Broken Glass and Bleeding Hearts

“There was an accident last night.” My mom’s voice was slow and quiet. She was controlling herself so this was put in an extremely gentle manner.

“What kind of accident? Is everyone okay?” So far I wasn’t extremely worried, it wasn’t that I didn’t think I should be I just wasn’t. It was probably because of everything that I’d just discovered that I was still numb.

“It was a car accident, a really bad one.”

“You still aren’t answering my question. Is everyone okay?” Now the panic was setting in. If everyone was okay then she wouldn’t have added the words really bad and avoided the second question.

Matt was holding onto both of my hands, his skin a few degrees hotter than my own, now. I could tell that there was something that he wanted to say but he couldn’t find the words. He didn’t need to speak though; his eyes said everything for him.

I looked back at my mom. She looked completely defeated. Much like Matt she didn’t have the words. Worse than that she didn’t know how to tell me whatever it was without destroying my world.

“Honey,” She sighed, “it was Star.”

“Is she alright? What happened? Is she in the hospital?” The panic suddenly peaked. Whatever had happened had to be worse than I’d originally thought.

“No sweetie. She isn’t.” My mom’s arms were around me within seconds. She didn’t have to say what had happened; I knew. Matt still hadn’t said a word and I was rather grateful for that. I didn’t want to hear anything right now.

For several minutes I didn’t believe it. When the realization finally hit that this wasn’t a nightmare I was going to wake up from I lost it. There had been times in the past when I felt like I had lost my mind, especially in the past few months, but this time topped all of those. I even kicked my mom and Matt out of my bedroom to be alone.

I expected that as soon as I was alone that I’d cry, that I’d completely break down. But I didn’t do that. Instead I grew so angry that I only saw red. I wanted to destroy something or someone. That someone happened to be the empty picture frame that sat on my nightstand. I hadn’t gotten around to putting the picture of Star in yet but the words were enough to send me over the edge.

The anger made me strong enough to pull the word “forever”, which had been added to the frame before I bought it, off cleanly. The metal that it was made out of was strong enough to pierce the skin of my left palm as I squeezed it, crumbling it in the process.

Like it always was, my bathroom door was wide open. The cold tile floor seemed like the perfect place to shatter glass against. With one hard toss the glass of the frame shattered into fifteen pieces. This, however, was not enough to satisfy my anger.

After the large pieces of glass were shattered into smaller shards I realized I was crying. Not silent tears either, loud and hard sobs that wracked my entire body. The metal forever was still in my left hand and I felt it had to be destroyed. I was in the process of breaking it into pieces, still sobbing, when I felt the arms around me.

“Let me go!” I fought back with everything thing that I could but it wasn’t enough.

“Elliebear its just me. Come on you’ve got to settle down. I’ve got you,” Matt said, voice was laced with sadness but it was still sane. Mine wasn’t even in the same county as sane.

“No! Just let me go!” The sobbing was growing harder now as my palm began stinging.

“Ellie! Look at yourself!”

“No!”

“Stop it! Ellie look in the damn mirror right now!” Matt’s voice suddenly became firm. He was completely serious.

“Make me!” I hissed, fangs barred.

Somehow over the years Matt had developed a grip especially for me. It was strong enough to make me move or look in some direction without hurting me and gentle enough to show that he didn’t want to use it at the same time. There had only been a handful of times or so that he’d been forced to use it and now was one of them.

“Stop hurting yourself Ellie. Its okay to be pissed off but stop doing this to yourself. Come on where is my Elliebear?”

It was impossible to overlook fangs and the blazing eyes. The anger that had contorted my face made me unrecognizable. Then there was the blood that was running down my arm from my palm.

Within a minute the anger had drained from my eyes and my fangs were gone. Where the pissed off girl had been there was now a depressed girl, tears lingering in my eyes. As I moved my palm to see the damage done I noticed the blood left on Matt’s arm. “I’m sorry. I left a lot of blood on you.”

“Don’t be sorry for that. Lets get your hand taken care of,” Matt’s voice was gentle again as he lifted me onto the counter. “do you have any peroxide?”

“Under the sink,” I mumbled, unable to speak clearly.

“Its gonna burn pretty badly so brace yourself.” Matt was right. It stung like hell the second it made contact with the cut.

“She is really gone isn’t she?” I could feel the water works coming now. It was the reaction that I felt I should have had right away.

“Yeah baby, she is really gone.” As soon as Matt finished wrapping the gauze around my palm my arms wrapped around him. “Come on, lets go to your bedroom and talk.”

“I can’t move, I think I’m frozen in place.”

“Don’t try to move then.” Matt lifted me from the counter and headed for my bed.

For a few minutes neither of us said a word. I guess that Matt didn’t want to say anything that would make it worse. I just didn’t know what I was supposed to say in this situation. There were things that I needed to know, things I knew Matt would know by now, but I wasn’t sure how to ask.

Finally I found the words and asked, “How did the accident happen Matt?”

“She was leaving the party around midnight and she was in the car alone. From what the cops have found out it looks like either she or another car ran a stop sign. The second car slammed into the left side and somehow that caused her explorer to flip over and then her side crashed into a tree.”

“Oh my God. W-was she a-alive when the paramedics got there?”

“We can talk about this another time. This is too much for you to take in all at once Ellie.” Matt rubbed my back and I nuzzled my cheek against his shoulder.

“I have to know Matt. Please just answer my question.”

Before he answered Matt grabbed a box of tissues off my nightstand. “No. She was already gone when they got there. Her parents told your mom that they were told she was killed either during the roll or instantly when her side slammed against the tree.”

I reached out and grabbed a hand full of tissue. I wiped the tears from eyes and threw myself into my pillow. Another round of sobs wracked through my body. “What happened to the other driver? Are they going to be charged or something?”

