Surrender Your Heart

It was January 16. The past few weeks had been filled with hanging out with Matt and the guys, or just Matt. Kylie enjoyed his company, and she was starting to wonder what was going on between them. But, for now, it was January 16. For most people, this wouldn’t have really meant a thing. But Kylie wasn’t most people, and so it did mean something. She usually didn’t sleep at all the night before January 16. She usually stayed up all night. Sometimes she drove around and stopped at what used to be their favorite spots, but what were now distant memories.

A chill crept up her spine as she lay in bed. It was a little after midnight, so it was officially January 16. One of those days that would stick out in her mind for the rest of her life.

She crawled out of bed slowly and walked in the dark over to her dresser. She pulled out a pair of sweatpants and slipped them on over her shorts, grabbed a zip up sweatshirt from her closet and slipped it on, and then walked out of her room with her iPod in hand. She slipped the headphones on and walked out her front door. Everything was relatively quiet outside around Kylie’s house. No activity to speak of, which made her happy. She didn’t want her neighbors seeing her leaving her house in such a daze and calling her, questioning what was up.

Kylie just got in her car and drove. No one around here really realized why she did this, but all the people she really knew, knew she did. They didn’t ask because it was clear to them that it was not a subject that got to be touched upon unless Kylie opened that can of worms herself.

She turned on How Fast by The Promise of Redemption and let the music surround her while she tried to take herself out of the real world. She always had the most amount of difficulty as she got older dealing with this day, which was weird because she thought it was supposed to get easier as time went on. It didn’t though; it never did. Kylie started to wonder if after two years if it was ever going to get easier. It sure didn’t seem like it.

The sad girl pulled into a deserted beach and climbed out of her Jeep. She walked around the front of her car and climbed onto the hood. Luckily she had just washed her car so it wasn’t covered in bugs and crap, not that it would have mattered if it had been. She leaned back and looked up at the stars while the music still surrounded her and she thought back to that day two years ago.

Kylie had been twenty one. She had felt invincible, as had most of her friends. There was no stopping them, and they were reckless and didn’t care. She was in her third year of college and working with Squire at this point in her life. She had some amazing friends and was a serial dater, but she didn’t care. She was young and having a great time which was all that mattered. One night, on January 15, Kylie had gone out with her friends to a party. Her friends had been drinking, but she hadn’t. She just had a sip of something so she was the DD. Kylie’s best friend since birth, Anna, had gotten drunk and refused to drive home with Kylie and their group. Instead, she wanted to go home with this guy she met.

There was no curing Anna of her stubbornness when the girl was sober, let alone when her friend had had a few drinks in her system. So with a whatever, she had peeled out of the parking lot with her other friends in the car, leaving Anna to her own devices. If Kylie had had any ounce of clairvoyance, she would never left Anna with Dan, who although he had appeared sober had impaired motor skills. And when he lost control of the car, Anna was the victim and he walked away with barely a scratch. Sure, he had been sentenced to time in jail but it didn't bring Anna back. In fact, it only reinforced the fact that she was gone for good and he had to live with killing a girl he had barely known.

She still remembered that phone call that woke her up at around two thirty in the morning. She had never been so confused in her life. She even went as far as not believing the police man who had called her house. She argued with him that it was a mistake up until he told her firmly that her friend Anna was gone and was not coming back. Kylie still remembered breaking down on the phone and falling into fetal position onto her bed, crying her eyes out. Kylie never cried, but the amount of tears she shed over the course of that week were enough to last her for all the times in her life she couldn’t have cried and then some.

She still places some of the blame on herself for not making Anna come home with her, even though a small part of her realizes she couldn’t have made Anna come with her unless she physically forced her to.

Still lying on the hood of her jeep, Kylie sat up, wiping some of the stray tears from her face, and climbed down. She couldn’t stay here, in this spot where the car crashed and her friend lost her life, any longer. She got in the car and drove home, suddenly feeling exhausted. Kylie knew tomorrow, or technically later that day, would be hell so she went home, climbed into bed, and tried to get some sleep.

***

Several hours later, the blonde was woken by the sound of thunder. Kylie jumped up and looked out her window. She saw nothing but a dark sky, lightning, and rain. She looked at her clock and it read ten thirty. She slumped her shoulders and prepared herself for one of the hardest days of the year in her book.

