Face in the Crowd: Prologue

That fight. That damn fight. I wish I could go back in time and just tell a teacher and not fight Randy and Josh in the cafeteria. Now, please understand, I’d still protect Sophie in a heartbeat. I just wish my parents hadn’t gotten in the car that day.

Now, as I watch both of their closed caskets slowly being lowered into the dark earth, all I can think about is what their last moments must’ve been like. What terror must’ve filled their eyes as they watched that 18-wheeler barreling towards them at supersonic speed. The feeling of that battering ram of a truck crashing into my father and mother’s car, their petrified screams, the eerie screech of tires…the blast of the sputtering engine.

Then, silence.

In that quick instant, all I’ve ever known was crushed, snatched right out from under my fingertips. Now, a single tear falls from my face as my parents’ coffins land with a final thud, settling into a place they shall lie forever. The two white roses land softly on the mahogany caskets which are quickly buried by the sentimental soil that I toss…one step further away from me, and one step closer to being hidden from the world forever.

My lip trembles as I talk to them, knowing they won’t answer back. “M-mommy, D-Daddy…please don’t be mad at me. If I’d known that that truck would’ve run into you, I wouldn’t have gotten in that fight. I-I don’t know what to do now…they’re taking me to a foster home. No one else is here to take me home, so they’re taking me there until either someone comes t-to claim me, or I get adopted. Pl-please, don’t hate me! I d-didn’t know what wa-as gonn-a happen. I love you guys, forever and a d-day.”

The tears are falling like acid rain, and the lump in my throat isn’t going anywhere. My hands are shaking as I turn away from my parents and slowly make my way up the steep hill away from their graves. The woman from the foster home is waiting by a car with tinted windows, and she silently opens the backseat passenger door for me. I slide in without so much as an acknowledgment of her sad smile.

She quickly walks around the hood, climbs in, and starts the small car which purrs to life. As we pull away from the hill and make our way down the gravel road that snakes through the cemetery, I can’t help but wish that the same truck will come for me to finish us all off. That way I don’t have to live with this stranger.

I imagine seeing my parents now, hopefully with open arms as I run towards them. But then I remember: I am a murderer. I am the one that put them on the road that cloudy afternoon. I am the one that put them at that intersection. I put them in the deadly path of the truck. I killed them.

I, not the truck, killed the only people I have ever loved, and now I must live with that. I must choke it down each morning I awake, and swallow it back down each night I sleep so that I may start the painful process all over again in a few hours.

The tears continue to fall as we silently drive down the road towards my new life. A life that I am in no way ready to face. I don’t want to sleep in a different room, live in another house, eat in a different dining room. I want my old life back.

But my old life is like a distant memory at this point, like something you read about in fantasy stories; something that just doesn’t exist and never will. Something that can only live in my imagination, and that in itself frightens the hell out of me.

As we go over a bump in the road, I can hear my entire life that is packed up in the trunk rattle before settling back into place. Having already packed everything that I own, and a few things that symbolize both of my parents, I’ve said goodbye to Sophie. Another onslaught of tears push through at the thought of leaving my only friend behind me.

Sophie and I. Friends since kindergarten.

Our relationship began when someone stole the crayon she was using, and I told the person to give it back to her. We had been inseparable since then, with me protecting her and her being the shoulder I needed when something bad happened. We balanced each other…and because of a single fight where I was protecting her from two boys bullying her, I’ve lost everything. I wouldn’t change the fact that I protected her from the guys in our grade, I just wish that it would’ve happened at a different time, something–anything– that would’ve kept the accident from happening.

I can’t change the past, I think as we roll up to the entrance of a modest-looking home that sits in the middle of a quaint subdivision. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all…