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Description
My Ex-Boyfriend

     K--
          Know what sucks? Chase is gonna go to that party
     tomorrow no matter what I say. I don’t want him to go.
     There’s gotta be something I can do. Cuz you know he’s
     gonna be drinking before driving home and I don’t want
     to deal with that. I hate this. Why can’t he just
     listen to his girlfriend like any normal guy? Why do I
     have to beg every time I want him to do something? He’s
     so damn stubborn! Grr! Hiss!
          I’m gonna try to talk to him today. See if I can
     talk some sense into him. I hope I can. I really don’t
     want him to go.
          Oops, gotta go. Class is almost over. Dunno when
     I’ll give this to you, but if you’re reading it, then I
     guess we answered that question.
          --MLE

     I folded the sheet of binder paper into a nice little package and drew a big block K on the outside of the packet--I’d deliver it to Kylene, my best friend since I was in fourth grade, when I had the chance. I wouldn’t be seeing her that day; she had a guitar lesson after school. She’s a year ahead of me, so we rarely have classes together, but we still see each other every chance we get. And we share an art class. I talked her into taking it. I think the teacher, Mr. Conner, likes us a lot. Maybe too much, but that’s probably my mom’s paranoia leaking into my mind. She’s always afraid that something bad’s gonna happen to me, and doesn’t trust anything with a Y chromosome.
     Everyone in the class was already packing their things, despite the fact that the teacher’s lecture was still going. I was among them. When the bell rang, the teacher tried to get everyone to shut up and sit down, but it didn’t work. This is high school. Full of rebellious teenagers who are all, in their own minds, invincible. They can smoke, drink, fight, snub authority, it doesn’t matter. To themselves, they are gods, and will be until the real world rears its ugly head.
     Chase was the same way when we were together. I think that might be what attracted me to him. Even though he had the common high school mindset, unlike most high school guys he could actually pull it off. Whenever I talked to him, I would think he really was invincible. He was so confident, so certain that everything would end up right no matter what happened along the way, and so good at saying it, I think I fell in love after five minutes. I felt like he was a high school god, and I his goddess. I felt safe with him, safe and sure that everything was perfect. But despite my idealistic views of the world whenever I was with him, I was still logical. I still had a gut instinct, and I tried to listen to it whenever possible. I still listen to it.
     This time it was telling me that I shouldn’t let Chase go to the party. That’s another aspect of high school. Parties wherever the parents weren’t (this time it was in Larosa, a neighboring town), supported by some “cool” kid’s older brother, who would provide a keg of beer and sell plastic Dixie cups for five bucks to cover the cost of the keg and the risk of providing alcohol to minors. So a bunch of underage kids ended up getting drunk, smoking, and getting pregnant, all in the name of fun. I’ve never seen the fun value, but I’ve been told many times that I’m weird, so that might be why.
     I met Chase at the front of the school, under the tree where we always met. We exchanged an elaborate greeting kiss, then I said the four words that nobody in a relationship ever wants to hear: “We need to talk.”
     “What about?” he asked, already knowing the answer. This wasn’t the first time I’d had some kind of complaint about his partying.
     “Not here,” I said, starting to walk off campus. “Let’s get to your house first.”
     He lived about two blocks from the high school, so we usually walked to his house after our classes and hung out there for a few hours. Sometimes Ky would come with us, sometimes she’d have her guitar lesson, and sometimes she’d be hanging out with a friend she’d made two years earlier, when I was stuck in eighth grade and they were both freshmen in high school. Ky wasn’t with us this time, so Chase and I walked more slowly than usual, holding hands and occasionally leaning on each other. He’d have carried my bag if I had let him, but I wouldn’t let myself be pampered like that. The conversation we needed to have, which both of us knew was vital for our both relationship and our friendship, was temporarily forgotten as we just enjoyed each other’s company.
     We got to Chase’s place, and went straight to the backyard, which was where we always went to talk. It was cold--late February usually is--but we were used to it. It was only three thirty, and wouldn’t get unbearably cold for at least a couple hours.
     Sitting on the wooden deck, we spent first few minutes just talking. The usual “how was your day?” stuff. It was awhile before he brought it up, and he mentioned it right before I was going to: “So what’d you want to talk about?”