After Kylie got a shower and got dressed in a pair of her favorite jeans, a pair of teal rain boots with light blue umbrellas on them, and a teal baby tee, she grabbed her purse and a hooded zip up jacket, slipped it on and ran out the door to her car. She hopped in quickly and drove to the studio.

Waiting for her inside were Alex, Jack, Rian, Zack, Matt, Squire, and a few others. None of them knew how terrible she felt; none of them except Squire. He knew because she was interning for him when Anna had gotten killed, so he knew all about it. No one else knew though. Kylie walked in wordlessly and put her stuff in her cubby. She walked into the lounge and grabbed a Red Bull out of the fridge and opened it, taking a big sip before setting it on the table and walking back into the control room where a few of the guys were.
Squire, Keith and Matt were in the control room, while Alex was in the vocal booth, messing around. She didn’t know where the other guys were. Kylie took a seat next to Matt and turned her iPod up. She didn’t want to tell him what was wrong. He had his laptop out and was on his Myspace she noticed. He smiled at her. He had a cute smile that she also noticed. She shook the thought away. She had to do this more and more now that she and Matt had been hanging out more ever since the dinner party she went to with him as her date. “Hey,” he said to her.

She nodded a hello, and Squire turned around to look at her and give her a sympathetic smile that no one else noticed. She smiled back and continued concentrating on her music.
At her quietness Matt said, “You ok?” because she was usually so talkative, if not to everyone at least towards him.

Kylie shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about it.

“What's wrong?” he pressed.

Kylie just shook her head again. Matt finally got the hint and stopped talking to her. She flipped through all the songs on her iPod and when You be the Anchor… by Mayday Parade came on, she didn’t even try to stop the tears that formed in her eyes. She just stood up wordlessly and walked out of the control room.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard Matt calling to her, but she ignored it. She walked outside without even grabbing her things, got in her car, and drove home. She stumbled inside, the tears still falling down her face and making it hard to see straight, and made her way to her room. She didn’t even bother to take anything except her boots off before she lay down and crawled into fetal position. She didn’t even flinch when she started to sob like she did every single year, her tears blurring her vision completely. The only sound that could be heard was Kylie sobbing and her ragged breathing.

She didn’t even hear the car pull up to her house. She didn’t even hear the front door open, and she sure as hell didn’t see him open the door and walk into her room.

He crawled into her bed, and pulled her close, holding her and letting her sob into his t-shirt. He drew small circles on her back, trying to comfort her but having a hard time doing so. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Kylie, it’s ok. What’s the matter?” Matt asked her, trying to calm her down enough so he could figure out what was wrong. She just shook her head and continued crying.

Kylie wanted to tell Matt what was wrong; she wanted to tell him everything, from where she still feels guilty to how she can hardly stand to be alive when she thinks about Anna. But right at that moment, she couldn’t. She just continued to cry into his shirt.

Not even thinking, Matt started to sing to her. “These conversations of heartache and distance and sorrow, I know that you’re hurting but I think its killing me more,” he sang softly. When he heard her crying calm down and her breathing start to regulate, he looked down at her and she was sleeping. Kylie had fallen asleep in his arms, and Matt couldn’t fight back the thoughts he was having that consisted of her, and him having more than friendly feelings for her.

***

An hour later, Matt’s phone started buzzing in his pocket. Both he and Kylie had fallen asleep on her bed. He reached down quickly and picked up, trying not to disturb her. “What?” he whispered into the phone.

“Matt? Where the fuck did you—”

“Shut up, dude! Kylie’s sleeping.”

On the other end of the line, Alex was quiet, trying to figure out what this meant. “What do you mean?” he asked his friend quietly, obeying Matt’s orders to be quiet.

“Kylie had a breakdown, and left the studio. I came after her to figure out what was wrong and she was sobbing and in fetal position on her bed. I calmed her down enough so that she fell asleep, but now I can’t leave,” Matt said, taking a glance at Kylie to make sure she was still sleeping.

Alex smirked. “You like her,” he said cockily.

Matt shook his head lightly. “I’ll call you later when I leave Kylie’s.” Then he hung up and shut his phone off and stuffed it back into his jean pocket. He looked at Kylie again, still fast asleep in his arms. Her arms were wrapped around his torso and she was clinging for dear life. He could tell she was having nightmares. The way her face would flinch or the way she’d mumble in her sleep was telling him as much. With her head resting on his chest, he kissed the top of it softly and let her sleep, hoping that when she woke up he could get some answers.