----- 9 --

A week passed.  Corey laid in a coma under the bright nauseating glow of the hospital’s fluorescent lights.

The driver of that fucking car was just released from the hospital.  She finally regained sight in her right eye.  Besides two chipped teeth, she walked away well, she walked away.  Fuck her.  She would probably be given a leniency because of me.  She would be pitied to an extent.  If I knew they were going to count my assault as part of her punishment, I would have made her look like Corey.

Dad said they were fighting it though, making sure that what I did to her played no role in the judge’s decision.

I sat locked in my room for a week.  Camryn’s parents forbade me from even touching their lawn.  Her mother seamed more sympathetic to me, but her father, her father hated me.  I hated him.

He wanted Camryn to abort the child, kill our baby.

I stopped looking out my window.  The giant ‘For Sale’ sign in their front yard taunted me.  I was never going to see Camryn again.  Never.  Her fucking father was going to kill our baby.  When Corey woke up, I would never be able to great her, hug her, hold her.  If she woke up.

The only thing keeping me sane was my own parents.  They knew me, they understood what I was going through; I think.  They brought my meals to my room.  They let me be alone.  They didn’t try mind fucking me, treating me like I was a psycho child who needed to be handled in the upmost care. 

I swear that my mom could see straight through me.  She asked me about Camryn.  She knew I loved her.  She just said I made a very big mistake, and hopefully her parents would come to see Camryn did the same.  She kept me up to date on what was happening. 

Camryn was approaching the situation in an opposite manner.  She wouldn’t stop screaming at her father when she wasn’t crying in her room.

It was all too much, too fast.  Everyone was feeling the stress. 

Just over a month until I had to go back to school.  I would never see Camryn or Corey again.  I lived my life through those girls before.  Visits with them after school.  Amusement parks, games, swimming, the strenuous teasing we passed back and forth.  The beginning of the summer drove me into a life unparallel to anything I could have ever imagined.  Now.  Now, I was alone, they were my best friends, they were everything to me.  I had other friends, but they were nothing compared to them.

Corey laid half dead in a hospital, Camryn was about to lose a piece of life inside her, they were moving away.  Moving to a new place.  Did their father expect them to just forget everything and start over?

I laid on my bed day after day in thought.  Life wasn’t worth living anymore.  Over and over, I added everything together.  I didn’t want to live without Camryn.  Knowing that she was alive, in distress; I could never help her, see her, smell her, hold her, hear her voice, breathing, taste her lips.  Never again.  Her parents would always hate me, never understand me, us.

Corey.  Corey didn’t move anymore.  She was kept alive by machines.  The last time I saw her, she looked dead.  Half her body was pale as a ghost; the other half was dark as a rotting corpse.

I ran my fingers up and down the scar on my forearm I attained in the woods with Corey.  I could barely feel just the pressure of my touch. 

Camryn wanted her new child.  I wanted it too.  I was never going to see Camryn again.  The life growing inside of her was the only thing she had left of me.

I didn’t know when life really started for a baby.  All the news says differently.  If I died now, maybe whatever Gods there were out there would have pity on me.  Maybe they would reincarnate me into the baby inside her.  I think I was starting to go a little crazy.  I didn’t care. 

I just had hope for some reason.  If she had the baby, if I died, everything would equal out.  I didn’t know why.  Seven days of questioning everything I had ever known was getting to me.  That baby was part of me.  Camryn was my other half.  The baby equals one whole.

I didn’t want to live as one half.  There was no room for me now.  My purpose in this life was over, I created another me, an even better me; a little human like me, but made into perfection from Camryn.  I had no reason to live; just floating around in the world by myself.  I was a waste of space.

No.  I had one more thing to do.  Camryn’s father wanted to kill it; he wanted to take me completely out of this world.  He wanted to kill me; he wanted to kill part of his own daughter.  I had to sacrifice myself.  Pull the ultimate act of apologizing. 

I rolled from my bed and crawled to the other side of my room to an old school notebook.  I opened it to the last page.  I picked up a pen. 

Dear Mr. Havon

I did this as my most sincere apology for my weakness and selfishness.  I never wanted to hurt you or Camryn but I made a mistake.  I’m sorry beyond anything I could ever say or write.  I know you will always hate me because I messed up.

Please, I beg you, please; now you won’t have to worry about me anymore.  Please don’t kill Camryn’s child.  I offer you my life in exchange for its.  She will never see me again anyway so in this act, I will not hurt her.  Please, if you take away that piece of her that she wants so much, you will hurt her so badly.  I don’t want her to hurt.  Please, I’m doing everything I can for her.

Please accept my exchange.

Daniel Thurdan

God I hoped he would accept it.  I placed the notebook on the floor before my bed facing the door.  I backed to my bed and sat down.  I had to wipe a few tears from my eyes so I could find the scissors on the shelf of my headboard.

I opened them to their widest.  I pushed my back against the wall.  I stared down at the scissors.  This was the only way.  The easiest way to live, to die, fix as much as I possibly could.

It felt as if someone was pulling open a zipper down my scar.  No pain, just a weird feeling.  I watched the blood pour over both sides of my arm.  From the top of the scar to the bottom, almost onto my wrist, I could see how thick my skin actually was.  I could see how it was a separate entity from my insides, but still, it held tightly pulled to the darker stuff below. 

My shorts were soaking in the warm liquid.  The tan of the khaki was now deep red.

Another zipper opened down my scar.  Tears poured down my face.  What was I doing?  No, I had to do this. 

Another zipper.

My breathing started becoming harsh.  As I inhaled, it almost sounded like I was laughing.  A mix maybe, a cough every now and again.

Another zipper.

There was so much blood.  I was getting dizzy.  Someone knocked on my door.  I heard a mumble.  I was so dizzy.  I dropped the scissors onto my lap.  I was crying.  I was losing control of my body.  My hearing was moving in and out.  I looked over to my door.

My mom was running into the room toward me.  She grabbed me.  She pulled out the sheet that was half under me.  She began wrapping and squeezing in around my arm.  Her blood covered hand reached into her pocket and pulled out a cell phone. 

She moved away from me for some reason.  I saw her next, holding me with one arm and rocking me back and forth.  Her ear was up to her phone.  She was reading my note.

“Honey, he can’t do that.  Only Camryn can say what happens to her body.”

“I don’t care,” I cried, “I don’t want to live without her.”

I began fading out completely.  My mom began shouting into her phone.  I blacked out.

e.l. hanes

Only one more chapter.  All feedback is appreciated at hanes_el@yahoo.com.