Young Bodies

The next night was the same routine. Only thing different she hadn't fallen asleep at all and was running on coffee and dark circles under her eyes. Insomnia wasn't an unusual side effect of depression, her health teacher had informed her during the first weeks after Jenny died. She'd been suffering from insomnia for longer then that however, stress and simple worrying over everything had kept her up at night since she started high school. It hadn't gone away with graduation as she had hoped thought.
The sky above was pitch black, beginning to turn dark blue as the minutes passed.
While driving down main street, looking at the road and the trees keeping the other side of the road away, she wanted to get out of town. Sometimes she got these impulses reminding her of herself before Jenny died. The constant urge to get out of town, drive across the old bridge after the drugstore and continue.
For the first time this month she got tired of driving the same rout. All she was waiting for was sunrise on top of the hills. So she turned as soon as she could and drove back, upwards.
In one week she would be 18, she would be a legal adult. Before she had scoffed at that Yoko Ono quote, "some people are old at 18 and some are young at 90. Time is a concept that humans created." It had sounded so strange to her then, maybe because everyone around her had acted the stereotype for their age. Apart from herself. She couldn't remember how many times she'd gotten the, "you're so mature for your age" comment or something similar from family friends, teachers, and people from the town. She felt older than she had before now days, no wonder why.

As she was driving she saw more and more of the town as if she was a bird, the clock tower being the first thing she saw out of all the other buildings. It was warmer than the night before, before she'd worn lose pants but now she was forced to wear shorts so she wouldn't suffocate in the humid heat.
The windows were rolled down again and she took in the smells. Fresh flowers lining the road and smoke, or maybe it's the odd smell of the construction site a few miles away. Why it now would smell of smoke from a soon new, luxurious mall, was beyond her. Like she always did, she pushed the thought away and focused on the smell of the trees and flowers.

Only for a second she decided to close her eyes, she knew this road like the back of her hand. During those few seconds of bliss a loud scream echoed and she opened her eyes in panic and slammed on the breaks. A boy, her age, was standing in the middle of the road, smoke was coming from the forest on the side of the road where he had his back to. His face and light brown hair was blackened with ash and his clothes still glowing from catching fire.
It took a little while after stopping the car right in front of him and when she recognized who it was. She quickly got out of the car, closing the door with as much force she could come with.
"What the hell are you doing George?" she didn't mean to shout but in the heat of the moment she couldn't stop herself. She hadn't seen him since the morning after the party when he'd been standing on her porch, begging for forgiveness. Forgiveness she never gave him and didn't plan to do in her lifetime.
"Liv, you gotta get out of here." his hair was messy and had twigs and spanish moss in it.
"There's a fire we have to call the fire department, idiot." she reached her hand down to her pocket to get her phone.
"You can't do that." he threw himself over her phone. She started at him and wondered if she managed to make everyone around her mentally insane. "You have to get in your car and drive away, now. You can't be here." he sounded desperate, and he was. Olivia couldn't be here, not now. He'd fought this moment for weeks since he found out about her family and their history. But before he could force her inside her old pickup truck it was too late, his name echoed between the trees. Olivia looked between George and the forest where the fire was decreasing in size rapidly.
"How is that…" her voice disappeared as a girl their age appeared at the road. Her hair was like it had been last time Olivia saw her. Her clothes weren't the same, why would you wear a tight, pretty dress in the middle of the forest? But everything else was the same and she was beginning to wonder if she made herself insane right there.
Little black dress, Olivia had to name her something, walked quickly towards them and looked between George and the suddenly furious blonde girl.
"You disgust me." Olivia stared at George and stormed towards her car to get the hell out of there. She would never forget the face of the girl George had been with that night. Her long brown hair and small, petite frame. She was the most beautiful girl Olivia had ever seen. She'd heard the comments around the party when she'd been looking for George. Everyone had though little black dress was the hottest, prettiest, most smokin' girl in the house.
"This is going to take some explaining." a voice behind Olivia spoke.