Collision Course(68)
Author: S.C. Stephens

I sighed and hoped my mom wouldn’t have to hear too much about it, that people would be kind to her over her loss. Maybe she and the sheriff could move away once his wife passed on from her illness. They could heal each other. I smiled wider as I pictured the great life they could have together.

As the haunting, but beautiful, lyrics drifted through my brain, I turned my attention back to the guard rail. I blinked, startled, when I noticed a car there that hadn’t been there before. A car that I knew very well. A car that was currently blocking the predetermined path of my demise. I blinked again, not understanding what my mother’s station wagon was doing parked in front of my bulls-eye. How had she found me so fast?

Then the station wagon door opened and a figure stepped out into the rain. I immediately understood how I’d been found, as I watched Sawyer shut the door, her clothes and hair drenched from the downpour. Sawyer and I nearly had the same mind at times, and if anyone could guess correctly where I’d go to end my life, it’d be her.

I should have realized that earlier and not spent so much precious time ruminating. I should have pieced it together that that Safe and Sound club had probably been out here, on more than one occasion, to maintain the shrine that was sort of their reason for being. Even though Sawyer and I had never talked about this spot, of course she’d know exactly where it was.

She stood in front of the car door defiantly, arms over her chest, and I clearly understood the message, even from this distance – ‘you want this, you’ll have to go through me to get it.’ I revved the engine, hoping she would move. She didn’t, she didn’t even flinch. I did it again, letting the car surge forward a few feet. Nothing. She didn’t even react. Well, maybe she did lift her chin higher. She wasn’t going to budge on this.

I cursed and slammed my hand on the wheel. She was ruining everything! She’d never let me down before, why was she doing it now? I glanced at her corsage still hanging from the rearview mirror. Where before, I’d seen the broken petals as symbolic of our horrid night at the dance, now they seemed to mock my desperation. Gritting my jaw, committing myself to the action, I revved the car and slammed on the gas. I hated to take her with me, but I had to do this, I couldn’t stop myself.

The car propelled forward, the rain smacking the windshield forcefully. She still didn’t move. I was going to plow right into her. I imagined the car slicing her in two and tears stung my eyes. I imagined the life leaving her body and I felt a sob rise. The haunting lyrics of living through the pain played on through the car’s speakers, searing me. The pleasing scent of lemons always present in Sawyer’s car, choked me. I loved her…I couldn’t kill her.

I knew to not slam on the brakes in this downpour, so I gently eased them down, the car slowly responding. I was still going too fast to stop in time from hitting her though, so I turned the wheel, heading for the edge of the road. The car hit the gravel and I jerked the brakes down, spinning a bit on the loose rocks, but stopping without sliding.

My heart racing at what I’d nearly committed to doing, I cursed loudly and slammed my hand against the wheel repeatedly again. I looked out the window at Sawyer on the other side of the street, still standing in front of my mother’s car, watching me. Her eyes were wide and she was ghastly pale, shaking near uncontrollably. She’d thought I wasn’t going to stop. And she still hadn’t been going to move. If I was going…she was going.

I jerked open my door, angry that she’d throw her life away for me, and slammed it shut behind me. She straightened at my approach, dropping her hands to her sides, fists clenched for a fight. I shook my head as I walked right up to her, the rain drenching me, running down my face.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing!"

Her eyes narrowed as she glared at me, the gray depths matching the stormy clouds above. "What am I doing?" She thrust a finger into my chest. "What the hell are you doing?"

I irritably batted her finger away, frustration rising in me. I needed to do this. I needed to do it now…while I could. "Get out of the way, Sawyer!"

She crossed her hands over her chest again, thrusting her chin out at me. "No! This is insane, Lucas! I’m not just going to let you do this!"

I threw my hands into my wet hair, feeling like I wanted to yank it out of my scalp in my irritation. She was messing up everything! And I’d been so close. "Ahhh! It’s already done!" I jerked my hand over to the railing, indicating the ravine where my dead body should already be lying. "This is what was supposed to happen. I’m just fixing an error!"

She shoved her hands into my chest, knocking me back a step. Her face got right into mine, fiery and frightened. "Fixing an error? You lived for a reason, Lucas!"

I threw my hands out to the sides, water droplets flying from my hands and smashing into the droplets falling from the sky. The violence in the air around me only added to my conviction – today was a day for destruction. "No! There is no reason!" None to stay alive, that is, I had plenty of reasons to stop.

Sawyer, her face paler than I’d ever seen, stepped forward and grabbed my cheeks. Fear outweighed the fury in her voice as she spoke over the pounding rain. "This isn’t the way."

I shook my head in her hands, my own anger ebbing. "It has to be. I can’t move forward, I can’t go back…this is it for me." My eyes flicked over to the ravine again, hoping she’d understand, hoping I understood.

She shifted my head back to her, when I started to stare longingly at the point of impact I so wished to meet up with. "No! You have to stay here. It will get better." Her eyes searched mine frantically as she swallowed and worried her lip, marked with beads of water. "Please, believe me."

