I looked down as I thought about that. Did I want to go home? Had I punished myself enough for one day? I tried to imagine walking back into that building, walking past scores of people I'd once been friendly with who now, would barely look at me, walking past multiple reminders of the friends I'd lost...both the living ones and the dead ones.
My eyes swelled with more of those horrid tears and looking back up at her I could only say, "Yes."
She nodded as her brow scrunched further and her eyes flicked between mine. I still didn't know what she thought of me, but she was the only one showing me an ounce of friendship and compassion and greedily, I was going to take all I could from her before she was swept away from me too.
Wanting to take her hand again, but not wanting to disrupt her warmth from where she was snuggling in my jacket, I picked up my bag from where it had slipped off my shoulder when I'd embarrassingly heaved. I slung it over me and shoved my hands in my pockets. Simultaneously, we both started walking towards the student parking lot. Everyone was inside, filling their heads with vital pieces of information that they would surely need to make it out there in the "real" world, so we didn't run into anyone. Sawyer was quiet on the way there, which I appreciated. She seemed to have taken my earlier request for silence quite literally.
We approached an older looking Camaro and she slowed and unclipped her bag, removing it from across her chest, underneath my jacket. I smiled at the vintage car while she rummaged around inside the bag for the keys. The car was black with white racing stripes and had definitely seen better days, but it was still pretty cool. Darren loved Camaros and had always joked about pimping his Geo out with a flaming eagle on the front and a t-top in the roof. I closed my eyes as that remembered conversation flooded through me. He'd never get his Camaro now.
A light hand on my shoulder woke me and I looked over to see Sawyer, keys in hand, silently comforting me. God, how often had she done that this morning? I tried to smile, and walked over to the other side of the car, lightly shaking my head. She must think I'm a nut job. Maybe I was.
She unlocked her side and got in while I waited. This old car not having electric locks, she reached over the seat and unlocked my side. I got in and stretched out my six-two frame in the black leather, bucket seat. For being rundown looking on the outside, it was well kept on the inside, clean and shiny and lightly smelling of lemon. I smiled at a tiny disco ball hanging from the rear view mirror as she started the car, the growl from the engine the unmistakable purr of a muscle car.
She pulled out of the lot silently and I directed her to the general vicinity of my home. We lived off the main artery that led right to the school. All she had to do was keep going straight and right as town started to fall away, she'd hit our house, the last house before the small trace of city civilization stopped. Quite literally "where the sidewalk ends".
On the drive over, she bit her lip and looked to be barely containing her curiosity. She didn't seem like she was going to cave, but she was fidgeting in her seat and I'd imagine that if I were her, I'd have a bazillion questions for this odd boy beside her.
"Go ahead," I said quietly, finally breaking our silence.
Her words spilled out in a rush, like she'd barely been restraining them and once I'd given permission, she couldn't hold them back. "The accident everyone keeps mentioning, you were involved in that?" She looked over at me and her gray eyes suddenly looked very sorry that she couldn't contain her questions.
Keeping as calm a face as I could, I simply said, "Yes." In my head I prepared my answer for the question everyone asks...
"Oh...I'm so sorry. I heard that people died..." Her eyes went back to the road while I tensed, both at her words and where I knew the conversation was heading. Do I remember? Was I drunk?
She looked over at me with only her eyes and I felt the question coming. She bit her lip and I opened my mouth to give the answer. "Do you...are you okay with this?" Her hand flashed out to indicate her driving.
Not expecting her to ask that, my answer for the question I thought she'd ask spilled from my lips before I could stop it. "No."
She fully looked at me, startled and looking unsure what to do. The car slowed and she started to turn the wheel like she was going to pull over. I shook my head and started sputtering on my words. "No, no, that's not... I'm fine. God, I'm sorry." I looked over at her, her face looked hopelessly confused. It was sort of an adorable look. "I'm an idiot...this is fine. I'm fine."
She narrowed her eyes. "Why did you say no?" Turning back to the road, her speed increased to normal.
I exhaled heavily - because I'm a moron. "I didn't think... I wasn't expecting you to ask that. People always ask...something else."
"Oh," she said quietly. "What did you think I was going to ask?"
I sighed and looked out the window, the houses were getting farther apart; we were reaching the end of town and the end of this weird car ride. "If I remembered it." I whispered my words into the glass of the window beside me.
"Oh," was her quiet response. After a few moments of silence she said, "I wouldn't ask that." I looked back at her, surprised; most people were dying to know what I knew. Since I never talked about it, there was only speculation about the wreck, and most of that was wrong. She shrugged her shoulders as she looked at my face and then back out the window. "You either don't...which is fine, or you do...which must be horrible." She looked over at me again. "Either way...why would I want you to think about that awful moment again?" She scrunched her brow like she was angry. "I'm the idiot. I shouldn't have even brought it up." Her eyes turned back to the road. "Sorry."
