Collateral Damage

One

The all too familiar feelings of nausea, shakiness, chest pain, and panic began to set in as the sound of my engine slowly fizzled out and my car rolled to a stop. Darkness surrounded me, and the lack of other users of the country road left me feeling both relieved and terrified. Relieved, because the likelihood of someone hitting me, or worse, murdering me, was definitely lowered.

Well, not really I guess. I guess if someone were to murder me they wouldn't do it with a million cars flying by, they would want a dark secluded road like the one I was on. I tried to get myself to stop thinking like that, but there's no use. I've always been like that- I've always struggled with anxiety.

But, anyway where was I? Oh yeah, I was relieved and terrified. So I was originally terrified because I don't know how to fix cars, and my phone was dead. So I had no way of getting in touch with someone to repair my car, and I hadn't seen a service station for miles.

I decided to deal with this problem as I deal with most: to try to sleep. To try to calm my pounding heart, to try to steady my shaking body. After a long time of battling my body and my mind, my eyes began to flutter shut and my mind began to quiet down, and I fell asleep.

I shot up and my heart began to leap put of my chest again as soon as I heard a knock on my window. It was that time where its getting lighter out, but the sun hasn't quite made its way out yet.

As soon as my eyes opened, they immediately locked with the most beautiful shade of blue I had ever seen, and my worrisome thoughts quieted down for a moment as my soul was sucked into the black holes in that beautiful boy's face.

"You look like you need some help, miss." His tousled blonde hair fought with the slight breeze and fell in his eyes. He pushed it back and smiled at me, and I remembered that normal social protocol required me to answer.

"Umm, well yeah. But unless you're a mechanic, I don't think you can give me the kind of help I need." Millions of stories rang in my mind of charismatic killers that lure in their pray with those damn beautiful eyes. Killers of the body, the mind, and worst of them all: the heart. Don't unlock the door, Em. Do not unlock the door.

He placed his arm on the roof of my car and used it to support his body as he leaned in closer to my window, probably so I could hear him better through my sealed window and locked door. "Well I reckon I ain't no mechanic, but there is one a few miles back. I can give you a lift to get there, if you'd like."

His voice brought back memories of long, hot summers spent on my grandmother's farm in the middle of Georgia. The words rolled off his tongue like a sweet melody that begged to be heard. I tried to ration with my smitten self. He could be a lion disguised as a sheep. As I unlocked my door and pushed it open, I decided that even if he is, he's the most beautiful and majestic damn lion in the jungle and I'd forever regret it if I didn't take him up on his offer.

Now i'm not dumb, and i'm not naive. I know this was stupid and I know this was dangerous. But if you looked in those eyes, if you saw the kindness that filled them and the sincerity behind his words, you would have followed that boy off a cliff. And that is just what I did.