Prologue

I looked at the dark road before me not knowing where I would go. I just needed to get away and right now the farther the better.

 

Sure life didn’t always go as planned, an upset client, a late shipment, suspicious looking finances but I could manage those. Unfortunately, as I’d been forced to learn tonight some things were simply out of my control.

 

I pressed a bit more on the gas as I pulled onto the highway and headed out of the city. I’d grabbed some suitcases of my belongings before I left and didn’t know when I’d be back. I’d left my hometown years ago and didn’t look back. I’d planned to start a new life one that I had created, not one that was set in front me and I had done well for myself.

 

I had everything that a person could want and many people envied my life but if I had to stay for one more moment I’d suffocate. Sometimes I’d went to beach to stare out at the waves to calm down and help me think but this time I needed more than that. I needed to escape, for a while.

 

The beach couldn’t calm the quiet rage that boiled inside of me, tonight I was capable of doing anything, and staying at my house was not an option either.

 

Usually I prided myself on having an abundance of self-control but tonight it was only holding my anger back by frayed edges. There was too much at my house that had I stayed would have drove me to doing things I would normally never do.

 

The engine roared as I whipped around the other cars and applied more pressure to the gas pedal. I was tired of the lies that my life had become and too out of control to pretend tonight. There would be no more pretending but I didn’t know what to do to break what seemed like an inevitable cycle. It seemed impossible but I tried not to think of it now because right now I felt reckless like a train off its rails. As I pressed further down on the pedal and the highway signs whizzed by my anger fueling me and I let it take over.

 

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that this was probably a bad idea but I’d long since learned to tune out that little voice. That voice was suggesting the logical thing but I wasn’t thinking logically because doing so had led me until now. Logical thing was turning around and not leaving. If I went back now I couldn’t be held accountable for my actions. I’d long pasted the point where logical thinking had taken a backseat and emotion had taken full control.

 

Things needed changing and I wasn’t in the mood to make those changes but there was one decision I’d made tonight that I know I wouldn’t regret later.

 

I punched the steering wheel in frustration, wondering how I could have been so blind. How did the life I had worked so hard to achieve have turned out like this? I’d had the perfect life:  a business that I had started from the ground up that’d taken off and people that I’d thought I could trust.

 

I gripped the steering wheel tighter seething as I replayed the events of tonight in my mind. The moment I started to see red I knew I needed to leave and I didn’t plan on heading back soon. But why would I be in a hurry to return? Although my business would still be there when I got back my personal life was in shambles.

 

I was at a loss of how to move forward from here because there was no way I would go backwards. I wasn’t sure I would be able to trust anyone around me. Of course I realized that there were some people that only had an interest in my money; I’d worked with people like that. However for my private life I aimed to align myself with those who were trustworthy and loyal and thought I’d succeeded.

 

My gut twisted thinking about the betrayal I’d witnessed, I can’t believe it’d happened to me despite all my precautions.

 

I cut in and out of traffic suddenly a sign caught my eye and I began to focus on the road clearing my head finally. I didn’t think after that I simply drove listening to the purr of the engine allowing adrenaline to propel me.

 

Soon after rounding a corner a car on the other side of the road swerved into my lane in an attempt to avoid him I ran over some kind of road debris. I heard a loud noise that sounded as if my tire got been punctured and had blown out.

 

While I tried to pull over to the shoulder suddenly my car jerked toward the line of trees off the road. I pulled the steering wheel in the opposite direction in order to right myself when suddenly the car started spinning out of control, hitting the guard rail on the other side, and began flipping down the grassy hill then the airbag exploded. The last thing I remember was that the car had finally stopped before everything went black.

1

 I awoke to nothing. I was in pitch black darkness, confused and disoriented. I tried remembering how I got here.

Where was I?

I couldn’t see anything around me and the last thing I remember was being in my car and the accident. As I tried to check my surroundings I realized I was standing which made me even more confused rather than yielding answers. I also noticed that I didn’t feel anything although I’d just been in a car accident, which was weird.

Unless I was dead? That seemed to be the only explanation I could think of at the moment which made the reason I died trivial.

Thinking back over the situation and the people involved they weren’t worth it. Sure I was upset about the betrayal I’d witnessed at the time but I would have gotten over it and it certainly wasn’t worth dying over.

