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At least for a time anyway.
This song is way too fitting right now though.
I turn the volume up even louder, trying to push through my fear and anger as I sing it out. Cole ends up tapping against the dash in time to the drums of the song and I hear Sawyer singing along too.
Music is one thing that has always helped us all. Our own personal escape. Our own little rebellion against the lives set out before us.
It draws to a close before I’m ready, so I put in on repeat and Brian Burkeiser aptly sings, "everything is not o’fucking kay."
My phone starts to ring mid-song, and I glance at it in its cradle, shocked to see Briar’s name on my screen.
I hit the button on the steering wheel to answer the call, stopping the shrill ringtone.
Her sobs fill the car and it's like every single one of us just got hit by the lightning outside. Fear runs through me, freezing my black heart.
"Briar?" I call out, the others staying deathly silent. The sound of the thunder echoes down the line, drawing out her sobs, so I call out her name again, but she still doesn’t respond.
"Fuck," I shout, hitting the steering wheel. "Briar! What the fuck is going on? Where are you?"
Her sobs continue, but then her voice comes through the speakers so fucking quietly I almost miss it. "Travis, I think I killed him. I think he’s dead."
CHAPTERTWO
BRIAR
There isn’t another soul around. Here in this darkness, it’s just me and what I’ve done.
My fingers are numb, and I can’t even really feel the rain drops on my face anymore.
I wonder if this is what life always had in store for me.
There is poetry in finding an ending in something that you thought so magical, so beautiful, that brought you so much joy.
Lying in the wet mud, the weight of his body against mine, I can barely breathe. I don’t know if it’s panic for what I did, or for what he did, or even just the weight of him… but filling my lungs with air feels impossible.
"BRIAR!"
I blink in the rain and realize Travis is still on the phone, screaming at me.
"Briar, where the fuck are you?"
"Behind the library," I manage as my teeth start to chatter. A storm in November is a rare thing of beauty, but I didn’t intend to be out here this long, and I can’t move.
Oh God, I’m going to die.
"We’re coming, Briar." That voice doesn’t belong to Travis. It’s too soft. Too kind.
He must be with the others.
He would never speak to me with such fear laced in his words.
"I don’t know who’s dead, she didn’t say." The voice filters down the line, but it sounds so far away.
My eyes flutter closed, and I find refuge in the darkness. It’s like all the fear has left me, and the calm that I usually associate with darkness finds me. The sounds of the storm fill my senses as the weight of his body slowly crushes me.
"Briar!" The shouts of my name reach me and I open my eyes, noticing the streams of light in the distance.
I open my mouth to call out, but it’s all I can do to breathe. It’s like my body is shutting down after everything. I never considered how heavy a dead body is, but now I know that it’s absolutely crushing.
