Claire's Song by Ashley King Page B

with each step I take towards my car and suddenly it feels like I’m chasing after Jamie instead of Ryder. Maybe I can make it in time. My hands are trembling as I shove my keys into the ignition and that familiar panic begins to creep over me again. Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to make it go away, to push Jamie out of my head, just for now, just because I can’t really take it much more. Lindy’s words still burn and I wonder if that’s what everyone else thinks. His parents didn’t think that, nor did his sister, although I can’t be positive since they sold their house and moved right after it happened. To them, Jamie never existed. To me, he was everything. An unhealthy amount of everything.
    Each breath hurts and becomes laborious. My chest feels like someone’s stabbing me and nothing can quiet the overall feeling that I’m losing it. I reach into my pocket for Ryder’s pick and it’s not there. Panicked even more, I just try to breathe slowly and back my car out of the driveway a little faster than intended. My parents would flip out if they knew I was driving during an attack and there was a small part of me, the responsible part that cared, that wondered if maybe I should just let Ryder go. But then Jamie, those gorgeous brown eyes, that perfectly messy black hair and calloused hands comes into view again and I know I have to do it. Concern for my own life does not even become a priority.
    I speed up because I can’t find Ryder’s beat up car. He couldn’t have gotten that far, not this quick. The October sun is starting to fall to its knees and kiss the trees. I look at the clock and know I haven’t much longer before I should turn around. I’ve never been good at driving at night and I’ve had a few accidents within the past few years, all at night. My hands are clammy around the steering wheel and the stabbing pain in my chest almost doubles me over, but I keep driving, desperately seeking Ryder. His eyes, they were so much like Jamie’s that final night. This cannot be my lot in life, to sit by and watch people take their lives for granted. This can’t be it!
    A small voice whispers, isn’t that what you’re doing ?
    The thought hits me just as the sky becomes a navy blanket, the car lights beginning to poke holes through it and blind me through the windshield. I can’t see anything and my heart speeds up, nearly pounding out of my chest.
    Squinting further and realizing I can’t see anything, I decide to turn around. Just as I do, a car horn blares. Blinding lights bleed through my car and I instinctively throw my car to the side of the road. My eyes are squeezed shut so tight, waiting for impact, for my last moments, to realize that small voice, that tiny voice was right. But the impact never comes. Just several more car horns and curse words as I sit on the shoulder.
    Tears begin to stream down my face and Jamie invades my mind. My therapist says that this is normal, to have these worries intensify when you’re tired. I’m more than tired physically. I’m tired mentally. I almost got killed trying to chase yet another boy who doesn’t want my help. Lindy’s ugly nickname, Black Widow, ripples through my head and the tears are coming faster, dripping down my nose, onto my shirt.
    “I’m sorry, Jamie,” I whisper between the sobs that rack my already tightened chest. “I’m sorry I wasn’t enough.”
    “But you were enough,” I hear Dr. Robinson say. We've gone round and round about the topic millions of times, but to no avail. “He left you a note. Don’t forget what he said in the note.”
    I try to recall the note, but I can’t. I read it once and even brought it to therapy, but I haven’t read it since. You’d think the words would be emblazoned in my mind, but I tried more than anything to forget them, to let his words fall away along with his body, deep down into oblivion.
    The speed of the cars flying by cause my own car to rock and shake until finally I pull my