Matt pulled me against his side. “The other driver took off Ellie. They don’t even know who it was.” Those words were all it took for the feeling to explode.

“You don’t think that-?” I left the sentence unfinished. Matt would catch onto what I was really asking on his own.

“I don’t know, I really don’t know.”

Four hours later and I still hadn’t moved; neither had Matt. I’d told him that he could leave if he wanted to, I’d be fine by myself. He’d replied that he wasn’t going to leave me alone this soon.

When my mom came in and sat down beside me, I knew what was coming. “Come on sweetheart you need to eat something. Even if it is just a little something,” She said.

“I’m not hungry,” I said as I rolled over and squeezed my eyes shut. It wasn’t even a lie; I had no appetite.

“She is right Ellie. You should eat something.” It wasn’t shocking that Matt agreed with my mom either.

Between the two of them, and by dinner time, they’d talked me into eating something. As soon as I finished the food I headed back to my bedroom, crawled under the covers, and began crying again. I was so angry at myself and sad that I wasn’t sure what to do.

I’d spent the last several months so caught up in my own life that I’d drifted away from her. It wasn’t like it was the first time we’d went a period of time without spending a ton of time together. It didn’t mean that she wasn’t still one of my best friends. The difference is this time I’d never get the chance to fix things; they’d never be the same.

Although it wasn’t exactly easy to tune my mom and Matt out, I managed to do it. I could hear them talking in the living room but I didn’t care to hear it. Just like I had felt all day I just didn’t care about anything.

For almost an hour I stayed right there. I didn’t move, I didn’t think, I didn’t do anything. As the clock approached 8:50, exactly twelve hours since I’d found out, reality sunk in. She was really gone and I couldn’t bring her back. But if Angelica was involved then I could stop her from doing this to another one of my friends.

Even though it made me feel stone cold I could see clearly. I didn’t have the time to mourn my friend. I had a huge problem to focus on and I had to start right now. I could mourn later but right now I needed to get the answers.

By the time Matt came back into my room I was forming a plan. The first thing that I needed was to see where it had happened. Unfortunately neither my mom nor Matt had mentioned that detail. For a second I thought about asking Zacky but with Matt so close I couldn’t take that chance.

As much as I hated to, I knew I had to ask Matt. There was a part of my brain that was screaming not to, that he wouldn’t actually tell me, but I didn’t have any other choice. Even though Matt was sitting on the edge of my bed I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

Finally, another hour later, I finally summed up the courage. “Matt?”

“Yeah?” He turned to look at me, a mix of worry and relief written on his face.

“I need a favor and you aren’t going to like it.”

“What is it?”

“Do you know where the crash happened?”

“Yes. Why? I don’t think you are ready to know that yet.”

“I need you to take me there.”

“Are you crazy! No way in hell! It is way to soon for you to even think about it!”

Sitting up and glaring, I practically growled, “I’m not crazy! If Angelica was somehow involved in this then I need to know. The only way I can know is if I see where it happened. I said you wouldn’t like it before I even asked.”

“Well I won’t do it. You can be mad at me all you want, but I still won’t do it.”

I went back to not talking after that. Luckily I’d made a back up plan, just in case Matt said no. So I waited until after my mom went to bed, and I could hear faint snoring, before I stood up and headed for my closet.

“What are you doing?” Matt asked as I slipped a hoodie on.

“You won’t take me to where I need to go, so I’m going alone.” I grabbed my keys because they contained the smallest, and brightest, flashlight in my room.

“Do I have to remind you that you don’t know where it happened?”

“No you don’t. If you aren’t going to show me then I’ll walk around until I find it myself.” I shoved my window open and took a step back.

I was just about to jump out the window when Matt finally spoke. “Damn you Ellie! Just wait a second and I’ll show you.”

It only took a few minutes of walking to come to the spot. It didn’t take long for me to see the remnants of the crash. There was enough evidence that I felt like I could actually piece together what had happened less than twenty-four hours ago.

Standing so close it was impossible not to get a bad feeling. Apparently Matt sensed the mood I was in because he wrapped his arms around me. “Are you alright? We can leave if it is to much Elliebear.”

“She died right here,” I said, my voice cracking.

There were skid marks in the direction Star was coming from. The road coming in from the opposite side didn’t have skid marks, which gave me the impression that the other car didn’t try to stop. I could even see where her vehicle had slammed into, and disfigured, the tree.

“Come on. Lets get you home. I knew this was a bad idea.”

I didn’t protest about going home. When I’d had my epiphany this afternoon I hadn’t accounted for how uncontrollable emotions are. This might not be a situation where I could do what I had to do; it might be a situation where I couldn’t do anything.

As we walked back towards my house something didn’t feel right. My mind was almost completely occupied with trying to figure out what else was wrong with this picture. There were still things that just didn’t piece together.

We had just arrived at my house when it hit me what was wrong. “Did they say she was going home?” I asked, grabbing Matt’s arms.

“Yeah. They couldn’t think of another destination she would be heading for that time of night. Why? Can you think of somewhere else?”

“Yes! Matt she never went home that way. She always said that it took way too long and there were too many stop signs. She’d rather go the same way we always go when we go to her house. She used that route when she was coming here. It was the only time she ever used it.”

“So you think that she was coming here?”

“What if she found out something at the party and was coming to tell me? Because I think that is what happened. Would you honestly put it past Angelica? Matt it makes complete and total sense when you put all the pieces together and you know it. What if we are dealing with something bigger than we originally thought?”

“Shit! It does make more sense. If it is bigger then we’ll just have to come up with a plan. It isn’t like we have a choice to opt out of this. We just need to come up a new and better plan, because if not we are screwed. And we have to make one that we both agree on.”