     “I don’t want you going to Larosa tomorrow.”  I told him what he already knew.
     He grumbled a string of words that would be considered inappropriate for any movie directed toward high school kids, but that every high school kid already knows and uses regularly. “What’s the big problem with it?”
     “Whenever you get in that car, I worry about you. I know you think you’re a great driver and all, but I worry about you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
     “It’s just a party,” he told me, as if that changed everything.
     “I know it’s a goddamn party!”  I tried not to shout, but my voice rose before I could catch it. “And you know what you do at parties? You get drunk, that’s what you do. Then you drive home. While you’re drunk.”
     “I never do--”
     “Don’t you fucking lie to me!” I screamed, standing up and turning to face him. “Go ahead. Look me in the eye and tell me you’ve never driven while you were drunk.”
     I glared into his eyes. He looked back into mine. He started to open his mouth, then closed it again. His eyes dropped. “I’ve never been in an accident,” he said.
     “I thought as much,” I muttered. If he couldn’t tell me to my face that he’d never driven drunk, then I knew he had.  I’d already suspected it, but this time it hit me like a sledgehammer to the stomach. “And after the party tomorrow, were you planning on driving home?”
     He didn’t answer.
     “Alright, fine.”  I stood up, and stepped off of the deck and onto the lawn. “You want to go to the party tomorrow, fine. Go. And I hope you can pick up a new girlfriend while you’re there, cuz you’ve lost this one.”
     “Whoa, Em. Emily, wait up.”  He jumped off the deck and chased after me. “What’re you saying?”
     “You know goddamn well what I’m saying,” I told him. “It’s over. It’s either your parties or me, and I can tell you’d rather have your parties.”  I turned and walked toward the wooden gate that led to the front of the house. He stood in the middle of the lawn, forlorn and probably thinking, Now what? I kept my back to him so he couldn’t see the tears streaking down my face.
     “At least let me drive you home,” he called, knowing that he wasn’t going to win this even if he told me he wouldn’t go to the party in Larosa, but I didn’t hear him trying to follow me. I didn’t answer his offer. That damn car was part of my problem with him. “Or at least take a coat,” he tried again. “It’s cold out.”
     I told him what he could do with his coat and slammed the wooden gate closed behind me.
     He’d been right, the walk was cold. But I wasn’t about to go back, wasn’t about to swallow my pride, to beg for that ride home. Or that coat. By the time I got home twenty minutes later, I hated myself for just dumping him like that. I had cried so hard that there was more eyeliner in streams down my cheeks than around my eyes, and I wanted nothing more than to call and apologize. But I couldn’t do that. I was making a point by breaking up with him. I didn’t want him going to that party and driving home drunk. Maybe I’d call him after the party. See if he went or not.
     Saturday was spent trying to think about anything other than Chase and what he was doing. Kylene came over and though we avoided the topic as much as possible, I kept wanting to call him. To apologize. But it wouldn’t solve anything. If I called him, I wouldn’t have made my point. If I didn’t call, maybe he wouldn’t go to the party, to prove to me that he could be responsible and to try and get me back.
     Wishful thinking.
     I now wonder if I should have called. I should have apologized. Maybe then he’d be okay. Maybe he wouldn’t have been driving home from the party, probably pissed at me, going too fast on the wet road--when it was dark and the rain made it hard to see. His car flew around a sharp turn, skidded through the guardrail, fell over the cliff’s edge, and landed in the creek. If the airbag hadn’t gone off when he hit the guardrail, he might not have hit his head on the driver’s window, it might not have broken, and the water might not have come rushing in. He might have been able to get out of the car.
     You know that saying about how a person can drown in an inch of water? There was about fifty times that much in the creek at the time. According to the reports, the car had landed shiny side down and water filled the top part of the cab--where Chase’s head was--almost instantly--through the broken window. Chase’s seat belt did its job: kept him in his seat the whole time the murky creek water filled his lungs. There hadn’t been any pain; the medics said he was unconscious before he could have realized what had happened.
      When I finally apologized, it was in a eulogy.
     That was last year, a couple weeks after my sixteenth birthday. Yesterday I found a couple of letters I’d written to a friend. One was from the day before Chase’s accident. The other was from a week or so after. I hadn’t delivered either of them.

