Kari-Ann & Will

Will and I were now in his Honda, our respective beverages placed on the cup holders. I remembered a moment like this with Dominic, engaging in conversation with each other in his car at the Whole Foods parking lot while I was waiting for my Uber ride that I ended up canceling so that he could take me home instead. Hopefully, that wasn’t the case with Will. I vowed to myself that Will was only going to be a complete stranger and I’d never see him again after today. Let’s see if Mother Nature decides to play a sneaky prank on me by getting Will and I to fall for each other.

Will gave me an understanding smile. “So, whenever you’re ready to share your story, I’m all ears.”

I sighed, wondering now if it’s still such a good idea. “It’s a pretty long story, Will.”

“Well, I’ve got all the time in the world. It’s not like I’ve got anywhere else I need to be. My business with Ethan is pretty flexible. Clients contact us whenever, and we arrange for a time to meet that’s satisfactory with everyone, so I’m pretty much free for now unless I get a random phone call from a client. Try me, Kari-Ann. I want to know your story.”

“Okay.” I gave a deep breath before I could start telling the story. “This isn’t very easy for me to say, but I… Back in Ryder, when I was a teenager in high school, I did something very awful that led to someone’s death. It was a classmate of mine, and… There was a party one night on Labor Day, and… Oh, my God, let me just…” I took another sip of my iced drink. “I did something that led to his death. I… I ran him over with my car that night after the party. Like, I struck him with the car, he bled to death and he did not make it. At all.”

Will was surprised, and judging from his expression, I knew that he was only taking time to process what I just said. The girl he was interacting with had killed someone in her past. I couldn’t blame him for being scared off by me. “Wow, uh… I have no idea what to say to that.” He could tell that I wasn’t joking, so he wasn’t going to make a joke out of it or anything. That showed you what a great listener he was.

“I know.” I sighed. “I know it’s been a little over 15 years now, but sometimes I have a hard time processing it. Like, this is what I did, and I’ve been held accountable for it for the longest time.”

“Okay, well then… What happened, exactly? Were you drunk or something? Were you high, or… I don’t know. Were there drugs involved? Like, what were the circumstances surrounding that incident? Was it an accident? I’m sorry if I’m asking so many questions all at once, and if I’m sounding a little harsh throwing all this stuff at you. I just want to know. And take your time explaining everything clearly. I promise I won’t judge. I have strong listening skills.”

I gave him a gentle smile. He sounded like he could be a genuine friend, a shoulder for me to cry on at this moment. Even if he was just a complete stranger I’d probably never see again after today, unless God had other plans to pull a sneaky on me.

“Those are legitimate questions, Will,” I said, “and as the storyteller, I’ll do my best to address any questions you may have along the way. To answer your first three questions… No, I wasn’t drunk or under the influence. I was totally, one-hundred percent sober. To answer your other question, it was a complete accident. I never meant to run him over with my car. I was just really angry with him. He kept pissing me off and I hate to admit it, but he and I were at each other’s throats that night, just annoying the hell out of each other.”

“I understand,” he said. “Just start from the beginning and tell me how it all came to the way it ended that night. Since you mentioned Labor Day, was it a Labor Day party?”

“Yeah, it was.” I nodded. “At a classmate’s house. Her name was Daphne. She was a part of our school’s cheerleading team.” That was the moment I started telling him everything from beginning to end. Everything that I told Dominic, only this time, I was telling Will the absolute truth of how everything truly went down that night.

I was being honest with Will by telling him about the end-of-summer beach party that Olivia and Karina threw, and that was when Olivia apparently realized that she was pregnant with Eric’s kid. It wasn’t until school started that I somehow got word that Eric had gotten her pregnant, which confirmed my suspicions that he’d been seeing her behind my back during the summer. He was seeing both of us at the same time, and he managed to get her knocked up. And it was during the beach party when he forced himself on Heather Rivas when she mistook him for her ex, Kevin Travers, while she was drunk and he infected her with HIV. So, everyone had to go through the process of STD testing, which was a hassle for all of us but worth it in the end.

