Withered

I woke up on that Saturday morning unaware of the tragedy that had taken place in the night. Facebook alerted me to it when instead of the usual posts about parties and girls, everyone was saying the same thing.

"My thoughts go out to all those involved in last nights crash."

So many questions raced through my mind. Who was in the crash? Three girls, Rose, Lily, and Dahlia. Did I know them? Yes, they were in my class and good friends of mine. Especially Rose who was more a sister. Will I ever see them again? Not as I knew them.

The story was that these three girls were going to a party when Rose ran a stop sign, colliding with another vehicle driven by a man I didn't know. Rose and Lily were physically unharmed but Dahlia was thrown out the car window and sustained injuries that would wreck her left arm forever. The man underwent severe brain damage and died the next morning. Rose, the driver, was not drunk or on any drugs when this happened.

I froze when I read what happened. My thoughts immediately went to Rose. What would happen to her now? She was a killer. She took an innocent life and would live with that forever. And on top of that she wounded her best friend for life. I knew right away she would never be the same in my eyes. If she wasn't affected by the knowledge of killing someone, I would think so much less of her, but if she let the guilt inside I knew she would never joke around or try hard in school. She would be a soulless shell of the person she once was. I worried she may even take her own life to somehow compensate for what she did.

The next Wednesday I saw her in chemistry class for the first time. She looked fine, which made me think that this girl I thought I knew didn't even care about what she did. I confronted her after class.

"Rose, are you upset by what you did at all?" I asked accusingly.

"Yeah, but no one was seriously hurt so it's okay."

I stared. Then it dawned on me. Rose didn't know that the man she hit was dead or that Dahlia was still going through surgeries. I felt so much pity for Rose, knowing that when she was told this news she would indeed die inside.

And that's exactly what happened.

Once she found out she stopped caring. I watched her quit doing school work and end all of her friendships. Anyone who tried to comfort her was angrily turned away, because I think she knew deep down that it was truly her fault, albeit a mistake, but still her fault that a three year old child lost his father. I knew I would be the same. It pained me to depths I didn't know possible that one tiny mistake had such a great effect on her life.

I knew I myself had ran the occasional yield or stop sign for various reasons, but never had there been consequences. It made me wonder what Rose ever did to deserve this amount of pain from one mistake thousands make everyday.

I miss her. I know there isn't anything I can do but I find myself, a young man who has never used prayer for much, asking any kind of higher power for a way to end her suffering, to save the girl I knew from the dark clutches of her own guilt that will continue to rip at her until she can't take it and does something irreversible.

Rose has withered.



(Note: Hi there, I just wanted to put a personal message here. This story, unfortunately, is 100% true. I changed the names of the girls involved but that's it. I just had to vent this somewhere because it truly does frustrate me to great lengths that I can't seem to do anything to help this girl. Thank-you all for reading this.)

-M.G.