Four Teens √

MASON

I'm the kind of boy mother's tell their kids to stay away from. The kind that leaves destruction in his wake. The kind that leaves girls swooning and falling on a trail behind. But if you ask me, I'd say that I'm just a fourteen year old boy exploring the ways of the world, trying to grab all it has to offer. I don't see any crime in that.

No. There's no past heartbreak or child abuse. My past is as good as good can be. Not that I have much of a past, being fourteen and all.

My parents seem to think I'm going through a rebellious phase. Maybe that's why instead of going to church for the routine New year's eve prayer, I'm in my best friends house playing a soccer video game on his playboy.

He's the only black boy in school that I roll with. I have my reasons, and they're pretty simple: He listens to me every time.

My plan is simple: To relax awhile as the year ends. I don't need church. I don't need God.

I know my parents might would try to look for me. Mom would fret and nag Dad. I don't want that. That's why I sent them a text that seemed to get them to enter their silver Lexus jeep to church. How do I know? My best friends house is opposite mine and I may or may not have watched them through the window.

I told them I was with my aunt. I knew she would cover for me. She had a rebellious streak in her teenage years, so she understands me way more than my parents.

After me and my best friend finished playing the video game, we decided to go see a movie in the cinema close by. It had always been our best friend goals. Going to see the movies without a girl would be refreshing for me.

As we crossed the road, a Red car drove across the road on high speed and I didn't see it coming. My best friend had gone ahead of me. But me, silly me with all my swagger and chill took it slow.

When the light got closer, it was already too late. 

It was like my life was set in slow motion and I could see the few moments that mattered to me in my fourteen years of life flash before my eyes.

The hit was fatal. I know that because I felt it.

Before everything went pitch black, my last thought was, I'll never get to drive a car.

I opened my eyes on a hospital bed, awakened by my mother's nerve wracking sobs and my Dad's whispered words of comfort, or maybe prayer, I couldn't really tell the difference. The pain was so unbearable for a teenager like me to handle. There were no fancy words to explain it. It was just pain - deep, dark pain.

After visiting hours were over and my parents had been long gone, I soaked my hospital bed with tears, and I prayed. I prayed for the first time in years, maybe even my life, and I asked God to let me live. Even if it was just for my Parents sake.

The calmness I felt after my little prayer gave me assurance and hope ad-mist my pain.

And as the New year morning dawned through the curtains. I promised God that I'd change. And I meant it, even as I inhaled the disinfectant smell and felt the pain, combined with the beeping in the cold, white hospital room.

I felt like I'd already even changed.