Episode 5: Happy and Fortunate

Do you trust eighteen-year-olds to make adult decisions?

Hey guys! Here is my last fiction post for the calendar year. I’m taking a breather in December. I’ll use my time getting ready for 2024.

This episode is a rougher draft than the other stories I’ve shared. I am sharing Marredbury as a betadraft (and a bit of alpha, some writing done in real time). I want to hear from you, readers, so I can better my writing.

I’ve rewritten this story at least a half a dozen times, playing with the narration, the characters, the plot (all of it). It’s an intrigal part of the Marredbury narrative, but the story is driving me nuts!! Let me know what you think, what is working, and where you think improvements can be made. Leena, Jeremy, Sam, and Hannah have grown dear to my heart after all the time we’ve spent together. I hope this story does them justice.

Marredbury is a serial anthology, a combination of a larger narrative and a short story collection. If you missed an episodes of Marredbury, check out the table of contents.

Episode 5: Happy and Fortunate

Happy and Fortunate

Interviewer Note

The events surrounding the Hannah Gray case went national. Not many occurrences made it beyond Marredbury town lines, but her death occurred outside of town. Even today the truth is debated. Some claim sci-fi and fantasy corrupted the minds of otherwise intelligent professionals. Some chose to declare Leena Putnam and her friends all liars. Others believe them. How else could the events leading up to Hannah Gray’s death be explained?

I lived in Marredbury as a child, but moved before I turned ten. Divorce. Dad stayed in our family home. Mom moved me and my siblings to another state to live with an old college boyfriend she had reconnected with on Facebook.

Maybe it’s because I got away from the town, breathed untainted air, gazed up at mountains instead of the sloping hills that surrounded the valley town. I’d gotten out of there before the town could warp my reality.

Visits with my father were few and far between. When I did return to Marredbury, I sensed an otherness. Contamination tinted the whole town an off shade, not pollution, but something else. Something unnatural.

And no one questioned it. Ghostly ooze seeped through the cracks in the walls. Pets returned from the grave. Teenagers claimed immortality. An air of complacency fell over Marredbury a long time ago. I seem to be the only searching for answers.

I sat down with three friends of Hannah’s, the survivors. They were willing to talk to me since I had been born in Marredbury. So much time had passed. It was difficult to find them. They all moved around. But I couldn’t see that time on their faces.

There has to be an explanation. A part of me hopes that revealing the factual account of the death of Hannah Gray will unlock other secrets hiding in Marredbury.

It all started one Friday night.

Leena

I needed that night out to blow off steam and I hoped that Hannah and I could have fun together again. Between part time jobs and school work, and Hannah’s preoccupation with her art, I just really needed that night out. I was so sick of hearing about that fellowship. It was all she talked about. I couldn’t wait for her to get that rejection letter in the mail and get my roommate back. I know that’s awful of me, but she could only speak of leaving. If she got the fellowship, she wouldn’t even finish off the year. I’d lose my roommate and best friend in one go. At least I considered her my best friend. We’d only met in the fall, but I loved her.

I’m rambling a bit. I’m just saying I was excited about the night out, up for a good time, up for anything.

Sam

I got us an invite to the party. Just some guy I met at the show. I thought it would be fun. I didn’t want the night to end.

That night bleeds into those quiet moments when I’m alone with my thoughts. We left the show when the band finished its third encore. We were all buzzed by then. It was Friday night and we were eighteen, left to the world to make adult choices with our mushy teenage brains.

I drove us to the address (never should have driven, but I’d gotten away with it so much, back then).With half the street lights out, the house was enshrouded in shadow. Darkness gave us a view of grays, like the color had been switched off. I didn’t pay the facade much mind, just wanted to get inside and get a beer before my buzz wore off.

The second we stepped inside, the scent of rotten beer and cigarette smoke burned my nostrils. If it was just me and Jeremy, I wouldn’t have cared, but Hannah and Leena trailed behind me. What they must have thought of me bringing them to a dump like this.

