The Accident

Chapter 1

         I stood in front of the old courthouse with my partner, Campbell. Wearing our brand new, carefully pressed police uniforms, we walked past the tall, thick, intimidating stone pillars and through the heavy wooden doors. As we passed through the cold halls, I saw her. She was an adult now, but she looked so similar to the way that she did back then. She had the same long, straight, jet black hair and ice blue eyes that she had all those years ago. She approached me and I wondered if she recognized me.

“Can I help you, officers?” she asked with the same soft, sweet voice.

“We were just here to get a search warrant,” Campbell told her. “Could you tell us where we should go?”

“Sure. It’s down the hall and it will be the fifth door on your right. I was just about to head in that direction. I can show you.”

As we walked, the three of us continued the mindless small talk. When we finally reached the warrant office, she turned to me and asked, “You look really familiar. Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so. You may have seen me around but I don’t think we’ve ever formally met. My name is Adrian,” I responded, trying to seem as relaxed as possible, but it was hard to keep the shaking out of my voice.

“I like that name. I knew a man named Adrian about fifteen years ago.” With that she gave me a confused look. It quickly vanished. “But it couldn’t have been you. I guess it’s just a coincidence. Anyway, my name is Audra,” she responded just as though we were two people meeting for the first time. However, this was the complete opposite. With just those few sentences, she had confirmed my suspicion that she did not recognize me.

** ** ** **

While I was dancing, I looked up and noticed a clock up on the wall. It read two-thirty in the morning. My parents were going to kill me for breaking my curfew. I had to get home now. I ran—if it can even be called running, for I probably looked more like a stumbling, drunken chicken—outside and jumped into the driver’s seat of my red Camaro. As I was driving through downtown Los Angeles, I began wandering onto the wrong side of the road. I felt like I was about to pass out from all of the alcohol that was coursing through my veins. I began to feel dizzy and I couldn’t see straight, and then it happened.

As soon as I felt the impact, I knew it was horrible. I heard the crushing of the car hoods and the shattering of the windows and windshields. Then, the sickening crunch of my leg being crushed by the intruding gears of the car, echoed through the air. I sat there not being able to move, not knowing what I should do. I heard the screams of anguish coming from the other car. It sounded like a young girl, I couldn’t tell how old exactly. I knew something was horribly wrong. I finally figured out what it was that she was saying. “MOM! DAD!” she screamed over and over.

When I came to my senses, I sifted through the glass and metal debris and found my slightly mangled phone in the passenger seat. I flipped it open and dialed nine-one-one. A few blurry and confused minutes later, I heard the squealing of sirens as the ambulances neared the scene of my drunken carelessness.

One of the paramedics leapt from the ambulance and jogged over to my car while his partner went to the other car. I was lifted out of the car and carried on a stretcher over to the back of the ambulance. Once inside, I was thoroughly examined and taken to the hospital along with the family of three that had been in the other car; the parents were completely unconscious and their daughter sitting by their sides and holding their hands. She had her mother’s long, straight, jet-black hair and her father’s ice blue eyes. She was the perfect combination of her parents.

We rode the whole way to the hospital in utter silence. The only noise was the squealing sirens echoing off the buildings around us and the bouncing of the ambulance as we rushed to the hospital. When we reached the emergency room, the girl’s parents were rushed off to the Intensive Care Unit. Meanwhile, we were left in a stuffy waiting room. The girl carefully chose a seat on the opposite side of the room where she proceeded to sit and glare at me. I could feel the immense hatred she had for me as it came flooding like a tsunami towards me.

When I was taken away to be examined, she sat there watching as I was wheeled away. The doctors X-rayed my leg, and confirmed that it had been broken in three different places. They said that I would be having surgery within the next few days. Then, forgetting my own troubles for a second, I remembered the family that had been in the other car.

“Have you heard anything about that family that was in the other car?” I asked.

After exchanging a few nervous glances between each other, one of the doctors, I couldn’t remember his name, replied, “The girl is alright, a broken arm is all. But her parents died.”

I instantly felt my stomach drop and my heart rose in my throat. I had killed them. I was a murderer. I had to see her. I knew she hated me. I could feel it seeping through the walls that separated us. It poured from every nook and cranny, every dent, every crack. I could feel it surrounding me and I couldn’t escape it as it suffocated me. I should have been the one that died, not them. It should have been me.

