The Beginning of Us (17 page)

I pulled on my black helmet with pink pinstripes and jumped on the back of Danny’s bike. This was my favorite part. I could just lay on his back, rest my head on his shoulder and go along for the ride. No talking, no music, nothing but us and the road. Some girls get off on buying shoes. Me? I get off on the sound of a bike. There is just something about the rumble of a bike that makes me want to flip around the front and madly kiss the man I’m so in love with.

Maybe it isn’t all bikes. Maybe it’s just Danny’s. I know the sound. Even though it’s identical to Skylar’s and many other bikes around this town, something about the sound of this bike screams Danny and nobody else.

We left the parking lot and headed towards the highway. My legs were squeezing the life out of Danny’s and I was almost lying down on top of him. We were going so fast, as if we were flying. This was where I got my thrills in life and I was so happy I got to do it with my future husband.

My future husband. Oh hell. In a few months, I will to be Mrs. Daniel Thomas. Mira Rae Thomas. That sounded like music to my ears.

I was totally in my zone on this ride. I didn’t even notice when a car came swerving into our lane. Danny’s bike started to sway beneath my legs. I gripped his waist even tighter and tried to remember everything he ever told me. There was an art to being a passenger on a bike.

“Don’t fight against me. Don’t lean into turns with me. Keep your body centered. Hold on tight. If we go down, try to stay on your back with your head raised. Try not to tumble.”

Ok. Alright. Trying to keep my body centered, gripping tight and not fighting against Danny, the bike continues to sway beneath me. Before I knew it, we were heading right towards the guard rail in the middle of the highway.

Panic set it. “Danny ... Danny ... What do I do?” I screamed and I know he can’t hear me over the traffic and the roar of the bike.

We hit the wall. The sound was so loud; I felt it in my bones. The sound of metal slamming against concrete is a sound I will never forget. Nails on a chalkboard don’t even compare.

I flew off the bike. The pain of hitting the cement of the highway at over sixty miles per hour was excruciating. I felt my bones in my leg snap as I tried to keep on my back without tumbling.

“Aaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!” I screamed out in pain. Every inch I slid down the highway was terrifying until I hit my final resting place. I had no idea what is going on around me.

My body finally won out against me as my head slammed hard against the cement and pain shot through my entire body.

I assumed I blacked out. When I finally came to, I was in the back of an ambulance with medics looking over my body and starting an IV, their faces looking grim.

“Danny?” I asked, my voice coming out weak and barely there.

The blond medic just looked at me with blank eyes. He slightly shook his head.

“No,” I cried, “no, please no.”

Out of all the memories we had built during our time together, this is the one I can’t shake. I can vividly recall each and every detail of our last moments together. Why can’t I remember the things that helped mold me into the woman I wanted to become with Danny by my side? Why am I only able to remember the day that turned me into the woman I am now?

Love stories are for suckers.  Life doesn’t happen like it did in
The Notebook
. Or should I say death doesn’t happen that way? You don’t meet the person you’re supposed to be with until your time is up and then slowly fade away together. Real life is a bitch and it hurts. The real story isn’t pretty or romantic it just breaks you to the point where you don’t want to go on anymore. You pray that this isn’t the way your story ends.

My Danny didn’t survive. They said he had too much trauma and died on the scene. My body screamed in pain as I tried to get off the gurney to go to where ever Danny was. The other medic, who I didn’t remember too well, grabbed my shoulders softly and pulled me back to stay on the gurney. The blond medic inserted a syringe of medication into my IV and within seconds, I felt my body relax and go lifeless.

In that moment, my world came to a screeching halt and that is it for me.

