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"I can't keep speeding like this. There are police cars everywhere," Chandler breathed out, referring to the flashing lights of deputies surrounding them and speeding past them and the rest of the other cars to get there.
"What's going on? Come on, you're worrying me... why are you crying?"
Rhiannon sat crumbled in a ball, staring down her trembling hands. She tried to control her shaking enough to speak, but when she raised her neck to look at him, the words tumbled out of her mouth in a stuttering mess, merging together and drifting spaces.
"Austin'satI-40, and there's awreck and... a-and hesawGarrettbutGarrett is... dead. He'sdeadhesays. B-bodybag. They'retakingGarrett away in abodybag."
Chandler's lips parted and he sat there driving. He let the news make an incision in his veins and soon he began to shake as well. Garrett was someone he barely knew. Someone he barely saw, but when he saw him he was alive. Reacting. Blood pumping through his veins and his chest involuntarily inhaling and exhaling breaths. His eyelids would move and he would blink and he would feel pain and his body would react to that pain. Like when Austin nearly beat him to a pulp. He felt that. Now he feels nothing. Now he is not his body and his body is just a cold, empty shell. Trash.
Chandler could not speak. He couldn't cry either. He wasn't sad. It was just an eerie shock. People around you can die with the snap of fingers and you aren't there to feel it like they are. You can't ask them how it feels to die because they're dead.
They arrived at I-40 and parallel parked to the side of the road behind where Austin had parked.
They both mustered the bit of strength they had left in their weak, aching bones to push open their doors.
Chandler acted as if he were making the smart move and stood back, when really, his legs wouldn't allow him to move because he was so scared. Rhiannon's feet hit the soft grass and her knees shook. They were out of control, sending her to the ground in an ungraceful flop. She picked herself back up and tasted the blood on her lip. Prickles of pain shot up through her body like heroin.
Austin's fluffy dirty blonde curls were hidden in the car, visible through the window. She used that as motivation to force her legs to move firmly and carry her to him.
She ripped his car door open and saw him in shambles. He stared back up at her with a cry for help. Ghostly marks of his where his tears had fallen off his face littered his cheeks. The whites of his eyes matched the color of his tear ducts. His lips stood out as fairy floss pink compared to his whitewashed skin.
They both looked to be in the same state by now. They just stood there like a paused motion picture, her hands clutching the door handle and his hands intertwined with his own on his lap to stop them from shaking.
His hand brought itself up to her cheek to wipe a falling tear of her's with his thumb. He brushed her hair out of her eyes and tucked the piece behind her ear. Slow motion stopped, and everything quickened again. She crawled into his lap and sat there, draped around his body like a curtain. They hugged for what seemed like eternity, his hands gripping the small of her back and her fingers petting the warm curls at the nape of his neck.
He buried his head in her shoulder, feeling her heart beat and her lungs work to take in the air that they breathed. That was soothing music to his ringing ears. He liked hearing her live.
Tears and blood chapped her peach lips. They brushed against his neck to whisper in his ear.
"Where is Garrett's body?"
She began to sob harder when she was trying to force the word 'body' out of her mouth followed by Garrett's name. This wasn't real. It couldn't be.
His crying was more under control now, because he had began to weep earlier than she had. He had cried himself dry.
He grabbed her hips and propped her into the middle seat. He climbed out of the car and motioned to her that he was going to talk to paramedics. She gnawed at her fingernails and nodded in response.
Chandler had beat him there, having a conversation with one of the people in uniform. Chandler looked nearly as dead as Garrett was. A face without emotion and filled with terror and melancholy if you peeled back the layers of his eyes.
He cut off his conversation with the woman and walked over to Austin.
"They told his parents. They're on there way. Told them we were uh, that we know him. Knew him... um, anyways. We follow. To the hospital, I mean."
Austin bit at his cheek and tried to keep from breaking down into screams. In the corner of his eye he could see the bag through the window. It wanted to be seen. The black zipped up bag wants to haunt him. It's working.
