Our Forever Goodbye

Dan meets the perfect girl, but because of his parents job he has to move within four months...or at least... he thought that was why his time with her was so short.

You learn many things when you transfer schools almost every month. Because of my parents job we are constantly moving states. I have many stories from various places: Adventures, short romance, strange happenings and some even dangerous. But even with all that, nothing could have prepared me for this story.

It was the second time I lived in Arizona. This particular city was Prescott, a more evergreen town than the rest of the desert state. A lot of things happened here in my short visit of only four months. I went to a lot of parties, and fought with my rich classmates. (even though I was actually friends with them - but hey, if they want to get drunk, strip and pretend they're drowning, who am I to stop them?).

It was not fun, I'll tell you that. But, its not the story I want to share. I'd experienced all sorts of things like that already, and quite frankly people’s stupidity had been raging  on me for so long I hardly ever notice it.

Anyway, the story I want to share is that of a girl. And not just any girl. She was special. But not in the sense that I developed a high school crush on her. Rather, it is her story.

It all started after I addressed the schools most popular girl, in hopes of becoming popular myself. Usually my "magic" takes a while to work, but Jasmine took to me nicely. So much so that I went to a party later that night that resulted in my car engine being stolen. But before that, I met the schools social outcast.

While searching for my locker and putting useless junk into it, I turned to see the most beautiful girl. Her hair was a wavy blonde, loosely draped over her shoulders. Her nose was perfectly shaped to compliment her beautiful baby blue eyes. Her lips, a perfect shade of pink, faded gracefully into the fairness of her skin. That was the day I met Lane Quinn, the outcast.

She smiled at me, a completely normal smile on an everyday face, but somehow, she made it all the more valuable. Wrapped in her thin arms were three textbooks. Each with the name of her following classes. I ended up staring at her blankly, with an expression I could only imagine was dazed. Her lips parted, as if preparing to speak, yet the words had a hard time formulating and she became mute. When she tried again, I looked away, embarrassed of what my face might've looked like. But her beautiful smile reformed as she let out a chuckle and walked forward.

My heart raced with embarrassment as she bent down to my current height, being sure to keep a distance of two feet. "If you keep staring I might start thinking that I'm important." She said, with the littlest expression on both face and tone.

Words would not form, even though I screamed at myself to speak. To say anything back to her. To reassure her she was already important. But she didn't give me a chance as she got up and prepared to walk away.

Looking back on it now, it was my next action  that made a difference. "I'm Dan!" I called, she turned to me. Puzzlement shown through her baby blue eyes. "I'm new."

The girl chuckled and nodded. "I'm Lane. I'm not new." There was sadness in those eyes. A mix of all kinds of emotion, but sadness stuck and shouted loneliness from the depths of her heart. "It was nice meeting you." With a quick nod she turned again.

She prepared to leave, but I lunged forward grabbing her arm and pulling her back lightly. "Wait," I began, "do you...want to hang out...or something?"

Her head tilted, eyes squinted as she pondered the thought. "You really are new..." She finally said, never once lifted that sad, lonely look from her eyes.

That was the first day I met her. There were many things that stuck out about her, the most memorable were her eyes. They were the perfect shade of a winter blue. But the most memorable was, by far, her expressions.

I've been to many states, many schools, and met many people. After a while, you learn to pick up expressions. It becomes almost a second language, if you believe me. I can sort people into different categories just by looking them. A persons expression is shown through the eyes. And the eyes are the window to the soul, as some would say.

Except, one person. I could never read Lane. Sure, there was that lingering sense of loneliness hinted within those blue eyes of hers. But she never acted sad, she never frowned or cried. She would always smile. Even when it was justified to cry.

And so it went on that way for 4 months, the time I had to spend in Prescott. I knew we were on a timer, but I certainly wasn't aware of how little time we truly had.

It wasn't until after she helped me get back my car engine that I really started to hang out with her. Henry and Jasmine, twins and both, were arguably, the most popular of the senior grade level. They threw a party at their house, because why not? They had a pool, a giant house to trash, and the most open booked personalities I’d ever been around. But with that did come a flaw. Both seemed to like to get drunk.

