fourteen
For the rest of my life, whenever I close my eyes, I will see her image standing there in the middle of the highway, small, frozen, all alone in an ocean of cars.
Even after years have passed, I will still wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, and close my eyes and try to picture her as she looked afterwards, safe in my car, my hands inching to touch hers. I will try to change the image of her standing in that rushing river of cars. Some days, I will succeed.
Some other days, the mere memory of that day will have me dry-heaving.
Some days, it will have me wishing I could go back in time and ask her exactly what the hell was going on in that house of hers. But I won’t be able to.
I will only remember and hurt.
It will hurt so much to know what she was going through. The pain will be unbearable to the point of making me physically sick, but I will deserve it.
In the future, when I remember this day, and know the real reason it happened, I will instantly feel the need to throw up, to purge these images from my memory, from my brain, from existence, but I won’t be able to.
I never will.
In my memory, she is forever stuck on that highway.
That day, I thought I’d saved her, but it was all a lie. I didn’t do a damn thing to get her out. I left her there, in her prison, day after day, night after night.
I didn’t save anyone.