"Chandler. Thank you."
Austin couldn't speak because his throat was so swollen, so he had to whisper. Chandler nodded and went to go see Rhiannon. Austin stayed back to tap the woman on the shoulder. She turned around to show her disappointed face. She looked overworked, the purple rings under her eyes standing out throughout the rest of her face. Her hair was pulled tight into a grey bun. Whisps fell out and floated around in the humid air.
"How did he die?" Austin whispered. He felt like a child, throwing her stressful questions. Her response wasn't as he exaggerated.
She acted like it was no sweat to answer his question, but made her voice soft.
"He was killed on impact. The air bag had a lot to do with it. His chest could not handle that much pressure at once. Technically, it crushed him... but why do you ask kid?"
He wet his lips and wandered his eyes back to the body bag.
"He is my best friend."
She nodded and immediately noticed the pain he was undergoing.
"Oh," she stuttered.
"I'm so sorry. Did you hear? You can meet the family at the hospital. We're about to make our way there with the boy,"
"Garrett. His name is Garrett." Austin defensively corrected her.
"Garrett. We're going to take Garrett so he can meet you guys there. I guess we will see you there sweetie."
She gave him a sympathetic pat on the back. The way she spoke to him was very maternal. She must've had a kid of her own.
She then left him hanging to climb into the car and drive away. He stared at the grass and studied how green it was. How green grass can be after a good rain. It was billowy and soft and beautiful. Dew slipped off the blades of it. He was trying to focus on the grass to take his mind off of this. It wasn't working. The jet black bag was laying in the bed of grass, only this time it was unzipped and you could see Garrett's cold, dead eyes. Austin blinked and the bag was gone. Just the boring floor.
"Austin?" Rhiannon tapped his shoulder and made him whip around to look back at her. She wasn't able to produce more tears anymore either. Chandler stood behind her and put a hand on Austin's shoulder.
"No offense buddy, but you look like shit." Chandler chuckled and made Austin smiled for a second. Then all of the weight was set back on his chest and his smile faded.
The pressure being put on his chest was enough to crush him. Just like how Garrett died.
The last words that he said to Garret ran through his mind. The sentence echoed, mimicking the exact way he had said it. Garrett's face in response to it.
"I hate you."
Surprisingly, his thoughts were muted momentarily when Rhiannon grabbed his hand and laced her small, warm fingers into his.
He looked at the shapes of her chipped nail polish and followed a trail up to her face.
She smiled. It was a fake smile. A weak one. Curling the corners of her lips slightly for him to let him know that she wanted him to take the pain in lighter doses. She stopped smiling and began to hurt all over again. He grasped her hand harder.
"Look, Rhiannon, go with him. You guys knew him much better than I did. I shouldn't go."
Chandler backed away, walking backwards to his car. He turned on his heels and unlocked his car with the remote on his keys.
"Chandler!" Austin shouted, making him look up from opening his car door.
"Come."
Chandler nodded in defeat before proceeding to climb in his car.
Austin and Rhiannon were in the car now. They both sat and breathed in a stuffy, exhausted silence. The atmosphere around them was nothing now. It's like it died down, and now nobody gives a shit. All of the paramedics slowly left, followed by policemen. They were dominoes being knocked out of interest one by one. Dean sat in the backseat of a cop car.
His personality was unrecognizable. He was crying one moment and angry at himself the next. Basically, he was as much of a mess as Austin and Rhiannon.
"Do you think Dean was drunk?" Rhiannon whimpered, breaking the ice. They saw the police car with Dean in it slowly drive off toward the station.
"...Of course."
Rhiannon followed Austin's gaze to the actual scene. Through all of the bent up metal, you could see a Jack Daniel's logo sticker cracked and dismembered in a pile of clear glass. The glass appeared thicker than the glass on a car window. The shards were larger too, some shaped and curved to resemble a bottle.
