Off To Forever

Prologue

"Come on just drink it you big baby." Carter mocks. Zayden Phillips sits across from her with his eyes blind folded and hand on a glass cup filled with whatever Carter decided to put in it.

"I don't know." He says, "There could be Vodka in here." He shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

Carter crosses her arms, "Just because my parents are drunks doesn't mean they just leave their drinks lying around. If they did I wouldn't be that irresponsible Zayden!"

"Yeah your right." Zayden couldn't help but think back to all the times when Carter would come running over to his house in tears because her parents. They were always drunk and they would constantly beat her. So every night she was over there, lying in his bed beside him, she would whisper to no one in particular, "Just take me to forever." He has been trying to do that ever since. "Zayden are you even listening?!" she exclaims.

"No, I'm sorry what did you say?"

She does a girly giggle despite us being 13. "I SAID, you better start drinking before I pour it down your pants."

He cracks his knuckles, a habit he got from her, and finally agrees to drink it. Carter can't sit still as he lifts the glass up and chugs the whole thing. "Now guess."

Zayden racks his mind of possible things that could be in the drink. After a while he says, "Milk, orange juice, peanut butter, Jell-O, a steam of broccoli, two cracked eggs, and a hint of salt." He tears his blind fold off to see all of those ingredients laid out on the kitchen island and Carter staring at him with a smug smile.

"Very good, but your forgetting something." He sucks on his tongue for any leftover flavor.

"Ew, please tell me there weren't any mushroom in it?" A look of pure disgust covers his face.

She stand up and starts frantically clapping her hands, "Of course there was! I love mushrooms." Carter pushes her red hair behind her ears while walking over to Zayden. She wraps her arms around him, something she always does, and his around her. "You're my best friend Zayden."

Before he could even get one word out he felt a sharp pain in his head. So sharp that he flung Carter away and fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Blinding flashes covered his eyes, "This is what it feels like to die." He thought, "Oh God, Carter's drink has killed me." He starts clawing at his hair, trying to make the echoing ghost go away. Just beneath his screaming he could hear Carter yelling for his parents and also something about his nose bleeding.

With the strength he has left in him, Zayden feels right under his nose and checks for blood. There is a lot of it. "SOME ONE HELP ME I'M DYING!" Is all he screamed until his parents finally arrived. He hadn't noticed before that Carter has been holding his hand the entire time, but now he can feel the coolness of her touch. In between flashes he could see the tears dropping from her face, he wanted nothing more than to wipe them away and tell her it will be okay.

"I'm so sorry. It's all my fault." She kept whimpering. Zayden couldn't make any words out for his tongue felt heavy. His moms soothing voice took over, instead of Carters, and was spitting out some words that sounded somewhat encouraging.

It wasn't until he could make out the ambulance in the driveway that he realized he must really be dying. Once inside the vehicle the paramedics close the doors behind his mom, who is the only one who has gotten in. His mother explained that Carter would be coming to the hospital with dad and everything will be fine. "Really is anything ever fine after these things happen?" he thought.

Zayden felt the ignition start and he couldn't help but look out the back windows just to see if she was there. And she was. Her red hair plastered to her face by tears and her blue eyes wild and crazy. "I'm so sorry." She kept repeating. "Please don't leave me."

He felt his mom push a strand of his shaggy brown hair out of his face.

Zayden Phillips smiled for the first time since the pain started. Carter made eye contact with him and he spoke what he felt. He couldn't had been more honest when he said, "I will never leave you Carter. Never in forever."

<>

Carter Etse stood on the bumper of an old beaten up ambulance as her best friend laid in the back potentially dying because of her. As Zayden says he will never leave her, Carter couldn't help but bang against the doors. "NO! LET ME IN! LET ME IN!" She screamed.

Mr. Phillips wraps his arms around Carters waist and hoists her off the truck. She kicks and punches but he still doesn't let go. After the ambulance is clearly out of sight he sets her down gently. "Now Pandora,"

"It's Carter." She hates it when people call her Pandora.

"I'm sorry, Carter, as I was saying, I will pick you up at your house at 5 to go see Zayden so be ready." He turns his back and starts walking back into the house.

"Home?" she thinks, "The prison that holds me and my drunken-abusive parents captive?" With a sigh Carter makes her way to her houses back steps and sits down with a thud. How could she possibly be so stupid? Zayden and she were supposed to go to a high class private school next week and now he's in the hospital. What are they going to do now?

A loud crash from behind the screen door sends Carter jumping away. "Where the hell is all the Vodka?" The echoing sound of her dad's voice booms.

Carter's mind goes to this morning when she took all the Vodka and other mistreated objects and buried them in the backyard. The screen door is slammed open and he dad stands there with an empty glass bottle in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. "Do you know where the damn Vodka is?" he asks.

Mr. Etse wears worn down overalls over a green top. His boots are full of mud and are two sizes too small. The blueness of his eyes remind Carter of a spring lake and his hair is a rusty old gray.

She shakes her head frantically. "No papa I don't." In two quick steps he surges forward and grabs Carter by the throat.

"Don't lie to me you ungrateful little bitch." He snarled. When Carter didn't say anything he started shaking her around like a doll. "I'm going to ask you one more time. Where. Is. The. Vodka?"

Spit sprays from his mouth and the stench of smoke and alcohol radiates onto her face. She would not let her guard down. "I have no idea." Mr. Etse squeezes harder on her throat and throws her to the ground. While she tries to squirm away he kicks her in the ribs.

A cry escapes her body, anger purifies her veins. She shoots her head around to face him. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she screams, "Why can't you just die already?" He brings his hand up in a striking position. Carter turns her face away, but she feels no pain, no strike, and no abuse.

She looks to find her dad storming back into the house. Carter takes the opportunity. Holding her side, she forces herself up and over to the Phillips house.

She didn't want to disrupt Mr. Phillips so early, so she sat on the porch steps. Carter's eyes couldn't help but wonder down the street to where the ambulance was last saw driving away into the sun not too long ago. "I'm so sorry Zayden." She said aloud.

Her mind dawns upon the shocking reality that she could have been the reason he was in the hospital and that she could have been the one that killed her best friend as well.

{ thank you everyone who's reading my story and I hope you enjoyed the prologue! Don't worry chapter one will come soon! }