     K--
          I keep thinking I could have prevented it. Maybe
     if I’d called him to apologize, if I hadn’t run off in
     a huff, if I hadn’t been so stubborn! Maybe if I’d been
     nicer. Maybe he wouldn’t have gone to the party. Or at
     least not tried to drive home. I wish I had been nicer.
     At the very least, I just want to hear him say “It’s
     okay, Emily. I accept your apology.”  At the very
     least.
     --MLE

Description
My Ex-Boyfriend

     K--
          Know what sucks? Chase is gonna go to that party
     tomorrow no matter what I say. I don’t want him to go.
     There’s gotta be something I can do. Cuz you know he’s
     gonna be drinking before driving home and I don’t want
     to deal with that. I hate this. Why can’t he just
     listen to his girlfriend like any normal guy? Why do I
     have to beg every time I want him to do something? He’s
     so damn stubborn! Grr! Hiss!
          I’m gonna try to talk to him today. See if I can
     talk some sense into him. I hope I can. I really don’t
     want him to go.
          Oops, gotta go. Class is almost over. Dunno when
     I’ll give this to you, but if you’re reading it, then I
     guess we answered that question.
          --MLE

     I folded the sheet of binder paper into a nice little package and drew a big block K on the outside of the packet--I’d deliver it to Kylene, my best friend since I was in fourth grade, when I had the chance. I wouldn’t be seeing her that day; she had a guitar lesson after school. She’s a year ahead of me, so we rarely have classes together, but we still see each other every chance we get. And we share an art class. I talked her into taking it. I think the teacher, Mr. Conner, likes us a lot. Maybe too much, but that’s probably my mom’s paranoia leaking into my mind. She’s always afraid that something bad’s gonna happen to me, and doesn’t trust anything with a Y chromosome.
     Everyone in the class was already packing their things, despite the fact that the teacher’s lecture was still going. I was among them. When the bell rang, the teacher tried to get everyone to shut up and sit down, but it didn’t work. This is high school. Full of rebellious teenagers who are all, in their own minds, invincible. They can smoke, drink, fight, snub authority, it doesn’t matter. To themselves, they are gods, and will be until the real world rears its ugly head.
     Chase was the same way when we were together. I think that might be what attracted me to him. Even though he had the common high school mindset, unlike most high school guys he could actually pull it off. Whenever I talked to him, I would think he really was invincible. He was so confident, so certain that everything would end up right no matter what happened along the way, and so good at saying it, I think I fell in love after five minutes. I felt like he was a high school god, and I his goddess. I felt safe with him, safe and sure that everything was perfect. But despite my idealistic views of the world whenever I was with him, I was still logical. I still had a gut instinct, and I tried to listen to it whenever possible. I still listen to it.
     This time it was telling me that I shouldn’t let Chase go to the party. That’s another aspect of high school. Parties wherever the parents weren’t (this time it was in Larosa, a neighboring town), supported by some “cool” kid’s older brother, who would provide a keg of beer and sell plastic Dixie cups for five bucks to cover the cost of the keg and the risk of providing alcohol to minors. So a bunch of underage kids ended up getting drunk, smoking, and getting pregnant, all in the name of fun. I’ve never seen the fun value, but I’ve been told many times that I’m weird, so that might be why.
     I met Chase at the front of the school, under the tree where we always met. We exchanged an elaborate greeting kiss, then I said the four words that nobody in a relationship ever wants to hear: “We need to talk.”
     “What about?” he asked, already knowing the answer. This wasn’t the first time I’d had some kind of complaint about his partying.
     “Not here,” I said, starting to walk off campus. “Let’s get to your house first.”
     He lived about two blocks from the high school, so we usually walked to his house after our classes and hung out there for a few hours. Sometimes Ky would come with us, sometimes she’d have her guitar lesson, and sometimes she’d be hanging out with a friend she’d made two years earlier, when I was stuck in eighth grade and they were both freshmen in high school. Ky wasn’t with us this time, so Chase and I walked more slowly than usual, holding hands and occasionally leaning on each other. He’d have carried my bag if I had let him, but I wouldn’t let myself be pampered like that. The conversation we needed to have, which both of us knew was vital for our both relationship and our friendship, was temporarily forgotten as we just enjoyed each other’s company.
     We got to Chase’s place, and went straight to the backyard, which was where we always went to talk. It was cold--late February usually is--but we were used to it. It was only three thirty, and wouldn’t get unbearably cold for at least a couple hours.
     Sitting on the wooden deck, we spent first few minutes just talking. The usual “how was your day?” stuff. It was awhile before he brought it up, and he mentioned it right before I was going to: “So what’d you want to talk about?”
