8 Second Ride COMPLETED

Prolouge

Eight seconds.

That's all it takes.

Those eight seconds can either make or break you. Your ass can end up face down in a pile of cow shit or you'll land on your own two feet, waving your arms in triumph as the crowd screams your name.

But it wasn't those eight seconds that broke me, they saved me from my own self destruction. Saved me from wallowing in my own self pity. Those eight seconds are what I live for.

Until he came back into my life again.

The one that broke me. And the one that would have my heart until the day I took my very last breath.

******************

"Ryan! Where are you going?" I cried, following him out my front door, hot tears running down my cheeks. The screen door slamming behind me as my feet stumbled down the wooden porch steps.

He was leaving me, after he had taken the two things I cherished most in this world.

Two things that were my choice to give him.

My heart, and my innocence.

After just three wonderful months together, he packs his bags. He said he wouldn't leave. He promised.

He fucking promised!

"I'm leaving! What the fuck does it look like?" He hissed, turning around to look at me. His gray eyes were cold and bloodshot. And so lifeless. As if the real Ryan was long gone. His breath harboring the smell of hard liquor as the words washed over me like a massive tidal wave crashing against the shore.

How much did he have to drink?

What had triggered this?

What had I done for him to be so cold, and treat me like I was nothing but shit on his boots?

He said he was different.

He said he was different!

Had it all been a lie?

"Please don't leave me. I love y-.." I started to beg but he quickly cut me off.

"Shut up!" He snarled. "You don't love me! You're just a stupid eighteen year old girl I used to pass the time while I was here! You really think I love you? That I would stay here with you? Well, you must be dumber than you look!" He said, pointing a finger in my face. The tone of his voice laced each word with pure venom.

His face flushed red from rage and I had no clue why. The veins were beginning to pop out of his neck and forehead. All his features filled with so much anger I was positive his once grey eyes were now jet-black as they peered into mine.

Shaking my head, "You're lying." I sobbed. Every word he had said to me was like a knife cutting over my flesh. Leaving wounds so deep that it would leave raised, ugly scars. Scars that I would have to look at for the rest of my life. The harsh words like poison, slowly starting to kill me as it traveled slowly through my bloodstream. I felt like I was dying. My very soul being torn to shreds.

This couldn't be happening. He was lying. He had to be. My heart continued breaking, shattering more and more with ever step he took towards his truck.

"Please, Ryan. I love you. I do. You're my everything. Stay with me." My words came out as a whisper. I willed myself not to get down on the ground. Not to get down on my hands and knees and beg for him to stay. Just stay.

Just stay...

"No, Alaina! I'm nothing to you, just like you're nothing to me! I don't love you! You were just stupid enough to believe I did!" He spat as if the words disgusted him, throwing his bag in the bed of his old Ford pick-up truck.

"I know you don't mean that, Ryan." I cried more. He quickly turned around and was almost in my face. I cowered back, flinching in fear, afraid he was going to strike me like I had been so many times before.

In that moment, I saw my father.

"What exactly did you think was going to happen, Alaina?! Huh?! You expected me to stay?! For you?! Ha! You are just the poor, worthless farm girl, whose drunk daddy ran off with the town's whore! Leaving your mom to care for a good for nothing, worthless brat!" After he finished his heartless words, the tears stopped instantly.

With one good swing, my fist connected with his nose, sending him to the pavement by his truck. He had pushed me too far and I snapped. Those words had cut deeper than all the rest. Leaving a wound so deep, I would never be able to fully recover.

I stood there emotionless, peering down at the man I loved hoping, no praying, I had broken his nose or a tooth.

He looked at me in shock, with blood running down his chin from a busted nose and split lip.

He even spat some on the ground, maybe I had even actually knocked a tooth loose.

"Go! Don't ever come back, Ryan! I fucking hate you! Do you fucking hear me?! I. Hate.You. You are just like him!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, clenching my fists as a rage of my own filled me. I knew my face had to have been flushed deep red from being so angry. I'm surprised my tears weren't sizzling against my wet cheeks now.

I had never felt so low and humiliated in my whole entire life, and the person I loved most in this world, was the cause of it all. This was not the sweet and loving Ryan I knew. This was a monster, just like him, my father, evil and hurtful.

"Alaina, I-..." I cut him off as he picked himself up off the ground. I could see the regret in his eyes, the guilt, but what he said, could never be taken back.

He had broken me.

My heart. My soul.

The spark inside of me was officially gone, I had nothing left now. I was turning into ashes as the embers of the fire once inside me finally burned out. Leaving nothing but smoke in its place.

"Go. Just go and don't ever come back." I whispered, turning back to face my house. As much as it killed me, I wouldn't ask him to stay again. Not after this.

My heart sank farther as I heard the door of his old Ford truck open and close. Then it roared to life and I closed my eyes tightly hoping this as just a dream.

Hoping it wasn't real.

My ears seemed to burn as the noise of gravel crunched under the tires as the truck traveled down the long driveway.

It wasn't until the sound of his old truck was long gone, that I finally turned back around, only to be met with a cloud of white dust.

I stood there staring, in some way hoping, he would turn around and come back to me.

Waiting for him, to take me into his arms and shower me with kisses, saying he was sorry and didn't mean any of it. I waited for hours, never moving from my spot.

Watching.

Waiting.

Praying.

He never came.

"I love you, Ryan. I always will. You will always have my heart." I sobbed, falling to my knees. Waiting for the green grass to swallow me up whole.

He had taken my heart with him.

The fight inside me was finally gone.

I was broken.