Skylar came to visit me in the hospital for the two days I was admitted while I was being treated for my road rash and broken leg. Surprisingly, I didn’t have it too bad. Because my injuries were minimal, I was released on the second day, with crutches and a wheelchair that Skylar had “borrowed” from the hospital. I had a pretty bad bump on my head, some scrapes and bruises and a broken leg, but I was alive. Which was more than I could say for Danny…

It’s perfect weather for a funeral. Ugly and raining with no sign of bright skies in sight. At the service, his mom asked me to sit with her. She told me that I was practically family anyway, being engaged to Danny and all. It did feel a little weird not sitting with my friends and parents, but it was nice to be able to sit with Mrs. Thomas, who looks so much like Danny it’s scary.

Immediately following the burial, we all head over to Danny’s mother’s house. People are coming and going. Friends, relatives, faculty from the school and members of the community.

I don’t remember eating much today, or any day since Danny died, for that matter. I hear my stomach growling. I know it needs some sort of sustenance if I plan on taking the pain medication the doctor prescribed, but the thought of consuming anything makes me ill.

“Mira, honey, you have to at least eat something. Trust me, I know how hard this is, but you have to take care of yourself,” Danny’s mom pleads with me.

“Mrs. Thomas, I promise I will eat something later. I just can’t right now,” I respond back emotionless, not even making eye contact with the woman.

Everything seems to pass by in such a blur. I don’t even realize that I am being wheeled out the door with Kylee on my side and Skylar pushing the wheelchair.

“Where are we going?” I ask them.

“We’re taking you home, Mi. You have had enough for one day. You need a shower and some sleep,” Skylar says.

“And something to eat,” Kylee chimes in.

When we get back to the apartment I share with Kylee, Skylar pulls right up to the door so I don’t have to walk through the parking lot. While he parks the car, Kylee helps me inside. I immediately see the long thin table by the front door lined with pictures of my past. Some of the happiest days of my life captured in film. I will be forever haunted by these images in my memory, let alone having to look at them every day.

“This isn’t fair. Why did you leave me?” I yell as I swipe my arm across the table, sending the pictures crashing to the floor and the glass from the frames flying off in different directions.

The floor is cold under my bare legs and I can feel my heart harden with each breath I take. 

“Mira, honey, come on and let’s get you up and into bed,” Kylee says. I see the pity in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry Ky. I don’t know what that was about. Today was just an emotional day,” I say apologetically.

“Mi, we all miss him,” Skylar says as he walks in, surveying the mess I have just created.

“I’ll clean up this mess, hun. Just go,” Kylee says.

I try to get up from the ground but it’s not as easy as it might look.  This cast makes every movement awkward and I know that I’m probably exposing more than I should, especially with Skylar in the room. 

“Come on Sweets let me help you to bed,” Skylar says, as he picks me up off the ground and carries me to my room, saving me from the embarrassment of trying to do it on my own.

“Ky, can you just put the pictures up somewhere safe? I don’t want to lose them, but I need some time before they are shoved in my face.”

Kylee grabs a shoebox that hasn’t been taken out in the trash and starts putting my memories away. “I’ll just put them all in here, until we can buy new frames,” she tells me as lean into Skylar’s chest.

As soon as my head hits the pillows, the stress of the last few days overcomes me and I immediately close my eyes. Skylar’s voice is the last thing I hear before drifting off to sleep, hopefully to see Danny in my dreams.

Chapter One

Mira

Six months has passed. Six long months since my life ended with Danny’s. The worst six months of my life. Just when I thought I couldn’t get any lower
,
Kylee signs me up for some sort of sappy support group.

“Ky, are you kidding me? You want me to stand in a room full of strangers and tell them how I’m fucked up because the love of my life died? You can’t be serious.” I have never been one to put all of my baggage out there for the world to see. I am more of a ‘smile plastered on my face no matter what’ kind of girl.

I know my friends are worried about me. I can see it in their eyes. Danny was a part of all of us and I know they are grieving too. I know I’m being selfish. I just don’t care. They just want the best for me and here I am, yet again, making this all about me. I never realized that in the process of losing Danny, they lost me too.

“Please just suck it up and go. If it doesn’t help, I’ll never say anything about it ever again,” Kylee pleads with me. Maybe it’s time for me to give in just a little bit.