And so my thoughts spin on those quiet nights. They always end on the mural. That mural is burned into my memory.

It glowed from the living room. Above a dilapidated couch, an outer space scene glimmered under black lights. An alien with vibrant melting flesh and deep black eyes wrapped tentacles around the planets and stars. Spittle dripped from its sharp teeth. The dark abyss of its eyes bored into me. I couldn’t look away. The whole scene bounced with each thud of the music. The weed and cocaine running through my veins made the room spin. Radiant colors of the mural waved like a flag. I had to look away before I got sick.

Jeremy

Hannah didn’t even want to go out that night. She had a project due at the end of the week and felt behind. I talked her into it. That fact haunts me every day. She and Leena had been fighting more, just Leena being insecure, worried Hannah was leaving her. It was Hannah’s art fellowship. Her career. Her dreams. Leena was being selfish, but that was Leena. Get her high and happy and all would be forgiven. That’s what I hoped would happen that night. They’d make up and there would be one less stress on Hannah’s shoulders. I thought I was being a good boyfriend. It was just one night.

The house was a wreck. Hannah clung to me. I had to walk careful to avoid tripping over her feet as we made our way to the living room. That damn mural. I still see it when I’m trying to get to sleep. It was so bizarre and frightening. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but that’s what it was like.

Leena

I tried to greet the man sitting on the couch. His hair had been buzzed, revealing the pale skin of his scalp, making his head shined as he bent over the coffee table. He sat up to reveal half-closed eyes. Deep shadows cut across his shallow cheeks under the glare of the black light.

Sam explained how we got invited to the party. The man peered up at us. Time ticked slow as an alien painted on the wall above pierced me with its gaze. I tried to look away. I stared at my feet, rubbed the dirt off the back of my leg, but I still felt those glowing eyes on me. They drew me, forced my gaze in their direction. I assumed it was the copious Jack Daniels and coke that ran my imagination amok, but now I’m not so sure. Finally, he shrugged and gestured for us to join.

Sam

Jeremy sat in the chair. He wrapped an arm around Hannah’s waist while she perched on the arm. They had fallen into an easy relationship just a couple weeks after we’d all met in the dorms. It was sweet, but at the time I thought Jeremy was crazy to not be single. It was our first semester of college! I was an avid believer in sowing those oats.

Leena and I joined the guy on the couch. Many mistook us for a couple, a consequence of hanging out with the sweethearts. We dated that year. It was a disaster. Leena wasn’t really my type. Honestly, her brashness intimidated me.

From his seat, Jeremy gestured and commented on the mural. Something nice. He was raised to be polite.

The guy on the couch smiled, proud of it like it was his child. He asked the rest of us if we liked his work. All I could do was nod. Above my head, a squid-like monster devoured the neck of another alien. The mouth of the devoured alien hung open, revealing sharp teeth. Its screams echoed in my head.

Then the guy offered us a fluorescent bowl. Black powder piled halfway inside. The dish fit in the palm of his hand. His smile twisted wide across his face, a grin that made me fidget closer to Leena.

Leena asked what it was. I blessed her and her fortitude.

He emptied a case onto the table. The sight of the needle flipped my gut. The buzz I felt from the show faded as I zeroed in on the tools before me. Long, thin rubber tube, lighter, spoon, syringe, and that bowl with black residue inside. The real deal.

Jeremy

The guy explained. It was called Felix. Like Felix the Cat. It took only one hit. He picked up the bowl to show us how little he had. His fingers seemed to have an extra joint, their length wrapping around the entirety of the bowl. One hit and we would be flying!

I leaned closer to him to hear over the thumping music. Hannah wrinkled her nose.

Sam

I always resented Hannah’s judgment. I eyed her while the guy explained Felix. She pressed herself close to Jeremy and peered down at us. She was right to shy away, of course. The rest of us were just too stupid to realize it. Now I know better. Why would some guys offer to share drugs with strangers? Something was up, but we were fresh to adulthood; we thought we were invincible.

