Everything We Never Had

eighteen

I go home later that morning and find that my mom has returned. She is coming breakfast. Smells like eggs. She seems one hundred percent sober.

"Valerie is that you?" she calls.

Yes, of course it's me. Who else would be coming in here?

"Yeah," I reply. I kick off my shoes and walk into the kitchen. "Where were you this morning?"

My mom's face turns concerned. She can't give me the answer to my question. I've learned that that's what that face means.

"I was just out visiting your grandma. I had a lovely time. Been a while since I've seen her."

Bald faced lie. But I won't question it. Let her lie if she wants to. What am I to do about it?

"We talked about dad," she says softly. My heart begins to pound.

"Uh, what exactly did you say?" I reply. I choke on my own breath.

"We talked about the car accident. She wants to file a case and find out how it really happened," my mom says. She flips an egg in the pan. "It was just you, Dad, and Micheal in the car and we know neither of you had any desire to get rid of him. You were on a road with no cars? How could he possibly have crashed?"

I distracted him. It was an accident, I swear.

Michael was dad's friend before dad died. They did everything together and was over for dinner basically every night. It's obvious Micheal didn't cause that car accident or even cause it by accident.

But the other person in the car.....

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The rest of the day I spend holed up in my bedroom. My heart is pounding against my ribcage and I know I'm sweating.

Let me tell you the story.

The night my dad died, he had taken me and his best friend Micheal out for dinner to watch a football game. The team we were rooting for had won.

On the drive home, we were celebrating and I was pulling up videos of the best moments from the game. I showed one of them to Micheal and then, without thinking, attempted to show it to my dad.

He looked over at the video and became a bit lost in it. Football never failed to interest him. I wish I had remembered this fact as he began to lose focus of the road.

Before I knew it, the car was swerving. In the direction of the woods on the side. I pulled my phone back and yelled at him to grab the steering wheel, but he couldn't do it in time. We went right off of the road into the woods.

We crashed into the first tree, having basically been dead aimed for it. The airbags in the front seats popped out but not in enough time. My dad had been thrown against the steering wheel and with the impact of the car hitting the tree, we had been tipped over.

There was no chance for him to live. The impact of the car and the steering wheel had simply been too much.

Micheal was alive. Barely. His side of the car hadn't come within complete contact of the tree and he had managed to brace himself against the dash board before being shoved against it.

I had distracted him. I had ended my Dad's life and I was going to have to live with that for the rest of my life.

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For the first night in years, I had nightmares about that night. For months after it had first happened, I had nightmares but they went away eventually.

Now, one little reminder of that night causes them all to come back.

My mom doesn't know it was completely my fault my dad drove off the side of the road. I've been too ashamed to tell her and now that I've waited so long, there's no way I can tell her now.

The nightmares aren't anything special. Just a complete and accurate recollection of what happened that night. It goes through my head over and over again until I wake up. It's terrible.

The next morning, I have to go back to school. To say I'm dreading it would be an understatement. However, I am excited to see Ashton and see how Samantha is handling things with their recent break-up.

I hope she knew that Ashton wasn't taking it seriously because, even though I guess he technically broke up with her for me, I still feel a bit bad for her. I'm allowed to feel bad for her, right?

The morning went by slowly. I used the bathroom, got dressed and ate breakfast. My mom had left early for work so it was up to me to wake myself up at the right time and leave on time. I don't know why, but being late to school is like my worst fear.

I arrive at school ten minutes before we're supposed to be in first period. I toss some books and folders in my locker and am on my way.

Almost immediately after closing my locker door, Ashton comes walking down the hallway. Samantha is not with him, like she normally is at this time. I selfishly expect him to come up to me and say something but he simply walks right past me, barely giving me a look.

I watch him go down the hallway for a moment before turning around and making my way to first period. He could talk to me if he wanted to. Or not if he didn't want to....

As I sit down, I remember vaguely the first day Ashton and I had decided to be friends. I came in here and everyone looked my way and Samantha got mad at me. Good times. That's over now, everything is way too complicated.

Samantha comes in a moment later. Her face is not happy.

"You broke my boyfriend and I up, didn't you? I always knew you wanted Ashton. Since the second you two walked in here together," she scoffs.

"It's not like that, Samantha," I say. But it is like that. She's not wrong. I have wanted him for a while, without knowing it.

"Then what is it, hmm?" she demands.

I look down. I can't answer that question.. Samantha lets out a very audible scoff and pulls her binder from her backpack. For the remainder of the class period, I feel like barfing.

Come second period, I want nothing more than to go home. I've seen Ashton multiple times and he has not made an effort to speak to me. I seriously wonder if our multiple make out sessions mean literally nothing to him. That's likely. I wonder how many girls he's made out with before.

"Ms. Long! Pay attention!"

I am brought back to reality, pulled from my thoughts. In front of me is my history teacher. I had completely forgotten we were taking notes and Danna isn't here to poke me before the teacher yells at me.

"Sorry," I mutter. I've never really been yelled at before.

She shakes her head and looks away. Immediately, I go back to my confusing thoughts.

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hey! i managed to ditch class today and write this in the library 😻😻

hope this chapter answered any questions you had about valeries dad and if you have other questions, ask them! i can try to interpret them into the upcoming chapters. just lmk <33

if you enjoyed this chapter, please vote and comment and then share this story so others can read and enjoy it, too!!

have a good rest of your day/night!

word count: (not including authors note) 1292 words

ps. does anyone else just hate the word 'giggle'?