Someone to Save Me

Janis cried softly as she took a shower. It had been two days since the accident. The accident that she caused and someone had lost their life. She had no idea who it had been, but she knew that the person never went up the surface, and therefore, someone was dead. It was all because she was drunk, if had not been drunk, she wouldn’t have swerved to the left, and then the person, to avoid hitting her, made a sharp left, and with the heavy rain that night, the person had gone into the water and never came up again.

She didn’t go in to try to save the person, she didn’t even call 911. She just fled the scene.

She couldn’t believe what had happened, so her mind was scared and therefore, she fled. She couldn’t face the consequences, so she left.

She didn’t sleep the entire night, and the next day, she was paranoid. She thought the police was going to knock at her door and charge her for murder, which was what she deserved, but it wasn’t entirely her fault.

She had been drunk because her life was shitty.

Not only had her best friend been fucking her boyfriend behind her back, but she had lost her job, and to just add the icing to the cake, her unfaithful boyfriend told her that she needed to get her own place because her ‘best friend’ was going to move in. Her life had gone to shits, and she vented out with alcohol in a bar.

She left before the bartender could tell that she was really drunk, she was really good at hiding it because of her strict parents. Her parents who didn’t want anything to do with her because she was the black sheep in the rich family of hers.

She truly had no one. It was really hard for her to make friends, and the two friends she had had stabbed her in the back in the worst way possible. How was she going to go on?

It all just accumulated and now someone was dead.

She had no idea who, but it had been a person. A human being. Someone who probably had a family, friends, and girlfriend, boyfriend, husband or wife. Or possibly kids, what if she stripped some poor kids’ mom or dad?

The horrible thought just made Janis cry harder. She sat down on the tub and let the water fall on her. She hugged her knees. She was a murderer, someone had died because of her stupid mistake.

Matt Sanders wasn’t a believer, he was brought up Catholic, but he wasn’t much of a church-going guy. So, when he died, he didn’t exactly know what was going to happen to him.

It came to a huge surprise when he was pointed a Guardian Angel to a person in need. His assignment, a girl named Janis Towne. She was 20 years old, and she was in a deep depression.

He was watching her at the moment, she was in the shower, sitting down, and hugging her knees. He was told he wouldn’t be able to communicate until a few days. He thought about using his time to visit his girlfriend, family, and friends, but he knew he couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t see their sad faces. He wouldn’t be able to take it.

He was dead, he had accepted his fate. He had a new job now, and it was to watch over Janis, a troubled girl that just needed some guidance.

Janis was in the shower until her fingers looked like raisins. She closed the water and got up. She reached for a towel and wrapped it around her body. She dried her hair with another towel. She walked out of her hotel’s bathroom, and into the room.

It wasn’t a luxurious hotel. It was all she could afford at the moment. She needed to call her brother and ask for money, she had to because she had no money to put a down payment on an apartment. She changed into some clothes, if there was one thing Janis didn’t lack, it was clothes and taste in clothes. Yes, she was the black sheep of the family, but she had taken advantage before moving out of New York and left to California on her own, she maxed out her credit card before leaving.

She had been a rebel. She felt really bad about it later on.

She did stupid things when she was bad. She had tantrums that involved throwing things or sometimes even biting herself, that only happened when she truly couldn’t handle things.

Matt looked at Janis curiously, he wondered why he was picked to get her. There were more experienced Guardian Angels out there, at least that’s what his trainer told him, but he was chosen for a reason. He didn’t know the reason.

So over the next couple of days he watched her.

She didn’t do much.

She didn’t watch interesting TV, it was always the History Channel, never the news, and never some kind of reality show. The only thing interesting was when she called her brother to ask for money. He could tell that she had held back as her brother lectured her about life. She really had anger issues, but she was learning to control, and at times, he could whisper things to her to get to calm down.

That was what a Guardian Angel was basically, it was your conscience.

Not only was Janis a time bomb, she was also a klutz. There was countless times where he whispered to her to watch out for that glass, or that tree. She was easily distracted, and she liked to drink.

She liked to watch Gangland with a bottle of Patron in her hand.

Matt started to feel really bad for her. Her life was pretty much shit, and his had been almost perfect.

Janis hugged the toilet after she finished throwing up.

“You need to stop drinking,” a voice said in her head, it was probably because of her stupor that she didn’t register that the voice had been deep, a male.

“Ah, tomorrow is another day,” she hiccupped.

“You can hear me now?” the voice asked.

Janis scoffed like it was the most ridiculous question in the world. “You’re me, of course I can hear myself, dummy.”

“You just called yourself dummy,” the male chuckled slightly.

