Page 42 of Crybaby

Suddenly, I need to get out. I need to get out of the car right now.

The reality of what just happened rushes back in with a harsh slap of ferocity and threatens to choke me to death, and I can’t breathe.

“I’m going to be sick!” I say and reach for the door handle.

“What?” Carson slows down and faces me from the driver’s seat.“Oh shit. Let me pull over.”

He reaches out and puts a hand on my arm, which causes me to lurch and rip open the car door. We are still moving, but not fast enough for me not to get the fuck out.I jump out of the car and tumble down an embankment.

Death at this point would be a mercy.

My name echoes in the darkness, but everything all morphs into their laughter…their smell…the intense pain and invasion of my body.

I thump into something, and I realize a large tree has broken my fall. I simply lie on my back on the ground, twigs and rocks digging into me, but I feel nothing—I am numb. I stare into the starless sky and wonder what stares back at me. This has to be a bad dream.

Are my guardian angels ready to finally intervene? I think about God and start laughing. Holy fuck, God really fucked up this time.

“Darcie!”

I can hear Carson’s distressed voice and the gentle rustling of grass as he frantically tries to find me. But I make no attempt to move or speak.

“Oh fuck, you’ve got to go to the hospital.”

Good to know I look as shitty as I feel.

My bird’s-eye view of the universe is suddenly blocked by Carson’s head as he stands over me and attempts to help me stand. But all I see is Blake’s face over me, and I can smell that same alcoholic stench that I feel saturated in. I can’t stand to be touched, so I elbow him in the face when he tries to grab my arm.

He pulls back, swearing something I can’t hear over my own panicked yells. Yells that don’t seem to be coming from my body, but I can hear them. No matter how hard I try to stop them, they only get louder and more frantic.

“Let me help you! Please!” It comes out muffled as he’s holding a hand over his bleeding nose. The bright red in the moonlight matches the color stained over my thighs.

And just like that, the numbness turns to maniacal rage and adrenaline.

I need to get out of here, and I need to get out of here now.

I run.

Faster than I’ve ever run.

Up the embankment, down the street, and into the night.

Carson doesn’t chase me, and the old Darcie would feel a slither of guilt for being so awful to him when all he was trying to do was help. But that Darcie doesn’t exist anymore.

Until I’m in the safety of darkness, with only dim flickering streetlights dotting their way toward my destination to nowhere, do I breathe again.

I just need to be anywhere away from here, and for that to happen, I need wheels.

I’m in some neighborhood. Nothing looks familiar, but I am now looking at the world through different eyes.

Picking up a rock in a garden bed, a strangled laugh leaves me when I see the words:Angels walk amongst us, written on it. My angel clearly was on a sabbatical tonight, then.

I walk to the silver Honda parked by the curb and smash the rock through the driver’s window. A loud shrilling has me covering my ears, and I realize hot, sticky liquid oozes down my arm—more blood. At this rate, I’ll bleed to death, but that wouldn’t be so bad.

Opening the door, I check the glove compartment, middle console, and the visor for the keys but don’t find anything. Looks like I’m going to have to hotwire it. But I can’t get my hands to stop shaking, and my vision, it’s blurry and burns.

I claw at my throat because I can’t breathe again. This is really it this time.

“Darcie!”

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