The moment came. We had to accept the guy’s offer or pass. The four of us exchanged glances. Jeremy slipped his gaze back to the bowl. Hannah stared at Leena, a slight green tinge to her skin. We all asked each other the same question without saying a word: Are we going to do it?

Jeremy

Our night could have gone in different directions. In one version, we said no and headed home. We’d crash in Hannah and Leena’s dorm room, nurse our hangover the next morning. We’d go to our classes on Monday, find another party the next weekend, and live on repeat until graduation.

Sam

I’d never tried intravenous drugs before, hadn’t even been pricked by an IV needle. Some buddies of mine in high school claimed they tried hard shit. I believed them, kind of. They all went to better colleges than me.

Leena

I’ve thought about what it would have been like if we hadn’t taken Felix. College would have passed in a flash. I don’t know if the four of us would have stayed friends. We’d only just met and people change so much in college.

That night, though, I believed we would be long time friends, a connection so pure. We found each other in a vulnerable time in our lives and nothing could break that bond.

Jeremy

A once in a lifetime opportunity.

That’s how the guy described it. I think that’s what ultimately convinced me to accept the offer. What else was college for, but once in a lifetime opportunities. That’s why I chose a double major, why I risked my prime dating years on a beautiful girl living one floor above me. I’d worked so hard in high school, kept my nose in my books, checked all the boxes, just to get into a mediocre college in a strange town. I was bitter at first, but then I changed how I looked at it all. I missed my high school years always looking to the future. Now was the time. Grasp at all that was available to me.

In that moment, my heart pattered with excitement. In that moment, I was living.

Sam

It burned. That’s what I remember most. That and the face of the man on the couch. As he gathered the mess on the table, he smiled. His grin spread wide, his cheeks protruding far beyond what I would think possible. The skin on his face stretched like the grimacing alien above Sam’s head and his teeth glowed in the black light, a bright beckon in the dark room.

Leena

Then, we flew. Together. The four of us bound tighter than ever.

Hannah was the only one who hesitated. The others were so sure that her meek I don’t know… went unnoticed.

Jeremy

The evening transformed into shades of colors and sounds. Laughter echoed in my head, a symphony of delirious joy.

We left the house party and ran through the street. A crow cawed in the darkness. Its shrieks bounced off the silent houses, leaping from yard to yard before settling in bushes and behind trash cans. There, the noise seemed to nestle before being discovered and released once again.

Sam

Leena’s warm lips pressed against mine, plump and bouncy like two pillows. She ran her hands through my wavy hair. I still had hair then, thick and soft. Her tongue was like hot velvet. My type or not, I pulled her close and opened my mouth wider.

There was no high like it. Euphoric. Divine. Perfect.

Leena

Dating Sam was a mistake. I knew it, but he was hot. It was fun kissing him. College was a time for stupid relationships. He distracted me from Hannah’s art fellowship. That damn art fellowship. I was starting to hate it.

Sam

Leena was always around. We studied together. Ate together. Slept together, and just sleeping, no fun stuff. It wouldn’t last long. Jeremy warned me that the longer it lasted, the harder the break up. Could destroy our little group. I didn’t care all that much then. Just saw a clingy relationship, like Jeremy and Hannah. I’d skirt her company rather than be up front with her. I was being a dick about it.

I was on my way to a party alone, walking across campus. I told Leena I was meeting a buddy and couldn’t bring anyone else along. I couldn’t bring her when I was going to the party for Jessica. I wanted to kiss Jessica’s luscious lips. Like I said, I was a total dick.

You know how horror stories talk about hair standing on end, like those small hairs on the back of your neck. That actually happened. It was a cool night, not too cold, and I wore a jacket, but this chill still came over me. I felt these eyes on me, but I turned around and no one of there. Just shadowed trees lining the sidewalk. I kept walking, assuming that the darkness messed with my mind. But then I felt it again, this feeling that someone was watching. I spun around and saw him this time.