It slowly, slower than the grass growing, dawned her that the voice in her head was indeed male and not hers.

“Oh, God, I’m schizophrenic, I’ve gone mental,” she groaned.

“You’re not mental.”

“I can hear voices.”

“I’m real.”

“That’s what a crazy would person would think!” Janis started to cry.

“Why are you doing this, Janis? You’re young, only 20, you need to be living life.”

“Because I’m a fucking failure, I failed at life, that’s why!” she shouted.

“There is time to make things right.”

She shook her head. “No, no, not unless I can bring back the dead, I can’t.”

Matt frowned and he closed his eyes and he finally mastered apparition, so he could see her. He crouched down to her level and removed her black bangs from her eyes.

“What do you mean?”

Janis’ eyes looked confused. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m your guardian angel.”

“And I’m Princess Diana, seriously, h-how the fuck did you get into my apartment?”

He sighed deeply. “I’m really your guardian angel, Janis. I know that you were born in May, your favorite food is chicken patties. You like to drench your fries in ketchup, and you also have anger issues, along with being a real klutz.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re a stalker! I’m-I’m calling the police,” she tried to get up, but she did it too fast and a wave of dizziness hit her. She went back to the floor. “Or maybe later.”

“Are you done throwing up?” he asked.

“What’s your name?” she asked. “Surely, ‘guardian angels’ have names.”

“Matt,” he answered and scooped her up in his arms.

“Hmm, Matt,” she said dreamily and leaned her head on his shoulder, “you’re muscle-y, you also have pretty eyes and smile… and voice.”

He chuckled deeply. “Thank you, Janis.”

“Call me Jay.”

“You’re letting a stranger in your home just like that?” he asked.

“If you wanted to kill me, you would’ve done so already,” she yawned as sleep took over her slowly. He half smiled and placed her on the bed. “I wonder if the person I killed had a nice laugh like yours.”

Matt frowned. “You killed?”

She didn’t say anything else, she was fast asleep.

Janis woke up with a killer headache. On her nightstand there was a Gatorade. She furrowed her brows. She didn’t leave it there last night, she had half a bottle of Jack. She opened her dark eyes and looked around her room, she was alone and she had clothes on, so she didn’t sleep with anyone.

She shook her head thinking that she had imagined it. Maybe she did leave it there.

She went to her kitchen and nearly screamed when someone was in front of her stove cooking.

“Who are you?!” she screamed and frantically looked around for a weapon and she found a lamp and she threw it at the person, but the person dodged it on time. “Get the fuck out, you asshole!”

“Janis, it’s me, Matt!” he said.

She stared at him and she got a bit of a flashback from the night before.

“I-I thought I dreamt that,” she stammered.

He carefully approached her.

“You didn’t.”

“So, you’re real?” she crossed her arms across her chest.

He twisted his lips to the side and tilted his head side to side, “Well, to you I am, but not to anyone else.”

“So I’m crazy?”

“No,” he laughed. “Damn, my trainer said this would be hard to explain. Okay, I’m your Guardian Angel, so that means only you can see, hear and feel me.” He rubbed her arm and she jumped back a bit, shocked that his hand felt warm and like any other human being.

“Guardian angel? Why… why would I need one?”

He shrugged. “I just follow orders, I don’t know the why or how.”

She sized him up quickly. He was taller than her by almost a foot, she was a very petite girl. He was also bulk and so many tattoos, plus he wore modern clothes.

“Where’s the halo and the harp?” she joked and smirked.

He chuckled lightly. “That was my question as well.”

Janis and Matt got to know more about each other, well he already knew about her, but she told him funny stories about her ‘rich’ life. She told him how rebellious she was, and how she used to do anything to make her parents furious and how her brother was the golden boy and she was the black sheep.

She talked mostly about herself.

When she asked about him, he was hesitant.

“I only ask because… you have tattoos and you’re wearing ordinary clothes… you must be from this century,” she clarified.

“I am.”

“Did you… die?”

He nodded once.

She could tell by his expression that he didn’t want to talk about it, so she dropped it. She got ready to go find work. Matt followed her, and though it got some used to whispering to herself because if she talked out loud she would’ve looked crazy, she managed to keep taps on Matt.

It had to be her lucky day because she landed a job at a bar as a waitress.

She was going to work from 7 to midnight, and all of her tips would be hers, she wouldn’t have to share with anyone.

She also found five dollars on the street, it was definitely her lucky day.

Weeks later, many weeks later, Janis was used to having Matt around.

They talked, and they joked. He would warn her when she was about to trip or tip over something. He was very helpful, and he would do it without looking. He also kept a check on her alcohol consumption. He didn’t let her get drunk anymore.

