He Went Out On A Chariot Of Fire

I Was A Ghost

"It's two AM." Jacky groaned.
"I can't sleep." I replied, staring at the dark ceiling.
"Okay, well... Do something else."
"I'll do it. I'll be the singer."
"Really?"
"Give me a couple months, but yeah. I'll do it."
"Give me some sleep."
"Sorry Jacky. Night."
"Night." He ended the call.

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"Arizona Radke?" The therapist asked.
I stood up in the waiting room. "Yeah."
Max squeezed my hand, then let it go. "Follow me." The therapist said.
I followed him to a small, cold room. Sitting on the couch, I whimpered as I upset the wound on my stomach. "So..."
"So, Arizona. Your dad told me why you're here."
"So I don't have to be here, if you already know."
"Tell me what happened."
"Ronnie was teaching me to drive and a drunk driver rammed into us. Therefore, it's my fault my brother died."
"No-"
"Yeah. It is."
"Well, this is a goal of therapy. Making you believe it's not your fault, because it's not. It was the other guy's fault, not yours."
"Don't you see? If I didn't need to drive, Ronnie wouldn'tve died!"
"That-"
"It's my fault he's dead, cause... Cause..." I grabbed a tissue and started sobbing. "It's my fault."
"No, it's not."
"It's my fault my brother left the world."

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"Here." Ryan barreled into my room. "I've got instrumental copies."
"Of?" I groaned.
"The songs. You gotta practice if you're gonna be the singer, duh."
"Okay, thanks."
"Doing anything today?" He asked, sitting on my bed.
"Being depressed. But I mean that's..." I started scribbling on a notepad.
"What're you writing?"
"It's... Ugh..."
"A song?"
"Yeah. I've got the chorus, but..."
"How does it go?"
"Daddy told me not to bite my tongue, I hate my mama cause she left me with no love. I bottle it up, I sweep it under the rug."
"Nice."
"Yeah."
"I'm gonna go, let you write that. Good luck."
"Yeah." I waved my hand.
Ryan left the room. I continued writing stuff down until I got a call. I answered it. "Zona?"
"Yeah, Anthony?"
"I found a diary, I think it is. Do you wanna come over and look at it with me?"
"Hell yeah. I'll..."
"Come over, I'll bring the diary and some pizza."
"Really? I can-"
"No, don't ask Ryan to drive you, don't worry. I'll be over in like twenty minutes."
"Okay. See you." I ended the call.
Twenty minutes (and one verse) later, Anthony came into my apartment. "Arizona!"
"You've got the diary?" I asked.
"Hell yeah."
I grabbed it from my brother's hands. "First entries."

I got this diary to let my feelings out, but right now, I'm not really feeling anything. I mean... They threw me in prison. Anthony and Dad visited but Arizona didn't. They said she couldn't, emotionally. She hasn't gotten out of bed since they took me a week ago. I really hope she doesn't mope around, cause then I'll feel guilty. Oh well.

Arizona finally visited, three weeks later. She was all sad, but not disappointed. Like everyone else was. So that was nice. She told me that she'd visit every two weeks, make someone drive her. She walked today, though. I yelled at her. It's miles. She's gonna be exhausted, but... At least I saw her. It made my day.

It's lonely here. I'm lonely. I'm listening to a lot of Eminem.

I'm free!!!!!!! Jacky and Derek came and picked me up and we went to Derek's place and Mika and Ryan were there! And I was so happy already and then they had Arizona there too!!!! They're such good friends and she's such a a good sister. I've missed everyone and I'm so happy now

"Those are nice. Kinda sad, but..." Anthony said. "Where's the most recent one?"
I flipped to it. "Three weeks ago."

Arizona is starting to drive. She's kinda good at it. Uh, the band is writing new songs. It's going well. I wanna do a song with Arizona on backing vocals, like a duet. She's a good singer. Maybe the one called Fuck The Rest. She's emo as hell like the rest of us, it would work. I miss when we were kids and I'd show her the shit she wasn't supposed to see, like video games and music. God, she loved Black Sabbath.

"That's it." I said, quietly. "That's the rest of Ronnie."