, the ivy covered arch, and everything else. I let go of myself. Then I brought back one thing. The wish to be with him forever.
    I slowly walked away from everything, leaving my body behind, only taking my soul, to meet him. He was standing at the end of the shimmering light that I was walking through. I knew that if I looked back, I would never be able to continue the journey I was making. This was a choice I could never take back, so I just looked at him. I looked at his outstretched arm, just waiting to take my hand.
    I made my way to him, slowing down the last couple of steps, just to make sure I was choosing correctly. And when I saw his smiling face, I knew there was no way that I could ever go back, so I took his hand as he said, "We're together now, just walk with me beyond that archway, and you'll live with mom, dad and I. We'll be just like we were."
    The corners of my lips started to rise into a smile, and to give him my answer, I started to walk toward the arch.
     And so we walked, hand in hand past the archway into a land unknown to me. That didn’t bother be, though, because I knew that I would be with my family forever, with nothing to harm us or tear us apart. I wasn’t sure how I knew this, but I did. There was just a sense of peace that was coursing through me now, I felt like anything could be true if I just believed.