All your dreams will come to life. So will all your nightmares. ― After narrowly surviving the car crash that killed his best friend, Andrew King is left to grapple with his loss and nurse a traumatic brain injury. With his injury comes a crippl...
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ANDREW BRACED HIMSELF against the stair railing, his head swimming with sensory overload. There was the sticky press of gyrating bodies brushing past and the warm stench of pot. In his stomach he could feel the boom of the bass and the beginnings of a storm, tight knots forming in his gut. His unease intensified each time his phone screen lit up with a new message. Andrew groaned, letting his perspiration slick head fall back against the wall.
He told himself not to pay attention to them, but he read every message as it came in. He told himself not to care, but he did.
The rough time he had in middle school, wading through his parent's divorce and his mother's subsequent remarriage, was not lost on him. It was something Andrew remembered everyday and in vivid detail. The only good to have come out of that phase of his life was the introduction of his stepsister Talia into their household. Up until that point, Andrew didn't have a sibling, so all the pain of a fractured and unhealthy family life was his to bear alone. But now, graduating from high school and leaving that street in Maryland behind, Andrew could shift all his burdens onto Talia and leave her to be the object of his family's dysfunction.
It wasn't like he had known her long. Three years was not enough time to forge a real kinship. And she wasn't really his sister, anyway.
His phone chimed to alert him of a new message.
Then why did he care so much?
Andrew squinted into his phone screen to read the 14th message he'd gotten from Talia in the past hour.
I don't know how long I can do this. I can't take living in this house anymore.
He let his eyes drift close, jaw clenching to the beat of the music. It was a dark, depressing thought but he couldn't keep it from echoing through his head, and it was louder than the roar of the speakers. He couldn't escape his family and the pain they brought with them. Even here at Alpha Kappa Alpha on a warm summer night, where he was supposed to be delirious with the joy of finishing his third year, he stood miserable with a twist in his gut. The same twist in his gut that never left him throughout middle school, one that was taut with violence and abandonment. A twist in his gut that he feared would never quite leave him.
Andrew looked down at his phone, still vibrating with life.
Please, Andrew. Help me get me away from here.
Andrew sighed before shutting his phone off.
He might never be able to escape them. But he would be damned if he wouldn't at least try.
So he downed shot after shot of cheap vodka until the thoughts of home finally left him. He ventured into the oscillating crowd where worries were gone, inhibitions were lost, and memories he would not remember tomorrow were made, all under the star speckled night sky.
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Elijah clung to Andrew, enjoying the piggyback ride down Greek street. He drunkenly hummed Dancing In The Moonlight to himself, face tilted up at the inky summer sky.
Andrew groaned, crouching to deposit Elijah back onto the grass. His legs were growing too wobbly to support his own body weight, let alone both of theirs.
The car beeped to life as they approached, and Andrew slumped into the driver's seat, the view of the street through the windshield swimming and doubling in his vision. He gripped the steering wheel, blinking rapidly and willing his eyes to focus. Elijah's humming was faltering from his place in the passenger's seat, his voice growing heavy with drowsiness.
Andrew took in a sharp breath. He looked down into his lap at his shut off phone, in silent debate with himself. To call for a ride, he had to turn it on and risk bringing Talia and that house in Maryland to the forefront of his mind after he had spent all night getting shitfaced enough to drown them out.
He turned to look at Elijah beside him, out cold.
We're just going across campus, he thought, revving the car to life. I'll go extra slow.
The car pulled off the curb and crawled through the late night streets, barren as everyone slept through their first night of summer break. The vacancy of the campus roads quieted his conscience and Andrew lowered his foot on the gas, propelling them through the night and closer and closer to home.
As deft and methodical as the Division I swimmer was, it only took a second of impairment. For them to lose the ability to go back home, where Elijah could crawl into bed with Frito and sleep off the liquor, and Andrew could drunkenly charm Janae into forgiving him. Where they could await a new day and continue their bright and unyielding lives. There was a second that separated them from that and catastrophe.
In that second Andrew's wrist would slip and the car would careen out of control. Twisting and weaving, tires squealing, it would finally find its home in a utility pole, the screech of metal against metal a song of heartbreak as it rang out in the quiet of the night. In the searing heat and jagged shards of ruin, Elijah would enjoy his final breaths, and Andrew would almost be able to finally escape: for good.