He was tall, like really tall. Wore a wide brimmed hat and a long coat. I couldn’t see his face in the shadows. He peered out from behind a tree trunk and smiled. I could have pissed myself right there. I almost did. That smile glowed. It stretched wide, wider than should have been humanly possible. I didn’t stick around after that. I sprinted to the party. Jessica never showed up and I never calmed down, no matter how many beers I drank. My hands still shook and my heart still thudded. I looked out the windows, sure I would see that smiling face again. That tall thing had followed me. I had no proof, but I knew he was somewhere, hiding in the dark corners of the night.

Jeremy

Nightmares kept me up after that night. The aliens from the mural haunted my sleep. It was so childish, the way those glowing creatures chased me down. I was back in that house. The mural was alive. The aliens’ sharp teeth dripped with blood and made the floor slick. I struggled to get away, kept slipping. I often screamed myself awake. Hannah held me when I cried. Neither of us got much sleep.

Leena

I knew Sam was cheating on me. I tried to get him to admit it, but it always ended in a fight. He would go on about being followed. I thought he was just making up excuses. Who would want to follow him?

Sam

Everywhere I turned I caught sight of him. The ends of his coat. The brim of his hat. That grin. He ducked behind bushes. Drove in a car a few behind me. Slipped into the elevator at the library. No one believed me. No one saw him but me. I was losing my mind.

Jeremy

I remember Sam going on about being followed. He and Leena went at it daily. They never should’ve dated. They were like oil and water. It’s cliche, but true. All this went on for a month? Maybe two? I’m not sure. It’s kind of hazy. I wasn’t sleeping. The same nightmare woke me up several times a night. Hannah began sleeping in her dorm more so she could at least get a good night. I couldn’t escape. No matter what I did.

I was so tired. No one understood. I just wanted sleep. Just a little bit of sleep.

Leena

Might have been a month, a month and a half after that night when a phone call woke me up. I’ve always been slow to wake. I couldn’t even open my eyes as I scrambled for the phone beside my stiff dorm bed. I grunted a greeting and that’s when I noticed Hannah’s empty bed across the room.

She shrieked in my ear, a yowl of a wounded animal. I cringed and sat up. Her words mingled with sobs as they tumbled through the phone. Sleep dispersed, but I still struggled to make sense of her ramblings.

It was her tone that made my stomach dropped. She hadn’t woken me for some stupid reason. The pain in her voice strummed unease in my veins.

Jeremy.

His name rang loud and clear in my ear. I balanced the phone between my face and shoulder as I yanked on shoes and dug through my laundry for a sweatshirt. All the while, Hannah’s pleas continued streaming through the phone.

I had a late class the night before and Sam had made some excuse to get away from me. I was still pissed about it. Only Jeremy and Hannah had gone out. Jeremy needed to let off steam. He hadn’t been sleeping well.

So they had gone out to party. Jeremy hoped to go until he passed out, enough to keep him out.

As I gathered my wallet and keys, I understood the gist of Hannah’s anguished words. Jeremy was hurt.

She was never the strong one among us. She went along with our impulses, only a quiet protest here and there while she trailed behind.

My keys pressed indentations in my palm as I raced to the car. The roads were empty so early in the morning. It was almost peaceful. The hint of dawn faintly lit the sky. Only me and the green glow of the traffic lights as I soared across town.

I found them at a corner liquor store. The store was closed and the parking lot empty. Just two people sat on the curb. One tugged at her shirt sleeve and rocked, the other slumped to the side.

I slammed on the brakes at the storefront, leaped from the car. I’d never moved so fast. My teeth rattled when I crashed against the curb beside the slumped form of Jeremy.

