Why couldn’t I appreciate what I have and ignore that pain?
I’ll tell you why.
It feels wrong.
It feels like if I was happy, I was neglecting what happened and that it wasn’t my fault.
It was.
Landon and I were lucky we weren’t charged with murder. Because that’s what it felt like. Murder. No one was charged with anything once the toxicology reports came back that Steven had absolutely no alcohol in his system. They never did any further investigating into the accident and I can only assume it was because of who was in the car, and the fact that the guy who we hit was not only drunk, but wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
Landon admitted to dropping the joint in the car and it caused Steven to swerve. But they couldn’t confirm whether or not the driver of the truck we hit didn’t come into our lane as well.
Steven’s parents never pushed the issue either, though they had every right to. They were more saddened by the fact that they lost their youngest son, not in the details of how he died. Some things are best left to the unknown.
The NCAA looked into the accident and decided to allow Cash and Landon to retain their scholarships because they weren’t driving.
Some would have thought I would have learned from that night. Been thankful to be alive.
No. I wasn’t. It should have been me, not a kid with a promising career ahead of him just off a high school football championship.
When time came for me to go to college, I didn’t want to go. I felt like I shouldn’t have been the one to go. Unfortunately my parents pushed me to go. Alexa’s parents did too.
Now here we all were at The University of Oregon. Trying to resemble some semblance of normal, to pretend our lives were just like every other person here when there was nothing farther from the truth.
I look at Alexa nowadays, when I do catch glimpses of her on campus and it just makes me hurt that much more. Her happiness is gone because we were stupid. We should have waited to party at the beach but we didn’t. That’s on me. It’s on Landon. So I get high to forget.
What I felt responsible for was that I was drunk. And high. And I fell on Steven when I should have been buckled up in the backseat.
Not a day goes by that I don’t feel like his life ended because of me.
The rest of senior year after the accident, I turned to what made me forget. A mind-numbing high. I’ve smoked pot since I was sixteen. My first time was with Landon, it kind of became our bond together. I didn’t do it to be cool. I did it for the feeling it gave me. The euphoria. I continued through high school and it didn’t become a need until that December night. Then it became more than a need, it became a want because I wanted to forget everything.
When I get to my Cognitive Psychology class, I sit on the far left of the classroom near the windows where I can see the leaves beginning to fall over the bright green grass with specs of brown, yellow and red. It’s rare I’m at this eight AM class. Unfortunately I needed this class and it was only offered at the ass crack of dawn.
I had to declare a major eventually and it wasn’t until I was using cocaine on a regular basis just to pass classes that I got interested in psychology and how the brain works. What interests me about the human brain was why we remember certain parts of our lives and why we purposely forget others. I can’t tell you much about the night Steven died. All I remember was right before the accident and the joint in my hand. I remember handing it to Landon and falling on Steven’s shoulder.
That’s it.
I know there’s more to the night. I see it in my dreams but to actually remember every minute detail, I don’t. Why does my brain block out those parts of that night?
Naturally I chose psychology because of that. Soon after I declared my major, Landon did too. We were still really good friends and he thought I’d help him study.
“Hey, Madison.” Jet says, bumping my shoulder as he sits next to me.
He thinks I’m going to remember what we did the other night. The truth is, I don’t. It’s not like I get high for the fun of it. It’s not entertainment to me like it is to these guys. It’s about forgetting and getting outside of my fucked up mind for a little while.
Sometimes that’s not easy either.
“Hey, Jet.” He gives me that look, the one that’s begging for a repeat. He’s a tight end for the Oregon Ducks and parties just as hard as the other players. At least more than Cash does. I’ve seen Cash at parties a handful of times but never that often. He’s more focused and reserved.
“Wanna get some dinner tonight?”
He’s bold.
They all are.
They want something from me and it’s certainly not my company.