This party wasn’t any ordinary drunk pool party. Everyone seemed to be tipsy by four in the afternoon, then dead drunk by nine thirty. In all the places, states and people I’ve met, none of them got completely drunk by nine thirty. But rather than fight about it, I hung out until I could no longer bare it.

My memory of that time is still a little fuzzy, probably because I don’t care much to remember it. But at the time there was this girl, a blonde with the same shade as Lane, but far more obnoxious than any ordinary human should. She wrapped her arms around me on the couch, trying to crawl into the crook of my neck.

On occasion, if she would get too close to me, I would nudge her back. Emanating off of her was the reeking, sweet smell of the liquor as she groaned about how hot it was. I zoned out as she complained about her parents, her boyfriend, how much her life sucked because she went to jail for selling pot. Then, she slurred something about sleeping with her, and I tuned back in.

“What?” I quickly asked as she began to crawl into my lap.

The girl glared at me and sat back as I pushed her off. “You're such a jerk!” She looked at her hands, tilting them up to her face to examine every crease and scar. “I hate you.”

“A huh.” I got up from the living room, but something stopped me. Jasmine was in the middle of a circle, the spectators chanting the same thing. Pure horror filled me as I lunged forward to prevent her from carrying out the demand. Of course they would want her strip, it was a party, but definitely something she would regret in the future.

I pushed her into the kitchen where there was the less amount of people. She glared at me. “What?” She demanded.

“You're drunk.” I deadpanned.

“And?”

“Probably stoned too.”

“So? Dan, this is a party, you’re supposed to get WILD.” She waved her hands up above her head and danced in time to faded music in the background. “What about you? You haven’t had anything to drink tonight and the only person you talked to was Lucy.” She wildly gestured her hands at the archway that led into the living room.

“She’s drunk, Jasmine, and stoned.”

“A huh. We all are. Oh! Except you.” She reached over for one of the red cups and showed it to me. “Go ahead, drink.”

I glared at her. I know I said earlier that I fell to peer pressure easily, but this crap was for sure not one of those times I fell easily. This sort of stuff, people pissing me off and forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do, only ticked me off more. “No.”

Jasmine looked at me, her glare as serious as mine. She huffed, tilting her head up a little before quickly dipping it. “Ha, wow. You really are a little goody two shoes. Why don’t you just go home to mommy?”

That was the final straw. The party was nothing but me being yelled at and hit by angry drunks. And this girl was boring, loud, annoying, and out and out rude. I reached my hand out for the drink and took it from her. There was this slight look of a satisfied grin upon her face, right before it quickly faded into a surprised look of disgust. I dropped the cup after all of the liquid was poured out. Her hands fisted to her shoulders as she breathed heavily in a panting anger. I kicked the cup into the living room, getting the attention of the others as she screamed and looked at me.

“What the hell!” She slapped me across the face, but I didn’t react.

I huffed. “Yeah. I’m a goody two shoes. That’s why I’m the only one not going to jail when you're little pot party gets found out about.” I walked passed her as the others shared the same confused, and surprised, looks around. It was silent. Not even the music was blaring by the time I got out to the driveway.

My heart raced with what sort of fights I would get into tomorrow for soaking the prom queen in beer, but I had no time to think about that. Oh no. Because by the time I got to my car I noticed something that definitely hit the list, and remains there to this day, of the number of stupid pranks ever pulled on me.

A few thoughts came to mind as I looked at the empty contents of the hood. One of them being, and on quote, “who the hell takes a car engine!?” the next being “my dad’s going to kill me with a spoon.” My immediate instinct was to slouch by the car, cup my hands, and angrily curse my name for about an hour before I couldn’t scream anymore. But in the end I settled for walking to the Taco Bell across the intersection.

That was where I pondered my thoughts about Lane. I’d heard many things while being with Jasmine and Henry, granted by that time it was only about a few hours. They said she claimed to be better than everyone else and that she didn’t have a place in society. The entire statement made me laugh, because I was fairly certain she was the only one well on her way to society.