I shook him, but he didn’t respond. I lifted his head and placed it in my lap. He was so heavy. I couldn’t breath. Panic seemed to whip through my body, moving my limbs while I watched on helpless. For the first time I fully understood the term “dead weight.” When I released my grip, he fell forward, arms splayed across his body. The backs of his hands pressed to the cement at an awkward angle. I can still picture those hands. Awful. Unnatural. Tears pressed at the backs of my eyes and my breath choked in my throat. Something sat heavy in my gut and threatened to come up as vomit. I think that was the moment I felt my mortality. Ironic if you consider what we discovered later.

Interviewer Note

Hospital reports do record this incident. Jeremy Walsh, eighteen year old male, admitted for drug overdose, unresponsive upon arrival. Time of death, November 13, 2017, 3:48 am. His body was stored in the hospital morgue, awaiting next of kin. There was no further record of Jeremy at the local hospital. No blood tests. No details about any life saving measures that may or may not have been carried out by doctors. No obituary. Even the police report with Hannah and Leena’s statements seemed to have gone missing. As far as the paperwork goes, Jeremy’s body should still be in the hospital morgue. But that was far from the truth. Only three still knew the whole truth. The world has to hear it from them.

Leena

I was so angry with Hannah. Even that night I knew it wasn’t her fault, but Jeremy couldn’t hear me yell at him.

She just stared at me with those oversized, wet eyes. Her hands clasped over her mouth. Her hair lay damp and flat, the long ends knotted and shoved over one shoulder. Dark eyeliner and mascara smeared under her eyes. Despite her state, she was still beautiful. All she could do was whimper and shake her head. Beautiful and useless in an emergency.

I was the one that called 911. I bit back my panic and searched for a solution. We didn’t carry phones in our pockets then, but a phone booth across the street caught my attention.

The 911 operator asked me what drug Jeremy had taken. I told him heroin. Hannah had been able to tell me that much. The word felt foreign on my tongue. I wasn’t raised to say that word. I don’t know what scared me more, living a life that included that word or the thrill that buzzed through me as it passed my lips.

I don’t recall the rest of the conversation. It flitted from my mind the moment I got off the phone. I don’t even know if I thanked the man. The panic I had been holding back burst through the barrier. My heart pounded in my throat. My whole body coated with a rancid sweat. I ran back to Jeremy and placed his heavy head on my lap again. That was when the truth sank in: He was gone.

Jeremy

I just wanted to nightmares to stop. I wanted sleep.

Sam

I remember the next morning like it happened yesterday. You’d think the news of that night would have been Jeremy’s overdose, but it was his reappearance. It was a plot to a bad sci-fi movie.

I met them in Hannah and Leena’s dorm room. Leena had unlocked the door to let me in. She paced the small floor space between the two beds. Jeremy lay in Hannah’s bed, propped up against the headboard, and she sat on the floor beside the bed, knees pressed to her chest. She shivered, still in the sleeveless shirt and skirt she had gone out in. The sight made my gut quiver: Jeremy motionless in bed, his girlfriend trembling. I draped my sweatshirt over her. She barely acknowledged that I was there, just stared at the worn carpet.

At first, I thought they all must have still been playing a joke on me, a bad joke. Did they really think I was so stupid that I’d fall for a prank like that?

But I couldn’t deny that Jeremy looked like death. I searched all their faces for any hint of jest. Leena stopped pacing. Hannah nestled against the side of my university sweatshirt. I locked the door. The cramped room reeked of sweat and vomit. I understood then. Something had happened.

Hannah couldn’t convince us that night. Her voice cracked from fighting back tears. She rambled and stammered. They were all freaking out. The panic lay thick in the air. It seeped into my pores and quickened the beat of my heart.

Hannah spoke of Felix and a miracle, but I couldn’t keep track of her words. I knelt beside Jeremy. He reached for me. His stubby fingers were cold, knuckles cracked. The hand of a dead man, I thought. But it was just Jeremy’s hand. The guy never took care of his skin. He was too busy with his studies. How did Hannah stand his rough touch?

That thought calmed me down. It brought me back to reality.

He’s alive, I said.

And he shouldn’t be, Leena replied.