I also mentioned how Olivia and Karina asked Eric to come over to their house after school one time so that they could get him to confess to not only raping Heather at the party but also to the fact that he’d been seeing me behind Olivia’s back all summer long. The girls then asked him to schedule an assembly meeting at school so that he could admit to the whole school about seeing Olivia and me at the same time during the summer and most importantly, he would admit to raping Heather at the beach party and infecting her with STDs.

After he made that crazy speech, Ms. Szasky immediately suspended him from school. After the speech was lunchtime, where everyone ostracized him. Kevin Travers even came up to Eric and punched him right in the face for infecting his girlfriend with STDs. When school was over that day, I went up to Eric to call it quits with him for good, making it clear that I wanted nothing more to do with him. That was the last time I ever saw him and interacted with him at school before he got suspended.

That weekend was Labor Day weekend, and Daphne hosted an epic party at her house on Monday night. That was the night when we all thought we were going to have a regular fun time with each other. None of us was expecting to see Eric show up at all, but he only showed up just to get his sweater back from Trent. Which he did, but then he started making a fuss about being uninvited from the party. Some of us confronted him, such as Erika, Arthur, and even Daphne when she asked him to leave. That was when I became pissed off with Erika for “failing” to tell me that Eric was coming by to get his sweater. I figured that since she’d already heard from Trent that Eric was coming, she should’ve been the one to tell me that he was coming, so I would’ve been more prepared to handle seeing him.

If I hadn’t been so pissed with Erika, I wouldn’t have left the party. I would’ve honestly just stayed behind with everyone else and let Eric find his own way home, so that way, I never would have needed an excuse to take him home. It was a volatile car ride, one that did not really need to happen at all, but it did, unfortunately.

I emphasized to Will the importance of the car ride because it was the moment that I snapped and acted recklessly without thinking. I hit Eric with the car, and he bled to death. He died bleeding, because of me, his ex-girlfriend. And I was forced to watch him take his final breaths, saying, “Help me, I’m dying.”

I became a little more emotional as I was telling the story. Will seemed to sympathize with me and understood that back then, I was making normal human mistakes. “Normal” mistakes that cost me a little over a decade of my freedom, such as getting Damian and his friends involved in the cover-up and asking Erika to keep my confession a secret from Ryder PD and everyone else. When I finished telling the story, I sobbed a little harder into Will’s arms, and–what a gentleman he was–he gave me a hug, comforting me by saying that everything was going to be alright.

“Thank you for sharing all this with me,” he said softly. “I know it must’ve meant a great deal to you to let it all out of your chest. Does it feel like a weight has finally been lifted off your shoulders now?”

“It does,” I replied as I tried my best to contain myself but to no avail. He got a few napkins and wiped my face with them. “Thanks,” I said. “I really just needed someone to vent to, and you were the one that I wanted to tell.”

“It’s okay, Kari-Ann. Trust me, you’re okay. I’m not judging you. I have no right to judge you when we’ve all made mistakes in our life that we’re not too proud of. But the important thing is, you took accountability for your actions, and look at where you are now. You shouldn’t let anything in your past be used against you.”

“It’s hard, Will. You have no idea how I feel every single day of my life, sometimes thinking about the what-ifs. Like, what if I just stayed behind at the party and didn’t leave? I wouldn’t have had a reason to fly off the handle with Eric or to get in his face. I made a terrible choice that night. A series of bad choices, but the biggest one is taking him home in the first place. I never should’ve done that, Will. I was his ex; I had no reason to do anything for him.”

He shook his head. “Don’t say that, Kari-Ann. You know you did the right thing, no matter what anyone else kept saying. I know you said that you initially offered to take him home so that you could confront him about his behavior at the party and how he cheated on you during the summer, but I’m sure you had your true reasons. Deep down, you still cared a little bit about him to take him home and make sure that he got home safely. You also admitted to knowing how your friends at the party were alienating him, and it made you feel a little bit sorry for him. So, you decided to do a kind thing by taking him home. He was clearly drunk, so he wouldn’t have been able to leave on his own without getting a little tipsy, or at least that’s how I imagine a pre-hangover period. It seems like you were putting his safety first. His above yours.”

He was right, but I don’t think I put Eric’s safety first that night. Certainly not when I ran him over and did nothing to help him immediately. “That may be so, Will,” I said with a sigh, “but during the car ride, he was an asshole to me. He kind of rubbed it in my face that no one asked me to take him home, and that really hurt me. He kept insisting that he got out of the car, so I really had no choice but to kick him out.”