Deep down I’d known they weren’t there for the right reasons but since I wanted to feel as though there was someone who would be there for me I saw what I wanted to see. By the time I’d started packing my luggage I was already over it and once I’d calmed down I would have been fine. So it was a let down because there was so much more that I could have done with my life and things I would’ve liked to have done before I died.

I didn’t feel anything toward the people who’d betrayed me, as I think about it, the reason I’d been mad was because I had an idea of the type of people I wanted around me in my inner circle but they’d ruined it.

As much as I’d ignored all signs that they didn’t fit the expectations I had but they’d put me in position that I couldn’t look away anymore. I was mad at them for making me face the truth that I’d wanted to hide from myself.

When I first left my hometown and started over I had no one. I hadn’t told anyone where I was going because I thought it would be easier for me to start fresh that way I could work for what I wanted. That way once I’d finally achieved my goal it would make the sacrifice I’d made worth it and I hoped then I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about the way I left.

I hadn’t thought I could stay anymore where I was stuck in a small cramped box, suffocating. I liked the idea of going off on my own instead of conforming to a mold that had been set for me and a little hard work wasn’t going to deter me.

There was no way I could continue trying to fit in a world where everything was given to you in exchange for yourself. It didn’t matter what you actually wanted, felt, or thought when there was a part to play and you had to fit into character.

The thought of leaving had first occurred to me when I’d look at the people around me and realized they didn’t know the real me the same way I didn’t know who they really were either because they were always playing their roles. Watching them every day noticing that they had no problems with staying in character and saw nothing wrong with the way they were living.

The only ray of sunshine was Courtney. She had been the only one who wasn’t afraid to step outside of the box. She was the one true friend I had among a lot of others who were simply pretending they liked me because our father’s worked together.

Although she and I were from completely different worlds we’d been nearly inseparable. I’d grown up in a rich family where everything had an order and she was a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who didn’t know how to follow rules.

I was tired of the uptight strict rules and affectations, with her I had the freedom to be whoever I was. She helped me find myself and once I knew who I was it became harder to act like someone else for other people because that wasn’t me.

It became a tug-of-war, now that my eyes were opened I wouldn’t be the same again but I hadn’t been able to turn my back on my family. Many times I’d felt torn between the beauty of the world I was beginning to discover with Courtney and the one I’d grown up in that paled in comparison. Even though it seemed cold and shallow somehow I couldn’t escape it.

Every time I tried to incorporate something I’d learned with Courtney into my other life it never worked out well. Compared to the freedom I felt with her it seemed as if I were being stuffed into a china doll and by the time I could actually fit I’d be unrecognizable.

The more time passed I began to see that it was like oil and water. The more I tried to mix the two I was met with even more resistance and eventually I was forced to choose one or the other. Even though the decision should have been obvious before I knew it I’d subconsciously started pushing Courtney away.
I remember being so disgusted with myself when I’d accidentally hurt her one day that I hadn’t been able to face her again afterward. It made me realize what I was becoming and I hated myself as well as the way that I was living.

I couldn’t keep living in my family’s world because I wasn’t like them but if I stayed long enough they’d break me down and remold me until I was, just like them, so I left. My biggest regret in life was leaving Courtney and never telling her how I felt.

I felt ashamed now to think that I left so I could pave my own path where I was free to be me but in the end it had all been a waste. While in the depths of my sorrow and guilt I saw a woman who looked like Courtney standing in front of me I reconsidered if I was really dead or just dreaming.

2

 
I couldn't believe my eyes, there Courtney stood in front of me. She looked older but I could still tell that it was her. I could never forget her green eyes.

 

“Courtney?” I called out to her.

 

“What's with that face? You have the same look on your face as you did that time when you got caught eating your mother's favorite peanuts,” she giggled.

 

I found myself too stunned to respond at first but figuring it was a dream I went along with her efforts to make this reunion lighthearted.

 

“You haven't changed much, you almost look just as young as back then,” She continued.

 

“Me? You haven't changed much either, your hair’s still just as untamable,” I joked with a smile, in the past I'd always messed with her about her hair.

 

One of her major frustrations had been with her red naturally curly hair and because of her carefree tendencies no matter what she did there was always a hair out of place. Then a few other rebellious strands would break loose and by afternoon her hair was back to being wild. Even her attempts flat iron it were in vain because it'd end up being too humid or start raining. Thus after awhile she said that she stopped caring but I knew she still secretly worried about it so I'd usually point it out and fix it for her.