But anyway, that night ended up being the night I got to know her a little better.

She found me sitting on the curb of Taco Bell. "Hey, why are you so lonely? What happened to the party?"

I slouched as I remembered the horrible events. Not to mention, my engine was gone now. Granted, it was a good idea if you were looking for money, but those things are, from what I understand, heavy! "Someone," I began, "took my car engine."

There was a slight moment of silence right before it completely broke in a  hysteria of laughter. Lane bent over her seated self, clenching her stomach as bolts of laughter echoed on the buildings and street. "Holy crap! That's a good one!"

I hushed her quickly, getting up and tossing my wrappers into the garbage can. It made it in, but somehow all my excitement went void to response in my accomplishment. "Anyway...what am I going to do?"

Lane proceeded to do that squinty eye thing as she thought. "Want to steal it back?"

At first, I thought she was joking. I was sorely proved wrong as she grabbed my arm, tugged me back across the intersection and skipped along the way.

"Hey," I began, "where exactly are we going?"

She turned around, skipping backwards and smiling. "There's an auto shop further up this way. If anyone took it, its probably there."

And there it was. We stepped on a few crates in the back of the building and looked in through the window. As we looked in, we noticed something a bit odd and 'abnormal' about this 'ordinary' auto's shop.

I won't bore you with the specific details, since pretty much all we did was wait for the police to show up. But that night was interesting. Apparently the shop had been stealing car parts and reselling them, but the police couldn't prove it.

After the culprits were apprehended, I got my engine back. The shop was put under new management, seriously, and the new owner gave me a free carwash.

Weeks passed after that, but Lane was no where to be found. I spent a lot of my time at school searching for her. Partly to thank her and partly to hang out with her. I don't know what I was thinking. Since the beginning I knew not to fall in love with her. I'd have to move at the end of four months, but somehow, that didn't stop me.

It was about 3 weeks in, almost the end of the first month, when Lane came back to school. Of course I had questions for her, like "where were you?" But in the end I just decided to eat lunch with her.

"Hey." She said as I sat down. The sadness in her eyes grew since the last time I saw her. This time, they seemed desperate for an answer. At the time, I didn't think much of it. Bad mistake.

I placed my tray on her table and began to eat. "Hey, where were you? You were gone for a few weeks."

A short smile crept along her face, smiling with all the happiness she could muster. "I was just working. So what's new in the world of the populars?"

My eyes switched their gaze to the group behind me. Each of them was glaring hard at me.

Since the party, Jasmine wouldn't talk to me. As for Henry, he just brushed me off whenever I tried to talk to him. That made getting our projects done a little difficult.

I turned back to Lane. "Their mad at me."

"Its not about me...is it?"

I shook my head. "No, its something I did. Anyway, where do you work?"

She explained to me that she worked at Pizza Hut that was next to Taco Bell. That explained why she was there at the time I was. But I couldn't imagine her being gone from school for an entire three weeks for that. Still, I didn't make anything of it.

"Want to do something after school?" She asked as she grabbed a fry from my tray. I didn't refuse her, just agreed to it and met up with her after school.

She didn't tell me where we were going; she only pointed the way until we ended up in a park. We walked up this very tall hill for about three minutes until we reached the top. We stood at the top of a cliff. "This is going to be fun." She claimed.

Before I could protest the idea of throwing myself off a cliff, she was already in a bikini she wore under her clothes and charged forward. I looked over the edge to see the finish of a splash. "Lane!"

Shortly, her head peeked above the water with an even bigger grin than before. "Com'on! The waters fine!" She sang.

With a bit hesitation, and by that I mean a lot, I jumped from the cliff in my boxers and landed somewhere near her. The water encased around me as I worked to get back up to the surface. Fresh air.

Lane was already at the shore, laughing at my hurried expression as I swam over to her. I glared daggers at her as that grin grew wider from ear to ear. "That's far from 'fine '!" I splashed freezing water at her and she shielded herself from it.