I stood up and shrugged. The hospital obviously made a mistake. I wondered if it was suable mistake. The settlement could pay for Jeremy’s college, his fuck up turning into the miracle that Hannah mentioned.

That’s what I would have done if I was Jeremy.

I took in the cramped room before me. Leena watched me with wide eyes, the same crazed look she gave me when we fought. They all just needed to sleep. They weren’t thinking clearly.

Jeremy

Maybe I never died. The hospital made a mistake.

Paperwork could have been mixed up in the emergency room and some poor dead guy ended up in my hospital bed.

The scare should have been life changing enough.

Hannah brought up Felix. Sam talked us out of it. We were strung out and exhausted.

Sometimes, I wonder what would have happened if I actually died. Death by overdose. My family would have been horrified. I would’ve broken my mother’s heart. But Hannah would still be alive if I didn’t escape that hospital morgue. Part of me, a large part at times, wishes I never left that cold table.

Leena

I watched Jeremy in those early morning hours. He let his head fall against the wall behind him and his eyes fell closed. I held my breath. Don’t know what I expected, that he just blow away, like we were all experiencing some kind of group hallucination that had run out the clock, or perhaps his chest would stop rising and falling, death finding him at last.

But his breathing continued. It grew slower and deeper as he fell asleep.

A mistake at the hospital. It was the only logical explanation.

Jeremy

That night was strange, but even stranger was how quick normal began. I slept most of that weekend. No nightmares. They never returned after that night.

Monday rolled around and I left for classes. I sat at desks, took notes, chatted with classmates. Life continued on as if my almost overdose never occurred. For a while there, I convinced myself it was just another one of my nightmares.

Sam

I was still being followed. No one believed me. They humored me. But I was finally able to prove it when I had lunch with Leena off campus. We ended up arguing again. I couldn’t get through any time with Leena without her accusing me. She was paranoid about everything.

We were walking back to campus when I caught sight of that grin behind a parked car across the street. I reacted. It was an instinct. I could prove right then that I wasn’t making it up, wasn’t crazy.

So I took off, screaming at Leena to follow me.

And then it all goes black.

Leena

It was a bus.

I froze. One moment I was trying to get Sam to admit that he hooked up with the girl in his Biology class, and the next he was gone. He didn’t look, just ran. I couldn’t even catch what he shouted at me. It all happened so fast.

I’m sorry, do you have a tissue? I can’t get those images out of my head. It’s hard to talk about them.

Sam

It fucking hurt.

I was sprinting after my stalker and then I was lying in the middle of the road, my whole body shrieking with pain. Broken ribs, dislocated joints, a bleeding gash in my head that tinted the world in red. I hear that I flew at least a yard when the bus hit me. I never should have woken up.

Leena

It wasn’t just the impact. That was horrific on its own. He was thrown so far and his body smeared against the road. I know that’s graphic, but it’s important for what happened next.

Seconds or minutes passed. I had no concept of time. But I got myself moving and I sprinted to his side. The others around us kept their distance. They knew there was no hope, that he was gone.

I knelt beside him, afraid to touch anything. He was a bloody mess. I couldn’t tell what parts of him was not injured. He lay at an unnatural angle on his arm. His body slumped forward. I gasped. Sobs pushed in my throat and I swallowed them back.

An ambulance. That’s all I could think about. He needed an ambulance. I pushed away any thought that the paramedics would be redundant. He couldn’t be dead. I repeated the words under my breath. If I said it enough, then it had to be true.

Someone called for help. Distant sirens grew loud. I sat back on my heels. Tears filled my eyes as reality settled in my mind. Sam was dead.

Then he gasped. His breath was wet. He groaned as he rolled off his arm and onto his back. I startled. He shouldn’t be moving. He couldn’t be moving.

He looked up at me, blinking quickly to clear the blood from his eyes. His jaw hung slack, he couldn’t talk, so he just looked up at me. I’ll never forget the look behind his eyes. Fear, yes. But also power.