I shrugged and shook my head again, pulling her hands from my face. They seemed so small and fragile at the moment, and I wished she hadn’t come out to witness this. It’d be better for her if she’d found out after the fact.

"I remember everything, Sawyer, and it’s killing me. I wish I could forget! I’d do anything to forget. I remember the rain, I remember losing control. I remember slamming into that guard rail and going right through it. I remember everyone screaming and then I remember…silence….and blood. So much blood. How do I forget that? How do I possibly forget that? How do I move on?" I took a step back from her, staring at the guard rail again. "How does any of that get better?"

She let out a soft sob and I turned my eyes back to her. I so wished she hadn’t come. "Please, Luc! I don’t know how, but you have to find a way!"

I put my hands up to my chest. "But that’s just it – I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want to go on. I’m done!"

She threw herself at my body, her hands wrapping around my waist, her wet hair sticking to my arms, like tethers, trying to bind me to this world. "No, you have to stay. I demand you stay!" I couldn’t help but to note the similarities between her words and the words I’d spouted at Lillian. It wouldn’t work for her, anymore than it had worked for me though. It was too late.

I tried to push her off of me, but she clawed and pulled in a ferocious attempt to stay attached to my body. We struggled with each other, until both of us were panting from the exertion, the rain never stopping its relentless soaking.

Eventually, I managed to firmly grab onto both of her wrists and hold them in front of me. Her eyes begged me as surely as her voice. "Please, you have to deal with the pain – we all do!"

Exhausted and frustrated at the physical and emotional battle I hadn’t been prepared for, I snapped back, "What the hell do you know about pain, Sawyer?"

Her eyes hardened and she gave me a glare that would have sent any other boy heading for cover. I matched her look though, not backing down from this fight, not when what I wanted was so close to me, just a few yards over her shoulder.

Without a word, she twisted her wrists in my grasp and shoved her arms forward. Her clothes and skin were so wet that the fabric of her long sleeves bunched up around my fingers, the material sliding up her arms to her elbows. I looked down, confused…and then I stopped and stared, my mouth wide open.

"I may not understand exactly what you feel, Lucas, but I understand pain!"

I couldn’t answer her; I was still staring at her arms. When she’d twisted them in my grasp, she’d turned her palms up to me. When she’d shoved her arms forward, my grasp on her shirt had exposed her inner arms. And for the first time, I completely understood why Sawyer always dressed in long-sleeved clothes. I remembered back to her habit of unconsciously playing with her long sleeves, and thought that maybe that wasn’t an unconscious habit after all…maybe that was a reminder. A reminder, of the thick, three inch long scars running vertically down each wrist.

I relaxed my hold on her and ran a thumb down each telltale mark. Her arms visibly pulled away, but I had enough of a grasp on her, to not let her keep hiding herself from me anymore. I thought back to her panicked look when Ms. Reynolds had been holding her wrist, and thought that this was something she probably hid from everyone.

My own pain momentarily forgotten, I looked back up to her tear and rain streaked face. "What did you do, Sawyer?" I whispered.

She shook her head remorsefully. "Something so stupid…I can hardly believe it sometimes." We both relaxed our positions until I was holding her fingers, lacing them with mine. "After that jerk of a guy used me…I couldn’t deal. One night, sitting home alone, I just decided enough was enough…my life would never get better. I’d never love like that again and nothing but pain awaited me." She shrugged as her eyes flicked between mine. "I didn’t want to live another day in that agony, and I couldn’t see a way out of it. I busted into my dad’s liquor cabinet, busted into my mom’s medicine cabinet, and started chasing sleeping pills with whiskey shots."

Her eyes lost focus and looked through me, back into her past. I gripped her fingers tight as she continued with her nightmare. "When that didn’t work fast enough for me…I found a box knife in the garage. I sat on the floor and sliced each arm." Her gaze returned to mine. "I didn’t even think about it…I didn’t even feel it." Her lip twisted wryly. "I gave myself a trio of death…one of which was sure to claim me."

She blinked and shook her head, her voice starting to waver. "My parents came home, sometime after I passed out, and found me…bleeding all over their garage." She sniffed and heavy tears ran down her already wet cheeks. "They barely got there in time. A few more minutes…" She sighed and shook her head. "That’s why they don’t give me much leeway now, why they moved us to the middle of nowhere. They’re scared I’ll try that again."

She dropped one of my hands and brushed the tears and rain off my cheek, mixing them into my skin as she softly stroked me while she continued. "But I’d never, ever try that again. Because I see now…that things do get better." She stepped closer to me so that our bodies were touching. I vaguely noticed that the rain was letting up considerably, only a few droplets splashing on her cheeks and black hair as she lovingly gazed up at me. "I see that, because of you, Lucas…because I fell in love with you."

She leaned up and brushed her lips against mine. I felt the crushing grief enter me as her lips touched mine. Grief that maybe I couldn’t go through with this…grief that maybe I’d have to endure this nonstop pain even longer. I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine another day feeling this way. A sob escaped me as our mouths moved together.