Hold On

Have you ever walked a country road at night in the summer? You can hear the crickets all around you, feel the heat coming off the concrete, and it's almost like in that moment...you're the only person on the planet. If I close my eyes and listen, sometimes I can hear the crickets no matter where I am. It's almost like they're always trying to tell me something, if I could just take the time to listen. The only lights you'll ever get out there are the headlights of some kid driving his truck, with the country station turned all the way up. His dad probably came home drunk again and his mom just took her sleeping pill to avoid the trouble and honestly, who can blame her?

I've had my fair share of family conflicts, but I'm glad to say that we've always come together when we've needed each other the most. Family doesn't always mean blood, I've got a best friend that has always been apart of my family ever since we were 6 years old. We'd have matching grass stains on the knees of our pants (mom was never too happy about those) but we always tried to argue the importance of pretending to be horses because "horses are fun and they don't go around walkin on two feet".

There's so many memories I have and I'd like to share as much as I can with you, but nothing beats living those moments the first time around. I hope that when you're reading this, it allows you to escape out into the country and into my story. My story is my life so allow me to introduce myself. Hey there, I'm Sage and boy do I have a lot to tell you. 

As a kid I used to love when my parents had to leave me at the house alone for a while. I'd watch them leave our driveway and when I was sure they were gone, I'd rush to get my shoes and my backpack. I'd always keep a bottle of water, some snacks, a pocket knife I found, and my camera in that backpack. I remember the excitement I'd feel leaving the house, not because I was about to do anything crazy, but because I never knew what I'd see that maybe I hadn't noticed before. I used to walk to this old red barn by our house and stand inside, looking up. My dad had told me that he could've sworn he saw an owl in that barn when he was grabbing a trailer from inside but no matter how many times I went back out there and looked, I never saw it. I remember the smell of rusted metal and the way that it felt like the air in there was somehow thicker than the air outside. That red barn kept a few of my secrets. It was the first place I had ever smoked pot and the place I went to when I snuck out for the first time with my best friend. Let me tell you a little about Camilla Grace. Camilla was always the shy one. She was always polite, always got good grades, and always did everything the perfect daughter should. Camilla rarely ever strayed from any of those things but, when it came to me, I could be the one to sway her.

I stole a bottle of wine from my parents' cellar one time and I got Camilla to drink the entire bottle with me. We ended up laughing and crying about how stupid high school was (we were freshman and already wanted to be graduated). In the midst of our first drunken conversation, we decided that after high school we would go to college in Montana and live together. We swore that no matter what happened, we'd always stick together and help each other through every frenemy situation and every relationship disaster. I remember one day at lunch, we went off campus and walked to the gas station to get RedBulls (what a lunch right?) and when we were walking back to school through the alley, these guys in a jeep started cat calling us and sped up towards us. We moved out of the way and I flipped them off as Camilla was yelling "oh grow up you asshats!". I later got suspended for keying their jeep twice, thankfully they didn't press charges.

When I used to get grounded and had all my electronics taken, I'd go for walks through our orchards with my camera and take pictures of the flowers by the irrigation ditches. For some reason, I've always liked taking pictures of flowers over anything else. Nothing could ever capture how beautiful they really were through my eyes, but a picture was better than nothing. Camilla let me take a picture of her once, and I felt the same about her as I did those wildflowers. Nothing could capture how beautiful she was as I saw her in those moments, but that picture I took of her came pretty close. That was the first and last picture I'd ever get to take of her. I never knew how important that picture would be to me and even though it's all I have of her now, it's still my favorite reminder.

On thanksgiving of our senior year, I convinced Camilla to come over to my parents' house while they were gone so we could invite the boys we had crushes on. We cleared out a space in the garage and played some music through a speaker, waiting for them to show up. I remember my hands being sweaty and my heart pounding through my chest. I couldn't help but stare at this old ladder my dad had put up to store things in the crawl space in the roof. I didn't want Camilla to know I was scared because after all, I was the "scandal". When the guys pulled up, they had driven separately in their trucks and when they got out, they did this stupid handshake and each pulled out a pack of coronas from their toolboxes. Camilla and I both rolled our eyes to the backs of our heads, but we couldn't help ourselves, they were like the James Deans of our school. Camilla was too scared to drink around them because she had only ever drank once and it was with me. I told her not to be dumb and at least just drink one because "It's just a beer and you can't get drunk off of just one". They both brought a 12 pack, I'm not sure who they thought they were partying with, but Camilla and I only drank 4 while both the boys had each drank closer to 6.