One day, she got him talking about himself.

He died in an accident. He didn’t specify, he just told her it was an accident.

He told her that he had a girlfriend and a group of great friends that were practically brothers. He went into stories about his friends Jimmy, Brian, Zacky and Johnny. His girlfriend was named Val, who had a twin sister named Michelle who was dating Brian. She found it so cool how he had a life, and it was taken away.

People like him deserved to live, and people like her didn’t.

People like her didn’t cherish things, they wanted to waste things away, but lately, it wasn’t like that. It had something to do with Matt appearing in her life, she knew that.

Before Janis and Matt knew it, it had been six months since they knew each other and they had grown fond of each other. She sort of developed a crush on him, but she knew it would lead nowhere because he was a guardian angel, she was a mortal.

She knew that she liked him because he was the only man in her life that had not let her down.

Eventually, she got him to tell her how he died.

“I was driving from a meeting with a friend, Benji, and it was pouring down,” he explained. “I heard my cell phone beep, I had a message and when I looked I saw that it was Val, and when I looked back up, a light blinded me. A car was swerving to my side, and to avoid the accident I turned left. The floor was slippery and I went over a cliff and into the water. I drowned.”

In Janis’s head, everything started to be out together.

“Where?” her voice barely recognizable.

“Huh?” he asked, it wasn’t the reaction he thought he would get.

“Where did it happen?” she insisted. “How long ago? A year? Two?”

He frowned. “It happened just over PCH, about six or seven months ago. Why? Did you hear about it?”

Everything turned cold.

Janis remembered the car that had gone over the cliff.

“The black Sedan?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he answered.

Her heart dropped to the pits of hell. She had killed him. It was her fault he had died. Desperation filled her and shook her body. She had killed her guardian angel. It all started to cave in. Everything.

She couldn’t be with him any longer.

She ran out of her apartment, he had followed her all the way to her car as he tried to get her to talk. He knew how rash she was about things, but she got into her car and drove off.

She started to cry and it was to the point where she couldn’t breathe. She pulled over to the side of the road.

“I killed him, I killed Matt,” she sobbed and she started to trash around and pull on her hair and scream and cry at the same time.

It was just so fucked up!

“Janis,” his voice came and she screamed a bit and turned to him. His hazel eyes were full of worry and confusion, “why did you run off like that?”

She had to tell him, but now she was afraid. She was face to face with the man she killed. It just froze her in place and as she remembered that he had a good life and that she took it away because of her stupidity it just stunned her.

So, she started to drive and didn’t utter a single word.

He said nothing neither, and he was immensely worried.

He had never seen her so scared and so frightened.

She drove all the way to place where his car had gone down. There was a small pier. Janis parked the car and she got out. He followed her all the way to the pier. He had a bad feeling he wasn’t going to like whatever she was going to say.

She stopped and turned around.

“You remember when we first met I told you I killed someone?” she finally spoke after five minutes of silence.

“Yes.”

“That night… my boyfriend and best friend betrayed me and I had lost my job, and I was kicked out. I went to a bar, with a fake ID, of course, and got drunk out of my fucking mind. I started to drive aimlessly in the rain… I swerved to the left lane when I was looking at my phone and then…” she turned around to face him. His face was just like hers when he told his story. “I’m the reason you’re dead, Matt. I was the one that caused you to drive over the edge and go in there,” she nodded her head to the water. “I’m sorry doesn’t even begin to cover what I feel.”

He just stood there for about a minute and then he vanished. In a blink of an eye he vanished.

Janis made a full circle and then sighed deeply. She knew he was going to do that. She stayed at the pier though. She stayed there until the sun went down.

The night stars were above her crystal clear.

Silent tears fell down her face.

The only person--or whatever--who had been there for her lately was someone she hurt in the most horrible way. She had taken someone good and honest from the world.

“Janis?” his voice came to her.

She whipped her head to the side and saw Matt standing there with his hands in his pockets. She licked her lips and wiped away the tears.

“I--” I started but he raised his hand to stop me.

“I’m not going to lie… because I can’t lie to you--literally--I was shocked and I was angry at you. Really, really angry, but… things happen for a reason.”

“Please forgive me, Matt, I swear I would take it all back. I would trade places with you in a heartbeat.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m not going to forgive you,” her heart tugged with pain, “until you forgive yourself first.”

“I can’t.”

“You have to, in order to move on.”

Janis stared at him puzzled by his words. “Are you still mad at me?”

“Yes, but I’ll learn to deal with it.”

“I needed someone to save me, and you came along, Matt. Thank you.”