We stayed there, getting used to the cold water and jumping off the cliff more until night fell. The moon replaced the suns faded colors soon in a glitter of stars.

I rested on the grass, putting on my clothes for warmth. She laid beside me, both of us looking up at the shining stars above. "That was fun!" Lane randomly shouted out. I laughed and she turned to her side, lifting herself up with her elbow. "I mean it. Its been awhile since I've had this much fun."

Silence became of us as we looked into each others eyes. I remember thinking at the time, cursing and reminding myself that I couldn't fall for her. I'd be leaving. I couldn't.

Suddenly she stood up, offering her hand to me. I took it, getting up and following her up the hill again. We stood at the very top, looking down upon the lit up city below. Behind us was the quiet, stillness of the lake. The scene was great, fantastic. I could tell she was in love with it.

"I just wanted," she crossed her arms behind her back, "to show this to at least someone."

I reached out my hand to touch hers, but she pulled back, offering me a soft smile. "What's wrong?" I finally asked. That sadness in her eyes became all the more dim. "You look like you're going to cry."

"No," she breathed and looked back to the lake. "Life just isn't fair."

A sudden emotion hit me then. I wasn't sure what to say. At the time, I just assumed she meant that I had to leave, since I had to her I was moving soon. And as we stood there, marveling the view, that's what I honestly thought.

I dropped her off at her house later that night, watching that sad expression on her face bring her further down. And like I said before, I always had the ability to read a person. All but Lane.

There was another few weeks that passed shortly after that. We ate lunch together between the time we went cliff diving and she disappeared again. I figured she was at work, but when I went to Pizza Hut they told me she hasn't been into work for almost two weeks. That was the amount of time she was gone for.

I left the restaurant, a little more curious than I was before. At that point, I had to know what was going on.

Lane came back to school after four weeks passed. By then I was already two months into school, and with only two more months remaining. Her expression that time around was borderline dead and lonely.

At lunch, she just stared blankly at her food without even touching it. She looked pale and sickly. "Lane." I approached her. Her head lifted and immediately her eyes lit up. That small light only pushed that sad look out for a few short seconds, then, it replaced itself back to its post. "Are you OK?"

She nodded slowly, forcing a smile onto her face and holding back forming tears. "Want to go somewhere with me after school?"

That look remained in those eyes, but I let that go for a moment and nodded. She seemed a little more happy as I sat beside her. To my surprise, she moved closer to me and placed her hands with mine. "Lane?"

A single tear left her eyes and fell to our connected hands. "Please. Until the end."

Without knowing, but still understanding, I wrapped my arms around her. "I promise."

At the end of school we drove back to that park where she sat on the hill. The atmosphere around us was different from the last time we were there. That sad look only increased as she looked solemnly at the city below. It became silent between the both of us. Only the gently breezed made a short sound as it whistled passed us.

She turned to me after a while of silence. “I...want to tell you something.” I nodded for her to continue as I sat beside her, but she kept a distance between us. “You know how you said that you have to leave two months from now?” I nodded, but we were quickly put on hold when she screeched loudly.

“What?” I jumped up frantically as I heard the hussle of the brush beside her. Lane pointed down at her ankle were a snake bite had encased its fangs. “Holy crap! Is it poisonous?”

Lane shook her head. “Its a Gopher Snake, they look dangerous but they aren’t poisonous.” Suddenly, her eyes began to flutter shut as she grabbed onto my shoulders. “I...have to...tell you...” She became increasingly weak as she slumped into my arms. I didn’t have time to worry about what she wanted to tell me. I scooped her up in my arms and raced down the hill into my Jeep. We drove to the clinic, the closest hospital near the park.

I rushed in with her in my arms, her body becoming increasingly weak. A few doctors came out to get her and pulled her into the back room. After that. Silence. My mind went blank after that, but I do remember shaking as I waited.

Only an hour passed, it felt like a year, by the time a doctor came out to thank me. He looked at me curiously at first.