I remember one of them saying that we should go out to black butte and go mudding since it had just rained and it would be the perfect condition. It was late and nobody would be driving out there at this time, but Camilla of course had said she wasn't sure if it was a good idea especially since we had all been drinking. I somehow talked her into it with the whole "We're seniors and we haven't done shit all four years, this could be the best night of our lives and we wouldn't even know it!". I didn't know at the time, but this was about the be the worst night of our lives. We all got up and left the empty bottles around the garage in a haze. I remember that we had gone to an open area on the dirt roads, each of us riding passenger in our crush's trucks, laughing and holding on to the sides of the doors as they guys were drifting around. They even let us try drifting for a while, but we definitely weren't as good as they were. They told us that there was a spot further out that had some dips in the roads that would surely be full of water, but that only one of the trucks was tall enough to go through them. My crush had the taller truck. Camilla seemed to be having a lot of fun and begged me to let her ride with him so she could go through the dips and of course I was happy she was having fun so I said sure, why not? I got into the truck with her crush, she got into the truck with mine, and we got onto a main road to get to that spot.

Camilla was behind us for a while but all of a sudden we heard the truck engine shift and next thing you know, Camilla is waving at us as my crush drives right past us. I laughed and smiled thinking, "oh man, I've created an adrenaline junkie". I remember her crush saying that the road to turn off of was coming up and I remember seeing the truck ahead of us turning. When we turned down that road, I expected to see their headlights a little further ahead, but before I saw anything I heard it. It was loud and I wasn't even sure what I heard. When we got closer, we saw the truck facing us at an angle. The windshield had completely shattered on Camilla's side and I didn't see her in the truck. I didn't wait for him to stop, I opened my door and fell out, yelling for Camilla. I ran over to their truck and I saw the driver knocked out on the steering wheel, neither airbag had deployed. The passenger side window was down and the seatbelt wasn't clicked so I instantly knew she must've fell out somehow. I kept yelling for her, frantically looking around. I kept wishing and wishing I would hear respond but I got nothing back. When I finally found her, she was a good distance away from the truck and she was laying on her side. One arm was crossed over her and the other was above her head. Her leg looked like it was broken and she had some pretty deep cuts on her face. I remember running over to her and holding her head in my lap telling her it was going to be okay. I remember looking into her eyes and crying because they didn't look anything like that picture I had taken. I knew she wasn't breathing but I kept hoping that somehow she would be okay. I remember hearing the ambulance getting closer and I remember begging the paramedics to let me ride with her, but I couldn't. Camilla Grace was DOA due to fatal head trauma on November 28th of 2019. Camilla Grace, my best friend, died at age 17.

On the way to her funeral, I remember seeing a tree on the side of the road and as soon as I saw it, I had to pull over. I got out of my car and took a picture of it. I had hoped it was a sign from her, telling me she was watching and she was there. So many people had come to her service to show their support to her family and I was so happy to see how many people had cared about her as much as I did. Everyone who wanted to was allowed to bring a flower to her casket. I had brought a red rose, they were her favorite. I cried as I walked over, grasping the flower as tight as I could. I remember feeling the thorns on the stem jabbing into my palm, but I didn't care. Nothing was as painful as losing my life partner. As I lay the rose down, I closed my eyes, and pictured her smiling at me. I would always remember how beautiful her smile was.

After I graduated, I applied for and got a scholarship to Montana Sate University in Bozeman. I knew that even though I didn't have her with me physically, Camilla would always be there tuning in to the latest. She'd be there when I dozed off in the lectures, when I was too drunk in the bathroom at a dorm party, and especially when I was sitting down to tell you this story. This was my story and this was my life, but now you know a part of Camilla's story too. Now you know a little about my best friend. I used to hold myself responsible for the longest time. The guilt I had would eat at me every single day. I still wish I could've gone back to tell us not to go with those boys. I've accepted that I can't change the past, but maybe I can try to help the future. I've worked towards living a full and sober lifestyle for my best friend and I hope to help others work towards it too. It only takes one second for things to go wrong. Please don't let anyone else's life end before their story has even begun. Hold on to your Camilla and never let them go because you never know what you had until it's gone.