I nearly laughed. She was sorry...for asking me about what everyone was surely whispering about today? I was the town gossip. I was so used to everyone trying to pry their nose into my business and my personal life that it was nearly astounding to me that one person on this earth, not only didn't want to know, but felt guilty for even bringing the topic up. I could have kissed her. I smiled genuinely and relaxed back into my seat.
"Don't worry about it. I did say you could ask." A tiny laugh did escape me then and she looked over at me oddly. I really must seem a mental case to her. We drove the rest of the way in a comfortable silence and I pointed at my house when we approached it. The house was nothing spectacular, a basic one-story, three bedroom rambler with fading blue paint and a mailbox that wouldn't ever stay completely closed.
She pulled into the empty driveway and stopped the car, but didn't turn it off. I looked over at her as I put my hand on the door. Her presence was so calming to me I was almost reluctant to give it up. Being alone right now, while better than being at school, wasn't exactly going to be an easy thing - I had too many ghosts in my head today.
"Do you..." I pointed again to the house, indicating the white door with three tiny windows inlaid at the top of it. "Do you want to come in?"
She looked me over with a tiny smile on her lips, her hands never coming off the steering wheel. She seemed about to fully smile and I thought for sure she'd say yes and move to shut the car off, but instead her near smile turned into a frown and she shook her head lightly, her pig tails swishing adorably. "No, I can't."
I frowned then too and noticing my expression she quickly added, "Don't get me wrong, I wish I could, but my parents..." she rolled her eyes and sighed, "they're sort of on the rampage and they'd have my ass if I skipped school today." She gave me a wry look. "I'm sort of on probation."
"Oh," I said quietly. I was curious why, but one thing that I'd learned over the past few months was not to pry. If she wanted to say more, she would. I didn't need to force her to. She bit her lip as she watched me, almost seeming worried that I would ask. She visibly relaxed when I shrugged and said, "Well, thank you for the ride." I looked down and shook my head. "And for not giving me too much crap over flipping out."
I looked back up at her when I felt her hand on my shoulder. It was small, but warm, and that warmth seeped into my skin through my light t-shirt. "It's alright. You seemed to be having quite a morning." Her hand drifted down my arm to touch my hand, the warmth following it. "People don't seem to like you too much..." She was quiet when she said that and it seemed more a casual observance than an outright question. She'd been so nice to me today that I felt the need to answer it though.
"They don't...they blame me." I looked out the window and my hand tightened on the door handle. "They think I got behind the wheel with my friends while I was out of my mind drunk, and then drove recklessly, killing them all. They think I forced them into the car, forced them to ride with me. They practically think I'm a monster."
My voice had turned hard and rough in my sudden anger. No one understood what happened. None of them at that school believed me when I said I was sober. None of them. Sawyer gasped beside me in a way that almost sounded pained. I turned to look at her and clearly saw the pain in her features. I was confused for a moment until her other hand came up and forcibly relaxed the grip I had on the hand that had been resting on mine earlier. I flinched and retracted it. Somewhere in my heated speech, I must have clenched her hand...hard. I'd hurt her.
"Sorry," I muttered.
She laughed a little and rubbed out her palm. "It's alright."
Her laughter loosened my sudden anger and I added, "That's not what happened. I did lose control...but that's not what happened." This was the closest I'd come to admitting to anyone that I remembered. Sure, I told everyone that I hadn't been drinking at the party, but the actual wreck? I glossed over that with feigned amnesia.
She stopped laughing and cocked her head while she regarded me. The silence in the car seemed to thicken and swirl around us, but it wasn't oppressive or clingy. Like her hand, it was warm and comforting. I still held my breath though. I could see the debate in her eyes; she was judging my character based on all she'd seen and heard, and was deciding in this moment, if I was guilty of the crime the others had already convicted me of.
Finally she opened her mouth to speak, and my body tensed in preparation for her condemnation. It had been so nice to have someone who looked at me differently. I dropped my head as her speech finally made it passed her lips. "I believe you," was all she said.
I slumped my shoulders until what she'd said registered, then my head shot up and my surprised face looked over her serene one. "You believe me...why?" No one else did, people who had known me for years, grown up with me. Why would this complete stranger believe me, when they didn't?
That faint smile lit her face again. "I've gotten to be a pretty good judge of character and..." she shrugged, "I think you've got a pretty good one. If you say it didn't happen the way people gossip about, then I believe you. I believe it was just an accident."
I stared back at her, speechless. I felt my eyes watering and worked on controlling back the stubborn tears. Just an accident. It sounded so simple that way. Yes, I suppose in the very simplest of terms, it was just an accident, an accident that could have happened to anyone that night. Accidents do happen...did happen. But it happened to me and that changes things. It had happened to me and my friends were dead because of it. That was all that mattered. While it would be nice if the town believed me and while it was exceptionally nice that Sawyer did believe me...truly it was irrelevant. Drunk or not, sober or not, none of that really mattered...they were still dead. That was my truth.