Sleep won’t come to me now though no matter how hard I chase it. I sigh before pushing myself up with my forearms so I’m now sitting up in my chair. I look up towards the wall ahead of me and feel tears prick behind my eyes as I catch sight of the picture that has been haunting me for— what? Two? Three? Yes, three weeks. Three weeks since he left. No, I remind myself. He was taken. I know if he had the choice he’d never have left me.
The picture is frozen in time on the night that he died. I remember that night so vividly—both the good and the bad—and I know any attempt at suppressing the memory would be futile. We’d spent that night as we would any other night, “riding the stars” he would call it.
Grayson was always the very upbeat, lively type of a person. So positive sometimes that he made you want to slap him and hug him at the same time. Whenever I was mad or sad about something he would pull up and take me for a ride in his beat up, old clunker of a car and a wide smile stretching across his face. Riding around with him was the only thing that could calm me down, and that night I was completely livid, and I could see him take a deep breath as I walked towards his car. He knew my moods like the back of his hand and in that moment he knew to tread lightly.
“Hurry up, Erin. It’s freezing out there,” he yelled through the window of his car. He only opened it to a crack as if opening it any more would make all the heat that he had accumulated in his car escape into the frozen air. I made a point of walking slower just to further annoy him. He thought that anyone being cold or God forbid freezing himself was positively ungodly.
I got the rise out of him that I craved. “Do not test my patience. I’ll leave you out there to freeze,” he said with mock seriousness. I could just make out the smile that always commanded his features through the foggy, condensation laden window.
“I’d like to see you try,” I answered, and he promptly revved the engine. I chuckled before rounding the car and swinging open the door on the passenger side of the car.
“You’re lucky I like you,” he said. “Being out in weather like this makes me think you have a death wish,” he smiled. I feel a pang at that comment made so offhandedly then only to mean so much more now.
I’m the reason he died. I’m the one that called and complained to him about a matter so trivial that I don’t even remember what it was now.
Even so, that was one of the best cruising rides we’d ever had together. Once I got over my petty feelings— mostly from the help of the boy, my best friend, that wouldn’t stop smiling at me even when I was trying to stay angry.
He complained in his own lighthearted way about the cold and groaned when the snow began to fall, but other than that no objections left his mouth and we rode on.
The stars were so bright, and I rolled the window down to get a better look, much to Grayson’s chagrin. I felt the wind whip across my face and laughed—really laughed harder and for longer than I’ve ever remembered.
“Ladies and gentleman she’s lost her mind,” Grayson yelled over the roar of the wind. I rolled my eyes but couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face. That night had been perfect and it was hard to imagine life could get any better than that. And it hadn’t, and it still hasn’t.
The snow— which had originally been falling in light swirls dusting the ground with its powdery color— began to fall in earnest. We couldn’t have cared less though. In the back of my mind I think of those two teens who didn’t have a care in the world and it’s hard to believe I was one of them. That girl seems so far away.
And now thinking back on it we should have been a little more worried. We should have cared that the snow began to obstruct his vision, but still he persevered.
“Close that window before we freeze to death,” he yelled, but he was still smiling.
“Yes sir,” I said saluting him before rolling my window back up.
“Have I done it?” He asked.
I furrowed my eyebrows, “done what?”
“Cheered up the forever sulky Erin Somers?”
I rolled my eyes before answering, “Yes another victory for Grayson the Great.”
“Grayson the Magnificent, you mean.”
We pulled up at a gas station eventually, and I waited in the car while he filled up the tank, but he didn’t get back in when I expected him to. I swung the car door open and hopped out eventually after my curiosity won out. I found him leaning on the side of the car staring up at the sky.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Aren’t you freezing?”
“I am, but I just wanted to look for a second.”
I smiled before reaching into the car and grabbing the camera he kept in the center console. “Take a picture. It’ll last longer,” I told him tossing the camera his way. He caught it before turning around fully and taking a picture of me. I tried to suppress the grin that threatened to take shape across my face.
