Nothing Interesting Ever Happens in this Little Town

You walk out of the post office, and the fresh crisp air cools your skin. You enjoy being able to ship the pottery you make to those who buy it from your little online shop. While you try to make a little bit of everything, you typically enjoy making little animal figurines. It rained heavily last night, and now the grass is greener than it has been all year long. There are puddles covering the pavement, you carefully step around them to avoid getting your white shoes dirty.

While you enjoy designing and creating figurines now, it wasn’t always your plan. Deciding to drop out of college and move back in with your parents was one of the hardest decisions you’ve ever made, but every day you’re more and more grateful for it. College in a busy city is challenging as is, but piled on with the horrific event from last year, made it nearly impossible. You tried not to sit and mope around though. Instead, you took up pottery. The feeling of shaping clay out your imagination calmed you in a way no other thing could. You take a deep breath in, the cool air leaving a minty aftertaste in your mouth. The overcast sky left the impression that it might rain again soon. You loved how your little town was surrounded by forests, the pine trees were always able to calm your anxiety; another reason why you never enjoyed the city life.

Your town was in the valley, surrounded by mountains, shielded by forests. The people who lived in this town have lived here for generations, and it seemed as if everyone knew one another. You lived in a cozy house on the far side of the town shrouded well deep in the pine tree forest. Your town didn’t have a large mall or designer clothing shops, but instead were surrounded by local businesses. Moving to the city for college was a mistake. You thought you were going to enjoy the change of pace and the large crowds of people, but it left you missing home.

You let your mind wander, as you often find it doing on walks. You weren’t expected to be home anytime soon, so you decided to see where your feet would take you. You’re obsessed with all the possibilities in life. You’re a daydreamer, constantly thinking of how small decisions could have impacted everything. What would have happened if you never dropped out of college? What would have happened if you had never gone to college? What would have happened if you had picked up the phone when he called you twenty-three times? What would have happened if you gave up studying for a brief moment and talked to him? What would have happened, if you had listened to his voicemails immediately, where his voice was filled with terror that someone had been following his car for nearly three miles?

They never found his body. The closest they ever got to locating him was his car abandoned, in the forest you loved so dearly. The windshield was shattered, on the vintage car he had cherished. He had saved up throughout high school. The car found in the forest was unrecognizable. The glove box hinges were broken. The police ruled it a robbery with a possible homicide. But they never recovered his body. Nor were they able to find the suspects. That’s what haunts you the most: the possibilities. You have his voicemails saved on your phone and you listen to them to remind yourself of your failures. You have never heard the terror in anyone’s voice like that before. Movies and shows will never be able to replicate that sense of terror. That terror sends chills to every fiber in your being and it’s something that can’t be recreated. Terror causes the hair on the back of your neck to rise and your heart to beat astronomically quickly. Did he suffer in his final moments?

You two had met when you were only fifteen. Two awkward kids, you with your braces and him with his acne. You had always felt like you were in your own world, your own little bubble. You had never been that close to someone before, and you doubt you’ll ever feel that way again. A once in a lifetime love, and you blew it. He’s gone and it’s your fault. You weren’t there when he needed it the most.

Your eyes fill with tears and the world is now blurry. You’re at the crosswalk now and you stand there waiting for the hand signal, for the cars to stop and for you to be able to cross safely. You use the sleeve of your wool brown coat to discreetly wipe your eyes. You don’t want anyone to see you crying. It’s embarrassing.

As you wait for the hand signal, something catches your eyes. Someone across the street is wearing the same shoes he used to wear. Those brown boots with the black threading. You used to joke about how they looked like hiking boots that could never be cleaned, the wash of the brown leather always looking muddy. You feel your heart skip a beat as you start looking at this stranger carefully. The cut of his jeans, the drape of his coat, all seemed too familiar to you. You gently push the people standing in front of you to get a closer look. 

Your world freezes when you realize it... it’s him. You feel your breath leave your body, leaving icicles in its place. It’s not true, it can’t be him. But it is. And he’s staring directly at you, with the same warm familiar smile that you fell in love with when you were fifteen. It’s the same crooked smile, with the same head tilt that you loved so deeply.

You can’t seem to catch your breath. You begin wheezing, the strangers beside you carefully reach out a concerned hand, but you don’t feel them. The tears are back in your eyes, but you’ve never been able to see so clearly. The whole world fades away and it’s just you and him. You need to get closer, you need to hug him, apologize, tell him how much you love him. You need to breathe in his familiar scent, caramel and peppermint.

You feel your feet move on their own accord, pounding on the pavement as you run to make it to him. You spent a whole year thinking of all the possibilities, of what was going to happen if you ever get the chance to see him again.

What you never could have expected was this.

You hear the impact before you feel it. You run into the street while the cars are still passing. A grey SUV hits you square on your body, and your left leg is pulled underneath its tire, and the driver is unable to stop. The sound of the impact, gives the impression of an orchestra, the loud impact of your leg’s flesh being torn, blood pouring onto the street. You feel the tires crush your bones, the crunch of your calf shattering into a thousand pieces. You fall to the ground, your hand slamming into the asphalt. The world flashes white.

The world is in slow motion now. You tenderly reach up behind your head with your right hand, and you pull it away to see blood. You don’t feel the pain, not in your head or your legs and that chills your bones. You let out a shriek of pure terror. This terror can’t be recreated in a movie studio or through words, but the realization of what has happened to you is too much for you to bear. The SUV stops with its front tire crushing your stomach. Unable to properly breathe, your breaths come in and out in short bursts.

There are at least a dozen strangers surrounding you, looking to see the damage, some gently reach out and ask if you are okay. Another is on the phone, yelling desperately, looking up to see the intersection, you realize he’s talking to the police. You hear a baby crying in the distance.

Through the mass, you try seeing the familiar brown boots that you risked your life for. You see him. Standing in the exact same spot, you see him screaming. His mouth agape, tears streaming down his face. It’s the sound of pure terror. He doesn’t move, it doesn’t look like he can. He can only scream. The wailing sound pains your heart. You want to reach out to him, to tell him you’re okay. You want to tell him that the joy of seeing him here, in front of you, makes you forget all your pain. But it doesn’t. The wheel of the SUV is still crushing your rib cage, you’re still struggling to breathe, and the strangers around you are talking, trying to figure out what to do about you.

A woman puts her hand in yours and whispers to you that everything will be okay. You look back at the familiar brown boots, before everything fades to black.