I wondered if this was how Danny felt: excited, nervous, on edge, like a shaken soda bottle ready to burst. If it was, I could see why he had become addicted to the feeling.

Short of sprinting to Vanessa's, I restrained myself to a run-walk, finally breaking into a jog up the flight of stairs that led to her floor. She answered my knock at the door after several seconds. The television was on in the background and a half-dozen lay open on the floor fanned out in a semi-circle where she had been studying.

"Dash—are you all right?" she asked. Her question brought on the worst case of déjà vu as I heard every time I had been asked that question echo back through the past months. "You look like you haven't slept in days."

"Weeks," I corrected her.

I walked past her into the living room. The air was laced with the scent of cinnamon candles, and a memory surfaced of Tyler making a face and saying "I never liked cinnamon."

I pulled on my fingers to keep them from twitching. My knuckles popped one after the other.

"Is everything all right?" Van asked again, tracking my indecisive movements around the room. My mind couldn't seem to hold onto one thought.

"No—well, yes. Yes and no," I said, distractedly. An old episode of Grey's Anatomy was on TV and I stopped to watch for a minute.

"Do you need to talk?" she asked, taking my hand and pulling me towards the couch.

By the way she searched my face and the set of her mouth, I could tell she was worried that I might collapse at any moment. I ordered myself calm so she wouldn't get the wrong idea.

Beeping accelerated in the background as a patient coded on the show. It reminded me forcibly of the weeks I spent in the hospital.

"I've been talking to Chris," I said, a little too loudly to drown out the all-too-real sounds from the television.

"I've been meaning to ask you about that," interrupted Van. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She only ever wore them to study. "I thought you guys were done—like no contact, nothing, but I keep seeing and hearing..."

I made a dismissive movement with my hand. "We've been talking a bit. He's been helping me."

Vanessa made a noise of contempt.

"Anyway," I said. "I've been talking to him and I've realized something."

"Which is....?"

I quickly told her my idea—of why I thought I was so thoroughly entangled in Danny's death, of how I thought I could set both of us free.

Vanessa's brow furrowed the more I talked until she was downright scowling and shaking her head.

"What?" I asked, frustrated.

"Dash, I know how hard this is for you—especially after the Tyler thing. But you're exhausted. You're not thinking straight—and I don't think that's what Chris meant."

"This isn't about the Tyler thing," I retorted through gritted teeth.

"Whatever it's about, jumping off Needle Rock Ridge is not going to help you. You could get yourself killed."

"But—"

Van held up her hand as though she could physically stop the words coming from my mouth.

"I know you were going to jump with Danny, but this is different. I think you need to take a few days—sleep on things. And maybe, you know, seeing a new therapist might not be so bad." She looked guiltily away as she said this.

I bit my lip, eyes stinging. If I lost Van on my side, I was completely alone. I blinked quickly and looked in the opposite direction, the awkwardness like a bad odor in the air. Truth be told, I had always been alone in this. I had come out of the crash alone, dealt with the flashbacks and nightmares alone, and I would find a solution alone.

"How about some tea?" asked Vanessa, trying to diffuse my emotional state.

I nodded, pretending to be interested in the television. One of the characters on the screen was drinking out of a tequila bottle and I tried to remember if I had any wine leftover from the previous night. Drinking had become even harder now that I had Amber harassing me about it as well, but it wasn't impossible.

"Do you want anything to eat?" called Vanessa from the kitchen. "I was thinking of making grilled cheese."

"Sure," I called back, distractedly.

I had taken to finding more creative places to store my alcohol after I had caught Amber snooping through the trunk where I normally put it, but I wasn't sure how long that would last. The room was exceptionally tiny, after all.

Listen to yourself, I thought disgusted. You deserve to feel this shitty if that is what it's come to.

No.

If this is what it has come to, then this is where it ended.

I leaned back on the couch to peer around the corner. Van was busy at the stove, poking a slab of melting butter with a spatula. With practiced ease that came with years of sneaking around with Danny, I reached into her open purse on the coffee table and fished out her car keys and cellphone.

"Sorry, Van," I whispered as I stole towards the front door. Once safely in the hall, I broke into a run, knowing I would only have a few minutes before she realized what happened.

I picked out her red Honda among the sea of cars, wrenched open the door and jumped in. Vanessa came running from the building in only her socks as I sped out of the lot. Her face in the rearview mirror was a mixture of fear and anger.

I took the quickest route off campus, drove south down Main Street, and pulled onto the highway.

Once the adrenaline subsided from my brush with grand theft auto, I realized I was behind the wheel of a car for the first time since before the accident. Immediately, my palms grew slick on the wheel and I let up slightly on the gas.

Breathe, I ordered myself. Just breathe.

The car around me was not a roaring metal death trap; it was my way to freedom. All I had to do was move my feet and hands a bit and the car would do the rest. It was a tool, a tool in my control. I stared through the windshield until I could convince myself it wasn't there and it just me cruising down the road at forty miles an hour, the snaking yellow road line a friendly guide on my left side.

Now that I was calm, or calmer, I realized how very odd it felt to have a steering wheel in my hands, to feel the power of the car under my feet. To know I could go faster, slower, left, or right when I wanted to. It was cool, in a way, to have power over an object that had literally wrecked my life. It made forget, truly forget, for one moment how terrified I was of cars. And that moment where I forgot was one of the most wonderful feelings.

I wasn't sure how long it would take Vanessa to track down Kevin and his car without her phone, but I estimated that I had at least a half hour head-start and that was enough.

The GPS on Vanessa's phone re-directed me to Needle Rock Ridge. The British voice was soothing as it told me where and when to turn. Occasionally, it was punctuated by someone calling the phone in an attempt to reach me, all of which I let go to voicemail.

The radio played a song I didn't know, so I fiddled with the stations only to realize I didn't recognize any song that was playing. In fact, I couldn't even name a song that had come out recently. It occurred to me that I couldn't remember the song that had been playing when the pick-up truck slammed into us. Had the radio even been on? Had I forgotten because I had been so intent on our conversation or because the crash was a jumbled mess of images, sounds, and blood in my head?

I cleared my throat loudly, digging my nails into the steering wheel. I could not afford to think about the past now. Right now, all that mattered was the future. Approximately an hour into the future when I would be standing on the cliff Danny and I should have been standing on together.

_________________________________________

Dash seems a little scatter-brained, no? What are your thoughts about what she's doing? Let me know!

Also, I'm sorry to keep asking because you guys really have been so wonderful and I'm just happy you're taking the time to read my writing butttt DMTL has made it into the next round of voting in the Rose Awards hosted by honestcritiques

 If you guys have an extra minute or two, consider heading over to the Rose Awards to vote DMTL "Best General Fiction" story. Make sure to tag me so I can thank you profusely! :)