“I want to see the girl and her parents. Will someone please wheel me to their room?”

This took the doctors by surprise. They looked at each other shocked and confused. Finally one of them managed to stutter out an almost inaudible “I will.”

After being pushed through the cold, white halls, we eventually came to a stop at a room that seemed to drip sadness and grief. I knocked on the door. When she opened the door and saw me, I thought she might slam the door in my face. But instead I was greeted with an almost growl-like question.

“What do you want?”

“I wanted to come say goodbye to your parents and apologize to you.”

“Yeah, well. You can apologize all you want, but it won’t bring them back.”

“I know. I am so sorry for what I have done to you and your family. I have killed your parents and I hate myself for that. I just thought that I should tell you that,” I replied. It was extremely difficult not to cry. My eyes were welling up with tears, causing my vision to become blurred. I swallowed several times in a failing attempt to swallow the growing lump in my throat. I wanted to die on the spot. “I also wanted to tell you that I intend to plead guilty.” At that her eyes suddenly gave a hint of spark. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” She held the door open for me to be pushed through. Once I was by her parents’ side, I could barely control the tears that were stinging my eyes; on top of that, I could feel the pounding headache of my soon to come hangover starting to take over. I better make this quick, I thought to myself, but nothing would come to me. All I could say was “I’m so sorry.” After a few minutes of sitting in silence, trying to come up with something to say, I was saved from my embarrassment when one of the coroners came into the room to take the bodies away. I was wheeled out of the room and taken to my own room. I sat, unable to sleep due to the pounding in my head and the guilt weighing me down. As I stared at the wall across from the hard, uncomfortable bed it seemed to stare back at me, cold and white.

I must have fallen asleep at some point because I woke up when I heard the door open. I looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was ten o’clock in the morning. Who would be coming to see me? I looked in the direction of the door. It was just the nurse. Part of me had hoped that it would be the girl. I realized then that I didn’t even know her name. Or her parents’, the people I had murdered.

I spent the rest of the day falling in and out of sleep. The next morning, the girl came into the room.

“The funeral is today,” she said morosely.

“The doctors told me. I’m just curious, but what is your name?”

At that question she looked up from the floor and her eyes met mine.

“My name is Audra. What’s yours?”

“I’m Adrian. How old are you Audra?”

“I’m fourteen. What about you?”

What have I done? I took this girl’s PARENTS from her at fourteen! Fourteen! I am such an idiot, I thought to myself.

As I choked back a cry, I responded, trying to be as relaxed as possible, “I’m eighteen.”

“Adrian, are you going to come to the funeral?” she asked, a spark of curiosity coming to her eyes.

“I don’t know Audra. I’m not sure if that would be appropriate or not considering that I’m the man that killed them.”

“I wish you would.”

“Why?”

“This may sound strange, but I want you to come because you are the one that killed them. It seems like that would be a good way to apologize to them for what happened, that is if you want to.” With her eyes dropping back to the floor, she added shyly, almost remorsefully, “I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pressured you. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“I want to come. What time is the service?”

“One o’clock this afternoon.”

“Ok, I will be there.”

That afternoon, I was escorted by one of the doctors at the hospital to the funeral. Naturally, I knew no one there. But everyone seemed to recognize me as I got angry glares from just about every direction. Audra was the only person, aside from the doctor of course, who would speak to me, kindly at least.

Later that week, I pleaded guilty to the judge and was sentenced to eight years in prison. When my parents heard what my sentence was, I could tell just by their faces that they were disappointed in me. They didn’t have to say it. I was disappointed in myself, too. Eight years. I had gotten off easy. I felt that I deserved life in prison. I made a resolution right then and there, whenever I got out, I was going to share my story in order to keep people from making the same idiotic mistakes.

** ** ** **

As tens of thousands of things I should tell Audra ran through my head, I thought of all the sadness, anger, and hatred that it would bring back to her and couldn’t bring myself to say any of the things that I should tell her. Our eyes met as I looked at her. I should tell her who I am. I should just be honest and tell her I am the one that killed her parents.

“Thank you for showing us where to go. Have a nice day,” I said trying to hide the nervousness in my voice and the shaking in my hands from her and Campbell. I couldn’t let her know who I was.

“Have a nice day.”