 

“Look I have my reasons,” she defended also smiling.

 

“Of course, of course. There has to be,” I continued to tease her.

 

“If you had the kind of day I had you wouldn't be worried about it either,” she sassed me.

 

“Try me, I've had a pretty bad day myself,” I confided. Since she was in front of me what happened is the last thing I wanted to talk about but I doubt she could beat me in a sad sob story.

 

“I can't believe you have ​any ​problems, not ‘the guy with everything’,” she mocked.

 

Since middle school our classmates used to mess with me that I had everything, Courtney included, but because everyone assumed we were dating and she'd been bestowed with the grand title of Cinderella.

 

“That's enough, Cinderella,” I taunted. “You know very well that everything in my life is usually not as it appears.” She looked at me for a moment before saying anything.

 

“Okay, okay,” she sighed. “I know already, you don't have to always be so touchy about it,” she said as if to herself, pouting.

 

“I'm not touchy. Since when have I been touchy? I've never been touchy,” I refuted.

 

“Really?” she gave me a look, “then why else do you always get all serious?”

 

“I mean I was just saying,” I said murmuring and she laughed at me.

 

“Sure, keep telling that to yourself,” her voice was dripping with sarcasm as she continued to laugh at me. “Every day is just crappy…” she went on, changing the tone of her voice. “Actually,there is some truth to that,” she amended, going back to her normal voice.

 

“What? Everything isn't all sunshine and rainbows?” I asked, exaggerated while pretending to be shocked. She used to always act as if she was in some type of dream land no matter what was going on.

 

“The bottom line is,” she said ignoring me, “everyday ​is ​crappy and the only thing that can make it better is if you have something to look forward to.”

 

“And if you don't?” I inquired, curious about this theory of hers.

 

“That's when you truly end up feeling like you've had a really crappy day but when you do, you simply tend to not focus on the bad that happened,” she explained.

 

“So what is it that ​you ​look forward to?” I asked.

 

“Getting back into my bed at the end of the day and sleeping,” she answered. After a pause she added, “yeah, without our vices sometimes life is ​really ​crappy. Even with them it can still be pretty bad sometimes.”

 

I knew that was true. No matter who you were you weren't exempt from having a crappy day, crappy week, or a crappy life.

 

“You can have nearly everything and still be miserable,” I agreed with her.

 

“Most people would say if you have everything, or ‘​nearly​’ everything, you shouldn't have any problems,” she told me. “Or at least they would say that the real trouble lies in the fact that you have everything but it’s never enough because you always want more.” I sighed, knowing she was right.

 

I'd experienced mostly three factions of people in my lifetime: those who will go along with whatever you say and those who don't seem to like you simply because you have 'everything', usually assuming that they know your life story. I had come across too many people who had ‘everything’ and were trying to get more. It was because I knew those types of people that I know I’m not one.

 

“Well I can tell you that greed is not my problem. I never felt like I needed to have everything. Even if I do have everything, so what? I never asked for it. I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining but for me I don't need all of that stuff. Because what is the use of being able to have everything except what I actually really wanted?” I admitted sadly.

 

Other people may envy me for my life and the things that I have because ​they​ want those things, they value those things but for me my greatest regret in life ​isn't ​the fact that I didn't value the material things that I had but instead I mourn the fact that I didn't have something to look forward to.

 

My life has been comprised of my struggle to get out of the box that everyone around me tried to put me in. Once I'd realized that I was back in a box, of my own making, I wondered how to get out without everything falling apart around me. In the end one of my greatest fears was hurting someone close to me, again. How could I possibly still have what I wanted and not hurt anyone in the process?

 

“So what is it that you wanted?” she questioned.

 

“Like you said, something to look forward to. I thought I'd found it but I was lying to myself. My life was pointless and I wasn't truly happy I was just going through the motions, pretending just so that I could have a semblance of what I wanted.”

 

“You weren't pretending with me,” she pointed out.

 

“No, I didn't, you were the only person…” I told her.

 

I left off speaking there because I suddenly started feeling cold. It started in my hands then slowly started to spread throughout the rest of my body. As we were talking I’d began to feel a pulling sensation but whatever was happening to me wasn't affecting Courtney nor did she seem to notice what was going on.

 

“Then why did you leave?” she questioned. I opened my mouth to answer her but I never got to because I was enveloped by the darkness again and the only thing I could hear was a faint beeping sound.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 13.12.2016

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