Sam

I was gone. I never should have survived, but I did.

Interviewer Note

Sam Rubio provided medical records from his accident. A dozen broken bones, dislocated jaw and shoulder, punctured lung and spleen, massive internal bleeding as well as septic. He’s right. He shouldn’t have survived. He was young and strong. Perhaps that with the help of modern medicine pulled him through. The records also note an unidentified substance in his blood. Foreign, but assumed harmless.

Jeremy

Hannah brought up Felix again. We all sat around Sam’s hospital bed, his mouth wired shut and half his body casted. This time we listened. We couldn’t come up with another explanation. Sam was dead. Leena saw it. The doctors couldn’t explain it.

We didn’t know what the stuff was. The guy said it took only one hit. One hit for a lifetime, maybe?

Immortality. It was a thrilling notion.

Leena

My head pounded from lack of sleep, food, and water. I stopped taking care of myself while Sam was in hospital, just stayed by his side. He liked the company. Could have been the fact that his jaw was wired shut, or he was stuck in bed, but during his recovery we didn’t fight.

It was a quiet time for me. Time seemed to stand still. My heightening anxiety slowed. I didn’t worry about Sam cheating or Hannah leaving me for her fellowship. I just spent time with my friend, watching reruns of old game shows and sharing Jello.

The doctors mentioned something in Sam’s blood. They didn’t know what it was and wanted to know if Sam had taken anything that would explain the results. Felix came to my mind immediately, but of course we said nothing. We were kids afraid of getting caught.

And then it grew into something more. When Hannah convinced Jeremy, I was sold. Jeremy is the genius. He wouldn’t believe something so unnatural unless it were true.

Sam

I recovered quickly, another mystery for the doctors. And I never caught sight of my stalker again.

Time moved differently after my accident. Life moved fast and slow at the same time. Rules no longer applied to us. We were young and uncreative with our time. What did four years of college matter with eternity?

I found the days tiresome. The same as before with just another day next. Afternoons were long, nights even longer. I was the one that brought up the ski trip, just to break up the monotony. My parents had a cabin in the mountains. They often celebrated Christmas there and there was space for all of us.

Leena

With Sam released from the hospital, life crushed me once again. My thoughts ran through my head on repeat. Sam will cheat on me. Hannah will leave me. Over and over and over. They made me sick. My breath grew so short at times I grew dizzy. Cheating. Leaving. They didn’t love me. No one cared about me. Over and over and over again. I couldn’t escape. I was convinced I was all alone. I was desperate. I didn’t have a choice.

Jeremy

I’d never gone skiing before. After my parents split, the holidays were a bit of a downer anyway. No extended family to visit, just me bouncing between my childhood home and the empty one bedroom my dad lived in. No one bothered to cook, so I had two frozen dinners and reruns of Christmas classics waiting for me at home. Can’t say I was disappointed to skip out and spend the holidays with Sam’s family.

The trip would be good for Hannah, too. She was waiting on a response for her fellowship. It was driving her nuts. I thought the fresh air, the change of scenery, all of it would do her some good.

Leena

My parents had already booked a cruise, so I just had my sister with her perfect husband and four perfect kids to celebrate with back home. We had our entire lives to spend the holidays with our families. We’d just been given the greatest gift of a lifetime. Sam’s ski trip was a way to celebrate.

No one knew what I had done before that trip. I couldn’t tell Hannah and I knew the boys wouldn’t understand. I was holding onto those three so tight, afraid that letting go would mean losing them forever. I’ve got time and wisdom on my side now, but I should have known better then. My tight grip is what ended it all before we’d even begun.

Interviewer Note

The events of that drive have been questioned and debated. According to the police report, the roads were icy that night. The car didn’t have chains. Leena was the driver and she was the one facing charges for vehicular manslaughter.

Leena

I told you that I wasn’t going to talk about that accident.

Sam

I was sleeping when the fight started. I woke up to Hannah yelling. Something about a letter. I was reeling from the shock of Hannah yelling. She never got angry, no matter how much we deserved it.