"Whiskey drinking piece of shit."
Austin slammed his fists on the wheel. Rhiannon flinched.
His breath hitched in giggle like noises, but when he looked at her she realized that he wasn't laughing. He was back to sobbing.
His tear ducts somehow regained the ability to water, because now he seemed to cry even harder than before. It set Rhiannon off again too, with no sentences being said and the only sounds being sniffles and sobs.
"It's coming true. My worst fear happened Austin. Someone we know is dead... and he's not coming back."
She said this expecting him to become the bigger person an comfort her, but instead, he took her words into long quiet consideration. He had his head turned opposite of her, taking in the horrible scenery. The wreck.
"I fucking hate myself Rhiannon." He said after a long quiet pause. She sniffled and wiped at her tears.
"No, Austin. Don't start-"
He turned around and gave her the most dead serious look he has ever given anyone.
"My last words to him were that I hate him. He died thinking that I hate him."
"Austin, my last words to him were 'fuck you'. I feel just as terrible. You know what? You don't hate him. And what if he's up there knowing that you don't? That you're sorry,"
"I don't even fucking know if I believe in God anymore!" He shouted over her. She let out a small gasp. Not at the fact that he questions religion- she was too by then. That he was getting so angry.
"It's ok. We all are right now. We're supposed to be confused-"
"I feel so alone," He cut her off.
"Ifeellike we will never behappy. I need him. I need totellhim that I don'thatehim... I can't. I can't do that now."
He slobbered and slurred his words. In a normal situation that wouldn't embarrassed him, but now he didn't care.
"I want to thank him for writing me those notes Austin. We all want to say at least one last thing to him-"
"I FUCKING WROTE THOSE. I FUCKING WROTE THEM."
She froze, watching his disgruntled face stare at her. He began screaming at her even louder.
"IT WAS ME. HE FUCKING TOLD ME TO WRITE YOU THINGS. DRAW YOU THINGS. FIND SOME WAY TO GIVE YOU THEM." He raised a bony finger for each thing Garrett had him do.
"I-I'm so sorry-"
"I MEAN'T EVERY GODDAMN THING I WROTE, RHIANNON." He continued to bellow.
She stopped crying and looked up at him. His eyebrows creased over his eyelids, but he was staring back at her. He calmed down his breathing and started the car, breaking the stare. He now had a chip in his shoulder. She didn't want to be the one to set him off anymore than he already was, so she held her head in her hands and thought.
They were the last to be on their way to the hospital. Austin was speeding almost the whole way there. His anger went down and he slowly had the urge to talk, but when he looked over at her, she seemed hurt. He understood that he needed to leave her alone.
"Austin," She mouthed, barely audible but talking in little squeaks.
He looked over at her and ran his fingers through his hair.
"Yeah?"
"Did you... did you really mean all of what you wrote?" She looked up to him and made a distraught face. She was hopeful that he did, not wanting to feel any more pain if he said that he didn't.
He slowly began to give her a few nods.
"Yeah. I did."
The car came to a stop when he parked in the hospital.
"So...are you ready-"
She craned her neck forward and connected her lips to his. He pulled her closer and grazed his hand over her cheek.
Her breath tasted like rosewater and mints. They both felt rushes of adrenaline coat their lips like paint. They pulled away and took in breaths like they were about to go underwater. Their noses touched, Austin playing with a chunk of her hair and beginning to braid it.
That didn't take bag the restriction they had to feel anything more than pain. The boulders seemed to sink deeper in their chests when they both looked at the sign for Mercy Hospital, now lit up in the orange sky. Dark clouds hovered over the building, clearing a path for the sun to shine down a pinkish light. Steam seemed part like the Red Sea, moving away from the sun and descending onto the dark concrete. The watery road was moist to the touch of their squeaky shoes. They began to walk hand in hand, the same morbid thought taking toll of their brains.
What a beautiful night to be dead.