I jumped up from my chair when he approached me, thinking he wanted to know what happened to her. "A snake bit her!" I yelled shakily.

He held his hand out to stop me. "That snake was non poisonous."

Sudden confusion became of me. "What?" I looked away from him. "Then what's wrong with her?"

He sighed and gave me a slight smile. "That's something I think she wants to tell you, come with me please."

I was led into the back where they carted her off. Most of the rooms were empty in this almost abandoned clinic. We stopped outside of her room. As we entered, this terrible chill froze me.

Lane was hooked up to many IVs and a variety of other machines. Her face was less pale than when I brought her in, but her expression still remained void of everything but sadness.

I walked over to her, feeling sickly myself, and sat in the chair beside her. "Hey," she smiled weakly at me as she spoke. "I wanted to tell you before."

"Lane...what's going on?"

She remained silent as she gazed out the window, wiping the new forming tears from her eyes. "I'm sorry." She sniffled and held onto my hand, giving it a light squeeze. "I meant to tell you, before this happened. Dan, will you stay until the end?"

My heart nearly dropped as I began to realize and piece together everything. I finally understood why she was gone for weeks at a time, why she wasn't at work, why she suddenly fell ill, even though the snake wasn't poisonous at all.

She got up slowly to sit up, letting out a few whimpers until the pain she felt subsided. "Do you promise to stay?" She whispered, missing her strength as she rested her forehead on mine.

I nodded. "Forever."

She stayed there for a while until they could bring her to a larger hospital. They continued to say it might do her no good. Eventually I meet her family.

Her parents were well established business people. They were extremely concerned for their daughter and paid for any and all medical treatments available.

There were times during my visits that she would come in and out of sleep. Her body became weaker by the day until she didn't have the strength to speak. She wrote on paper what she wanted and I responded with a kind heart. This continued on until the final month of my stay.

'I wrote you a letter' she said one visit. I nodded and smiled at her. 'But, don't read it until I'm gone...OK?'

Those words made feel helpless. No one could help her, she seemed to accept that, but somewhere I could tell she was terrified. I agreed to her terms though, leaving the letter with her.

'Do you love me?' She smiled.

I nodded. 'Forever.' I wrote beside it, and kissed her. She made the strangest face as I pulled away, her face turning beet red and loudly disturbing the heart monitors.

After a moment of dazement, she smiled, a true genuine smile. This time it wasn't forced. 'Guess I won't die without my first kiss.'

'I love Lane... -Dan Emerson.' I sighed the paper and handed it back to her. She stared at it for the longest time, hugging me tight in her arms as we shared a kiss.

'I love Dan... -Lane Quinn.' She wrote below it. Smiling widely from ear to ear.

That was the last time I ever saw her smiling face and those blue eyes.

I attended her funeral, meeting some more members of her family and getting to know Lane a little better. I heard stories of her life before I met her. Apparently she never smiled and always went through life anticipating her own death. She cared so little to live that she didn't get to know anyone, making her a social outcast.

But the Lane I knew was fun, exciting, and beautiful. She smiled even though she was sad, showing an expression they thought people wanted to see. But it only hid the truth.

By the fourth month of my time spent in Prescott, Arizona, we finally moved to the next state. Before leaving, though, I held the letter she wrote to me. I finally opened it and reading her final words to me.

Dear Dan Emerson,

By the time you read this I will be dead. (Haha, I never thought I'd actually get the chance to write that). My immune system has finally broken down completely. Anyway, all my life I just waited for the day I would finally die. . And I thought that I would die with the feeling of lonesome within me. But...you changed that. Life was actually fun for me. And I can finally rest for eternity happy, unlike how I always imagined myself.

By now you've probably heard about me. The fact that I rarely spoke, always shyed away and became the background noise to everyone.

Remember the me you know. Please, don't forget that part of me: The me that was truly happy and smiling.

And behind the letter, was a picture of her smiling face. Written on the back:

Please don't forget me as I truly was.

Lane Quinn

Author's Note

Let me know what you think of this short story. Thank you for reading!! :)