Jeremy

It was Hannah’s fellowship. She’d gotten in, but Leena had hidden the letter. She even went so far as sneaking onto Hannah’s computer and deleting emails. What kind of person does that? Hannah was crushed. She’d missed the window.

That car ride is seared in my brain. The seconds tick by and the reality of my life settles. Another day of hundreds or thousands, or more. There’s no way to know how many more days I will listen to Leena and Hannah’s sharp words in my head:

You can reapply, Leena had suggested.

I searched for the fellowship on my phone as they argued. If Hannah could talk to someone, explain what had happened, maybe she could still go.

They may never accept me again. Hannah’s face was wet with tears.

We were all jerked to the right. The tires squealed against the black road.

Sam urged Leena to slow down. His body pushed against the bags between us in the back seat.

I thought you were my friend, Hannah continued.

I am! That’s why I did it. You can’t leave, not now.

I found a phone number and copied it into an email to Hannah. I still have that email. Sent, but never answered.

We’re meant to be together. We have eternity together. Leena’s voice cracked.

Stop the car, Hannah said.

It’s dark! Leena replied.

We were driving on mountain roads. There was no where to go and I wasn’t about to let Hannah get out alone. That would leave both of us in the dark looking for a ride.

I wasn’t in the mood for a dark mountain walk. I suggested we get to the cabin. We could find a ride back to campus from there. But there was no convincing her. She had snapped. Every time we brushed her off, ignored her warnings. Leena mentioned eternity. Hannah didn’t want to spend eternity with Leena.

Hannah shrieked. STOP THE CAR!

Fine! Leena slammed on the breaks, but the car didn’t stop.

That moment slowed. Tires wailed across the asphalt. Sam cursed as the car skidded straight to a drop off. Leena leaned to her left, her knuckles white from her grip on the steering wheel. She tried to turn, but we just drifted forward.

We couldn’t die, but what if our entire bodies broke? What if we burned? I didn’t fear death, but there was still the pain.

Sam

I blacked out. The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital. We all should have died. I did die, according to the doctors. No one knew how I pulled through, how any of us pulled through.

Jeremy

I didn’t even ask about Hannah. I assumed she was alive, like the rest of us.

Sam

She never took Felix. We were all so wrapped up in our own little heads, none of us had a clue.

Jeremy

I thought we had forever.

Interviewer Note

Hannah Gray was the only death from that car accident. Another driver saw the car go off the road and paramedics arrived soon after. Most believe it was a miracle the three of them survived. Police charged Leena Putnam with involuntary manslaughter. It was the chains, or the lack there of. The car wouldn’t have gone off the road if the tires had been equipped with chains, at least that was what the jury decided.

Leena

I have the gift of time. Time to reflect on the past, to make my future. I’ve had time to think about that outrageous first year of college. There are pieces still missing, but the picture is almost clear.

Jeremy’s nightmares, Sam’s stalker, my spiraling thoughts. They all stopped when we died. Was it a kind of test? Drive the new members of the immortality club to the brink. It’s how we discover our new reality.

And then I always go back to the same question. What if we hadn’t tried Felix that night?

We all should have died in that crash. Maybe the crash never would have happened. Maybe we never would have gone on the ski trip in the first place. We wouldn’t have grown so close if we hadn’t experienced Jeremy’s overdose and Sam’s accident. I wouldn’t haven lost control of the car if I had a clear mind.

I was relieved to be found guilty, relieved to be punished for Hannah’s death. I loved Hannah. I would trade my immortality to get her back.

But it was my immortality that lifted the burden of my punishment.

The state sentenced me to three years. Three years in an endless lifetime was pennies.

Photos used on ColbyStream are from Brooke Cagle, Velizar Ivanov, Javier Gonzáles, and others on Unsplash and Midjourney.

So, how was the draft? Let me know what you thought of the story below.

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Episode 6: If a Tree Fell