Innocence

Maybe if my parents hadn’t had plans to go out to a Christmas party I wouldn’t have been planning to deceive them. Of course I couldn’t turn back now, I was so close to getting what I had been waiting for all day. A real teenager wouldn’t sit at home and watch the fire burn logs in the fire place, and wait for their parents to get home from a party. A teenager that I wanted to be would wait until their parents left for the party and take their new car to the roads for the firs time.

Isn’t it?

My mom comes up to me on the couch and kisses the top of my head. “We’ll be back after midnight, so you should really get some rest. Don’t wait up for us.”

The joy and happiness in her voice makes me think of my plan. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to wait until the roads weren’t slicked over. Wouldn’t that be so much easier than taking it out in the middle of the night? But what fun would that be. I need to transform myself back into a normal teenager. I don’t need to take of my mom anymore…so I need to take care of myself.

Live a little…

I wrap the blanket tighter around myself, hiding my outfit from Nathan that has just walked in. “I won’t Mom.”

“Are you ready Julie?” Nathan asked, smiling politely at me.

I don’t return it, but instead turn up the volume on the television in the living room to drown him out.

My mom kisses me on the head one more time before leaving with Nathan. I turn off the TV and listen very carefully as I hear the limousine drive away and the sound slowly fades into nothing. I jump from the couch, throwing the blanket off of me. My long sweater should keep me warm enough under my winter coat, and the pants I have on are my best pair, my favorite pair.

The car key is already in my pocket. I slip on my shoes, grab my winter jacket from the closet, and run from the house, letting the door slam shut behind me.

The winter chill has not ceased, but has got stronger; colder if that is even possible. The cold chill slaps my face, and I gasp from the cold. Slipping my arms into my jacket and zipping it up to my chin isn’t enough either. The wind still reaches my face, blows my hair wildly around me, and sneaks through the small spaces between the stitching in my pants.

It is a relief to hop into my car that is sitting nicely next to a black Lexus; Nathan’s latest purchase. A small silver metal box with a ribbon on it is on the center consol. I grab it, throw the ribbon on the floor, and read the small piece of paper attached to the piece of metal by a piece of tape.

Door opener, it read in neat but small handwriting.

“This is easier than I thought it would have been.” I say aloud. Maybe these are signs that I’m really not breaking any rules. Nathen never said I actually had to wait. It was my car anyway, so I could do what I wanted with it. My mom and Nathan gave it to me.

I crumpled the small piece of paper up, throwing it next to the bow on the floor by the passenger seat. I pressed the small red button on the contraption in my hands. There was a light squeak as the gear above started to work and bring the doors up. I didn’t wait for them to stop before I took the key from my pocket to start the engine.

If I hadn’t turned the key myself, and felt the very slight shake of the car when it started, I wouldn’t have thought it was on. The soft purr of the motor, the easy turn of the wheel was almost a dream come true.

I backed out of the garage, making sure not to go too fast as the wheels of my car began to find the ice a bit slipperier than the cement in the garage.

I pressed the red button again when I was out of the door’s way, watching it close completely before I even thought of leaving the driveway to head off onto the road. I turned the car around and drove around the circle of the driveway a couple of times, feeling the motions of the car. The smile that crept onto my face couldn’t be stopped, but I didn’t want to stop it. I was happy at that moment.

I pressed the accelerator lightly with my toe, edging out of the driveway and onto the road. I could help the excitement that enveloped me when the car turned so smoothly, so easily. Who wouldn’t be happy to have a car like this?

I didn’t look where I was headed, and didn’t think about it. I just let myself drive and drive as the darkness around me didn’t change. The only light around the forest was the occasional Christmas lite house, just showing behind the thousand trees.

The roads weren’t as bad as my dad said they were going to be. Maybe it was just because I didn’t want to think they were, that my mind said they weren’t.

The next set of events told me that I was wrong about that fact. Even though I couldn’t see any other cars on the road, I could feel someone following me. Maybe I was being paranoid, but the feelings was definately there. Goose pimples covered my entire body, making my clothes feel funny against my now bumpy skin.

I looked in my rear view mirror to see if I could see anyone. No one was there. Not even the faintest of headlights visible.

“You are such a dork.” I said to myself, breathing in deeply. “There is no one following you.”

I looked back onto the road just in time. A large golden retriever was sitting in the middle of my lane, not making any motions to move. I turned the wheel sharply, trying to avoid the poor creature. The car jerked, trying to find traction on the ice that covered the road.

The car spun, and missed the dog completely, but hit a tree that was near by. The speed I had been going at didn’t let it stop there. The rear end of the car hit the tree, spinning the car even faster. I couldn’t tell what happened next because the car jerked again and my head hit the steering wheel, knocking all sense of where I was and what was happening to me, out of my mind. My arm collided with the center consol, a snapping reverberating through the cab of the car.

Before I knew it, I was hanging upside down, my head resting on the roof of the car. I felt the blood drip from my head, and my arm ached like crazy.

The blood from my head had gotten into my eye, so all I saw a red blur out one of my eyes, a fuzzy haze from the other.

My air was constricted by the seat belt that was pressed against my windpipe. I gasped for air, trying to get the seat belt off. I couldn’t find the button to release it, and my head began to spin.

The dog I had so narrowly missed was barking right outside my car door, pressing his nose to the glass.

I gasped for air, still struggling with my seat belt. I was going to die this way, strangulation by the thing that is supposed to save you. Can someone say irony?

The car jolted as something ran into the car lightly, the car door ripped open.

My vision blurred and then blackened. My hands went limp, no longer able to fight the black death that was coming for me. It wouldn’t be so bad to die, I could get use to being dead. I would have to.

"Candace?"

The sound of my seat belt being ripped from my throat didn’t help me much. I was just too tired and out of air. My vision almost gone, my head bleeding out, it didn’t matter any more. Then my airway cleared as my head clunked onto the top of the car. Someone had cut me free.

"Candace? Can you hear me Candace? Oh my God she's bleeding. And she was being strangled. We need to get her to a hospital fast."

"Candace?"

I heard the person calling my name, and heard the cars metal screech, but I was too far gone to care. Large arms wrapped around me and set me onto the freezing snow away from the warmth of my new car.

That was all I could comprehend before everything went quiet, and I was gone.