“Fine, what time do I need to be there?” I ask, defeated.

“7:30,” Kylee says with a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

With the exception of the black dress I wore to Danny’s funeral, I have been living in yoga pants, tee shirts and hoodies. I don’t see a point in changing this now.

“Really, Mira, you can’t even put on a pair of jeans and a little makeup? It’s been months since you even tried to look presentable.” I feel a little switch go off in my brain.

“Yes, Ky, you’re right. It has been
months
since I haven’t looked like shit. To be exact, it’s been six months, two weeks, and two days since I haven’t looked like shit. You got me to go to this stupid shit, maybe you shouldn’t bitch about my appearance. You got your win for the day, time to back off a little,” I spew at her. I do feel a little bad but at this point; showing an ounce of emotion that isn’t sadness that has been consuming my every waking moment is a win in my book.

That is the end of our conversation. I leave Kylee at our apartment, get in my car and head to the crybaby meeting. The drive to the high school, where the meetings are held, is only a fifteen minute drive from my apartment. Not much time for me to over think this and back out, I guess.

Pulling into the parking lot, I notice quite a few cars. ‘You have got to be kidding me. It’s like everyone in town is here,’ I think to myself. Feeling a little panic attack coming on, I decide to ditch my favorite University of Michigan hoodie. Ok, so it’s not my hoodie, it’s Danny’s, but it’s still my favorite. It used to smell like him. That is until while visiting my parents back home, my mom washed my laundry for me, trying to help me out. That was 2 weeks after Danny’s death. I was emotionally numb for most of those two weeks, showing zero emotion, until the straw broke the camel
’
s back.

Waking up in my mother
’
s house after being away for four years felt awkward but refreshing at the same time. I always heard that saying, you can never go home again, and I thought maybe for a little while it was true, but this just felt right.

My room was just how I left it when I went off to the University of Michigan. Other than my mom packing away some of my things and putting them in the closet to make room for a sewing machine, it was still “my room”.

Looking around my room, I didn’t see the suitcase I came here with. It was a little chilly this morning and the thought of not wearing Danny’s hoodie didn’t sit well with me. I looked around the room and in the closet, nothing. I went to the coat closet in the hall and found nothing there either. “Well what the hell, I know I brought it in,” I mumbled.

Walking into the kitchen, I found my mom making a cup of coffee and setting out a couple different boxes of cereal. “Mornin’ honey. I didn’t know what you ate these days but I remember how much you love your sugary cereal in the morning. Coffee?” she asked as she pushed a bowl and coffee mug in my direction. I sat down at the bar stool that was pulled to the counter and took the coffee mug. I added much more sugar than the coffee actually needed and a little cream.

I really hated coffee
,
but Danny, Kylee
,
and Skylar got me hooked during study groups and all nighters before tests. That was the only way I could stomach the stuff.

“Mom, have you seen my suitcase? I know I brought it in, but it’s not in my room or the closets. I think I might get dressed and go for a drive.”

“Sure baby, the suitcase is on top of the dryer and your clothes should be dry in about 20 minutes. I made sure to wash them early so you would have enough hot water for a shower, if you wished.”

My heart jumped in my throat and my stomach twisted into knots. I hadn’t washed Danny’s hoodie since the day he left it at my apartment. He was wearing it the morning of graduation when we went to breakfast. It smelled like him. It was the only thing I had that smelled like him.

“Mom, please tell me you didn’t wash my U of M hoodie?” I begged, secretly praying she didn’t.

“Oh honey, that thing was filthy. It needed to be washed. It looked like it had chocolate and spit all over it. Like a dog used it as a chew toy,” my mom said nonchalantly.

Tears sprung from my eyes, unloading a well of emotion that I had tried to keep bottled. That was it for the stoic expressions I showed to everyone for the last 14 days.

“MOM! That was Danny’s hoodie. Why would you do that? What am I going to do?”