     “I don’t want you going to Larosa tomorrow.”  I told him what he already knew.
     He grumbled a string of words that would be considered inappropriate for any movie directed toward high school kids, but that every high school kid already knows and uses regularly. “What’s the big problem with it?”
     “Whenever you get in that car, I worry about you. I know you think you’re a great driver and all, but I worry about you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
     “It’s just a party,” he told me, as if that changed everything.
     “I know it’s a goddamn party!”  I tried not to shout, but my voice rose before I could catch it. “And you know what you do at parties? You get drunk, that’s what you do. Then you drive home. While you’re drunk.”
     “I never do--”
     “Don’t you fucking lie to me!” I screamed, standing up and turning to face him. “Go ahead. Look me in the eye and tell me you’ve never driven while you were drunk.”
     I glared into his eyes. He looked back into mine. He started to open his mouth, then closed it again. His eyes dropped. “I’ve never been in an accident,” he said.
     “I thought as much,” I muttered. If he couldn’t tell me to my face that he’d never driven drunk, then I knew he had.  I’d already suspected it, but this time it hit me like a sledgehammer to the stomach. “And after the party tomorrow, were you planning on driving home?”
     He didn’t answer.
     “Alright, fine.”  I stood up, and stepped off of the deck and onto the lawn. “You want to go to the party tomorrow, fine. Go. And I hope you can pick up a new girlfriend while you’re there, cuz you’ve lost this one.”
     “Whoa, Em. Emily, wait up.”  He jumped off the deck and chased after me. “What’re you saying?”
     “You know goddamn well what I’m saying,” I told him. “It’s over. It’s either your parties or me, and I can tell you’d rather have your parties.”  I turned and walked toward the wooden gate that led to the front of the house. He stood in the middle of the lawn, forlorn and probably thinking, Now what? I kept my back to him so he couldn’t see the tears streaking down my face.
     “At least let me drive you home,” he called, knowing that he wasn’t going to win this even if he told me he wouldn’t go to the party in Larosa, but I didn’t hear him trying to follow me. I didn’t answer his offer. That damn car was part of my problem with him. “Or at least take a coat,” he tried again. “It’s cold out.”
     I told him what he could do with his coat and slammed the wooden gate closed behind me.
     He’d been right, the walk was cold. But I wasn’t about to go back, wasn’t about to swallow my pride, to beg for that ride home. Or that coat. By the time I got home twenty minutes later, I hated myself for just dumping him like that. I had cried so hard that there was more eyeliner in streams down my cheeks than around my eyes, and I wanted nothing more than to call and apologize. But I couldn’t do that. I was making a point by breaking up with him. I didn’t want him going to that party and driving home drunk. Maybe I’d call him after the party. See if he went or not.
     Saturday was spent trying to think about anything other than Chase and what he was doing. Kylene came over and though we avoided the topic as much as possible, I kept wanting to call him. To apologize. But it wouldn’t solve anything. If I called him, I wouldn’t have made my point. If I didn’t call, maybe he wouldn’t go to the party, to prove to me that he could be responsible and to try and get me back.
     Wishful thinking.
     I now wonder if I should have called. I should have apologized. Maybe then he’d be okay. Maybe he wouldn’t have been driving home from the party, probably pissed at me, going too fast on the wet road--when it was dark and the rain made it hard to see. His car flew around a sharp turn, skidded through the guardrail, fell over the cliff’s edge, and landed in the creek. If the airbag hadn’t gone off when he hit the guardrail, he might not have hit his head on the driver’s window, it might not have broken, and the water might not have come rushing in. He might have been able to get out of the car.
     You know that saying about how a person can drown in an inch of water? There was about fifty times that much in the creek at the time. According to the reports, the car had landed shiny side down and water filled the top part of the cab--where Chase’s head was--almost instantly--through the broken window. Chase’s seat belt did its job: kept him in his seat the whole time the murky creek water filled his lungs. There hadn’t been any pain; the medics said he was unconscious before he could have realized what had happened.
      When I finally apologized, it was in a eulogy.
     That was last year, a couple weeks after my sixteenth birthday. Yesterday I found a couple of letters I’d written to a friend. One was from the day before Chase’s accident. The other was from a week or so after. I hadn’t delivered either of them.

     K--
          I keep thinking I could have prevented it. Maybe
     if I’d called him to apologize, if I hadn’t run off in
     a huff, if I hadn’t been so stubborn! Maybe if I’d been
     nicer. Maybe he wouldn’t have gone to the party. Or at
     least not tried to drive home. I wish I had been nicer.
     At the very least, I just want to hear him say “It’s
     okay, Emily. I accept your apology.”  At the very
     least.
     --MLE