“Stay there,” he said before jogging towards a woman on the other side of the gas station. He talked with her briefly gesturing towards his camera before coming back towards me the woman in tow. He handed her the camera and the next thing I knew he was standing beside me, wrapping his arms around me. One look at the goofy smile on his face made the uncontrollable laughter bubble up in my throat anew. Before I knew it we were both laughing trying to contain it long enough to take a decent picture.
I look up at that picture now. I pull it off the wall and just stare at it. We were so happy. He was so happy. I look at the mussed, windswept dark curls on his head, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the smile setting all his teeth on display, and I feel my throat close. A single tear trails down my face, and I close my eyes.
Once we composed ourselves after the picture Grayson retrieved his camera from the woman who was now smiling fondly at us. We hopped back into the car and once we were settled he turned to me, “I don’t think you know how great you are.”
“What?”
“You. You’re amazing,” he didn’t elaborate any more before starting the car up and starting out on the road again.
We drove for an indeterminate amount of time after that. Time seemed to stop moving once I felt the car slide off the road. We were driving down a hill when his car slid on a patch of ice. Once that happened all I remember is feeling my heart drop to the pit of my stomach and spinning, so much spinning.
I woke days later in the hospital with my parents standing over me sniveling quietly.
“What happened,” I asked my voice hoarse from disuse.
“You… and Grayson were in a car accident,” my mother gasped and the way her voice broke when she said Grayson’s name made my stomach churn.
I looked at her, panic rising inside of me. “Where is he?” I barely whispered.
“He’s gone sweetheart. I’m so sorry.” That was my father that time, I think. At that moment I didn’t care about anything, but his words and how they couldn’t be true. No. They couldn’t be true.
A day doesn’t go by where I don’t think about him. He should have lived. I would have died if it meant he could live. Why am I here? Why should I be allowed to live when he is dead?
I’m pulled from my reverie by a soft nock on my door. “Erin?”
I don’t answer, but the door opens anyway and when I look up my mother is staring down at me.
She looks at me and I know she can see it in my melancholic expression and my blotchy cheeks. She doesn’t say anything though. She leads me to my bed after prying the picture from my hands. By then I’m crying openly with no hope to conceal the fat, ugly tears pouring from my eyes, and I don’t care. I don’t care about anything right now, and it only makes sense that I look as bad on the outside as I feel on the inside.
My mother sits on the side of my bed letting me cry while she runs her fingers through my hair and makes gentle cooing noises like she is soothing an infant. Once I’ve cried myself empty I just lie there waiting for the tendrils of sleep to pull me under.
I wake some time later. I look about my room as if it is some foreign place before finally orienting myself. I stand and walk over towards the window on the wall across from my bed intent on closing the curtain when I catch sight of the snow falling earnestly from the sky. It must have begun to snow after I fell asleep and it has not let up at all. The ground is covered in a thick blanket of the stuff and the bright color of it seems to light up the night giving the illusion of early evening when, in fact, it is well into night.
I stand frozen to my spot as I watch the huge chunks fall clumsily from the sky. It hasn’t snowed since... I close my eyes before breathing deeply. I walk towards the door opening it slowly before stepping out into the hallway. I quietly pad down the hallway peeking in my parents’ room to find them sleeping soundly as I go.
When I make my way towards the front door I stand with my hand on the door knob for several moments before turning it. I pull the door open as soundlessly as I can manage and step out into the frozen air without so much as a hat to serve as a boundary to the frigid air.
For a while I just stand there not knowing what to do. I stretch out my hand and catch a few of the snowflakes in it and watch as they melt quickly into the lines of my palm.
I feel tears well up in my eyes anew before blinking them away.
“It’s just snow,” I whisper to myself.
And it is. It’s snow. It’s here. It’s real. I can feel it biting into my skin and it tethers me to reality.
No more ‘what ifs.’ What if I could have traded places with him? What if I never called him that day? What if he was here with me right now?
No. I can’t do that anymore. No matter how hard I want it to be it isn’t real.
“This is real,” I mutter, my lip quivering. My best friend is gone and it’s snowing again.
I remain outside for an indeterminate amount of time watching the snow fall to the earth. After a while I notice the sun peeking out from behind a few clouds ready to begin a new day.
That’s real too.
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