The Girl in the Striped Bikini

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Kendal Bryce

　

　

Ever heard a story so terrifying, that you don’t even want to listen anymore? One that feels just as real to you as the person telling it? That’s what I’m feeling at this very moment. The pain I feel radiating off of Cale is almost tangible. I can feel it piercing through me like a knife.

The bad part of this whole thing is that he hasn’t even gotten to the bad part yet. I can feel it coming though. It’s this feeling of dread that I can feel building up in the pit of my stomach the deeper he gets into the story. I don’t even know how this story is going to end, but I know it won’t end well. The best way I know to describe the feeling is it’s like watching Titanic. You know the movie is going to end with the ship sinking and thousands of people dying, but you continue to watch it anyway with the false hope it won’t happen. But this is slightly different from that feeling. It’s close, but not exact. This feeling is a more personal one because it directly effects someone I care about.

Cale had gotten up to the part where him and Parker went to Brody’s party when he stopped talking mid sentence. His eyes, which had been focusing on mine for the longest time, fell to the floor. Looking away from me, he sucked in a jagged breath. Instinctively, I reached out and grabbed his hand. At my touch, I felt his whole body tense up, but he didn’t pull away. “Cale? It’s okay,” I said in a comforting voice.

At my words, he jerked his hand away. “No it’s not,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “It’s all my fault.”

“What‘s all your fault?” I asked quietly.

He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath before answering me. When they opened, his eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears. Seeing this, I didn’t expect him to be able to go on, but a second later, he spoke.

“His death,” he said in a shaky voice.

I held in a breath at his words. I wasn’t sure what to say.

“It’s all my fault…” he continued. “If I wasn’t so messed up, I would’ve been able to talk to that girl, and not make Parker leave that party early with me… He might still be alive if we had stayed.” His voice broke at that, and his head fell to his knees. Instead of cries though, I heard chokes and the sound of him gasping for air.

He was trying with everything in him to regain his composure. He didn’t want me to see him cry.

Closing my hand back over the hand he had only moments ago tore away, I pulled him towards me. “Cale, come here,” I said, and hugged him tightly.

I could feel a lump forming in my throat as he cried into my shoulder. Why did this have to happen to him? He is one of the sweetest guys I have ever met. Why did something so unthinkable have to happen to him? He doesn’t deserve this pain. No one does.

Holding onto him tighter, I silently wished I could take all of this pain away from him. “Cale,” I began, “I am so sorry that this happened to you. I can’t even begin to imagine what your going through. But I want you to know that…whatever happened to Parker was not your fault. You had no way of knowing.”

Pulling away from me, he sighed and wiped his eyes. “You know, everyone tries to tell me that, and I want to believe it, I really do. But I can’t. I know it’s not all my fault, but me making us leave put us in that situation. So it partly is.”

“You don’t have to tell me right now if you don’t want to, but what happened? How did he die?” I asked hesitantly.

“On the way back from the party, there was an accident,” he said in a low voice, barely loud enough for me to hear. “There was a downed stop sign at an intersection, and when we went through it Brody t-boned us. His truck hit Parkers car from the drivers side. He had been tipsy at the time.”