“Well, Kari-Ann, it sounds like he was deliberately trying to provoke you. I agree that he should’ve been a little more grateful for what you did. Even if no one asked you to take him home, you still offered to do it on your own volition. He had to get home safely somehow. Did he seriously think he could try to get by in the dark of the night? That wouldn’t have been very safe or wise of him now, would it? Yeah, I’m really sorry that he didn’t appreciate the kind thing you did. 

“And I know you’re remorseful for all the awful things you said to him before you accidentally hit him. You couldn’t have known what he was really going through at home, so it’s natural to assume that he was only telling you those things about his life at home to make you feel sorry for him. But you know now that he was genuinely trying to open up to you about what his family life was like, right?”

“Yeah, I know that now.” I nodded. “I wish I’d known it back then. I wouldn’t have been so harsh with my words.”

“Well, look… That’s the thing about life, Kari-Ann. There are never any do-overs or anything to take back everything we’ve ever said or done to people in our lives. We just learn to live with those mistakes and move on from them. I’m sure at the end, he realized what a nice thing you did for him and he was grateful on the inside. I’m sure that wherever he is now, he’s at peace and he’s showing you some eternal gratitude. At least that’s the way I like to think about it. He may not have shown it then, but he’s probably showing you some right now, even as you and I are speaking. You know, just look up at the sky and you’ll see. He’s probably saying, ‘Thank you, Kari-Ann’, and you just don’t even realize it.” He gave me a warm, compassionate smile.

How did this mysterious stranger know the right things to say? “I want to believe that you’re right, Will.” I gave him a small smile. “I’m not sure if my conscience can ever let me rest easily if his memories keep haunting me, and I know that they will, as long as I live. I’m the one who did this to him. I took him away from his parents; he was their only child, and now they’re left without a son for the past 16 years.” I wiped another tear from my eye.

“How long ago did this happen again?” he asked. “This whole thing, I mean.”

“Almost 16 years ago, which was known as the start of my junior year. This whole thing happened on Labor Day night. So, the holiday is definitely gonna be a constant reminder of what I did and what his family has lost. I was sixteen at the time. I didn’t know any better.”

“Of course not, Kari-Ann.” He glanced at me, my eyes meeting his gorgeous blue. “You acknowledge that you were just a kid then, so you couldn’t have had full control over your actions. You were 16 then, and almost sixteen years have gone by since that tragic night. So, you’re half that age right now, which means you’re an adult. You’re definitely old enough to know right from wrong, and have control over your actions. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: you shouldn’t let your past actions haunt you in such a troubling way. You know you’ve served your time for what you did, and here you are now, a fully reformed person, from what I can see if you feel confident enough to open up to me, a total stranger. I’m just glad to be a listening ear to you when you need it.”

I knew I shouldn’t fall for him, but damn… His compassion, his gorgeous eyes, his everything. How could I not? “Will…” I sighed dreamily, then I cleared my throat to contain myself. “I’m sorry, it’s just…” Then I took another deep breath. “I’ve isolated myself from all my closest friends for the longest time, including Erika and Arthur. I’ve had periods of depression and suicidal thoughts. Yes, I have attempted suicide more than twice after what happened. I just felt so guilty, and I couldn’t bring myself to show my face again in school because I knew that other people would talk crap about me. And turns out, I was right about that all along. They did talk crap about me, even to the point of starting hurtful rumors about how I was faking my trauma to gain sympathy and attention.”

“That’s awful.” He shook his head. “No one should’ve judged you for what you’d been through.”

“I know, right? Erika was one of them. She was the one who initiated rumors that I’d been faking everything for attention.”

“Damn, some friend she was. A true friend would have never done that to you. She sounds toxic, am I right?”

“Yeah…” I sighed. “But I’m actually reunited with her now. Apparently, she and Arthur are here in L.A. They’ve been in L.A. since they graduated from Jimmy Carter High. They went off to UCLA, and after they graduated, they got married and they’ve been living here for the past ten years. Damn, even saying that out loud makes me sound so old.” I chuckled.