https://youtu.be/KyOX5ACmGQM

*Note: Click the Youtube link above to listen to the Audiobook Version of this chapter voiced by Kristen featuring music by Paramore, The Used, Death Cab for Cutie, ThisWillDestroyYou, and All The Luck In the World.

Elias

I used to love the road.

The first time Tanner gave me the keys to his beat up Wrangler my heart caught on fire. I still remember the burn-- the way the roar of the engine raced through my veins like a drug.

The inside of that car smelled a little bit like leather, dust, and danger, and I was head over heels the first time I got behind the wheel.

Driving was like breathing back then. I'd cruise around San Diego with my windows down, and let the salty air stream in. Getting lost on those beach side streets was everything back then.

It saved me from my dad. It saved me from some of my bad habits, and was the only place I felt at peace. Until the night I smashed that Wrangler to pieces.

I keep seeing it--the ghost of my accident at every crosswalk, every stop sign, everywhere.

Every time I pull up to a traffic light, old fears paralyze me to the point where I can barely drive through an intersection once the light turns green.

My body tells me to go. To put my foot on the gas and speed past the memories that keep popping out of the shadows. But my heart's hesitating.

It's running around my ribcage beating holes through my chest, but I'll be fine as long as Jersey can't hear it.

I don't want her to.

I don't want anything else about this day to go wrong, so I drown out the sound with the radio.

I've been hiding behind the music since we started driving, but she's been too distracted to notice.

She's been singing for the past hour, just rocking out to KROQ while I've been low key losing my shit.

Every time a song ended I kept panicking thinking that she'd turn to me, see how wired I was, and start asking questions, but she didn't.

She still hasn't.

And I'm grateful for it.

I'd rather watch her sitting in the passenger's seat in silence, hair blowing in the wind, eyes glued to the taillights streaming down the highway, then try to explain everything that's wrong.

Jersey doesn't know that every minute I drive I still see broken glass, twisted metal, and blood all over the concrete. She doesn't know I still feel my broken bones or that sometimes I mistake the songs on the radio for the sound of police sirens.

She's lost in her own world--just existing right next to me, without picking apart my broken pieces.

She lets me be, and as hard as it is to keep acting like I'm okay when I'm not, I feel more okay because I'm here with her.

"You ready to change up the music, rockstar?" I ask.

She finishes her air guitar solo on The Used track playing and turns down the radio.

"What for? The last couple songs were classic rock gold and Nirvana's up next! That's like vintage , Elias. We can't tune out now."

"I'm not that into Nirvana, actually."

Her mouth practically falls off her face and lands somewhere in her lap. She shuts off the radio and stares at me like I just stole her life's savings.

"How is that even possible? is one of the best singer-songwriters of all time."

"That might be true, but I'm just not super stoked about his stuff."

She folds her hands together and starts spinning her thumbs around in circles.

"Why? What's not to like? His style? His voice?"

"His problems. He was an addict, Jersey. The guy was fucked up. He was depressed his whole life, fell in love with a girl who couldn't save him, got caught up with drugs, and then killed himself. There's a lot not to like because--he's a lot like me."

For the first time since we started driving, Jersey's completely quiet. I barely even hear her breathing. I don't know how to read her right now. I don't know if she thinks I'm rattling off about nothing or if she can hear the truth in what I'm saying. But I hope she catches it. I owe it to her. I owe her a lot more truths than she knows.

"He's not anything like you, Elias."

"He's everything like me. When you met me last summer, I was drinking just about everyday, and if it wasn't drinking it was pills, and if it wasn't pills it was sex. I was so depressed the only times I felt better was when I was fucking with other people."

"But you weren't always like that when you were with me."

"The person I screwed with the most was you, and I'm sorry--even though I'm sorry won't fix anything."

Jersey buries her face in her hands and lets a slow breath out into the air.

"It's fine, Elias."

"How the hell is this fine?!"

"Whatever. Let's just drop it, okay? The past is the past. We're starting over, remember? So, let's just focus on who we are right now instead of who we used to be," she says.

Her voice comes out desperate and shallow like her words are made of paper. I can't stand the sound of it, the sound of a girl who's got a heart made of steel talking like she's weak. Like she's worthless. Especially since I'm the one who probably made her feel that way.

"Fine. You wanna know who I am right now? I'm a guy who can't look at you without seeing how much he's missing. I'm a guy who knows that he's the reason you don't know how to smile anymore. I'm a guy who's still fucking terrified to tell you that the reason he left you was because--"

I stop and take a second to breathe through the pressure pushing down on my chest.

"--he had to go to rehab for six months."

For a couple seconds, nobody speaks. I sit there gripping the hell out of the wheel and sweating through my clothes waiting for her to say something. Anything. But she doesn't. Instead she reaches over and places her hand on my shoulder, and her touch is so damn soft and sincere it hurts.

"Why didn't you tell me? I would've understood, Elias. I would've--"

She chokes back a couple tears and tries to keep speaking, but her words get lost.

"I know. The thing is, I tried to reach out to you everyday after I left, but as soon as I got there, they took my phone. Some shit about having no contact with anyone who wasn't family. Everyone else was considered bad for recovery or whatever, so six months passed and by the time I finally had the chance to explain everything to you, I didn't know how to anymore."

"So you got my messages and my texts, but you didn't say anything? Even after rehab?"

I hate having to tell her this truth even more than having to live with its consequences.

"After I got out, I didn't read or listen to anything anybody sent me when I was in rehab. I couldn't. I didn't want to remember how long I was gone, and I wasn't ready to deal with everything I missed. It took my therapist forcing me to write everything down to get me to make my way back to you. So that's where the book came from."

Her grip on my shoulder loosens a little, but she doesn't let go.

"Thank you," she says.

"For what?"

"For not listening to what I sent you."

"What? Why?" I ask.

"Because I was going through a really rough time, and the things I said and wrote to you were pretty dark and awful, so I'm glad you didn't listen to them. You deleted everything, right?"

Now, I wish I hadn't.

"Yeah."

"Good. I think we're both better off not re-exploring my emo-phase. Luckily, I'm totally over being sappy and emotional now," she says.

"You sure?" I ask, and nod towards her hand still lingering on my t-shirt.

She yanks it back into her lap and turns bright red.

"Yep. Totally over it."

"So, was that love letter you wrote me on the student forum part of your emo-phase or not?"

She sucks in a breath so hard she nearly starts choking.

"You said you wouldn't read that!"

"C'mon, Jersey. I'm your teacher. I have to read your most private and personal thoughts. It's my job. I loved the whole thing, by the way."

"Of course you did, it was about you."

Holy shit, did she just tell the truth?

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I couldn't hear you over the engine," I say.

She folds her arms over her chest and scowls at me, but I keep on smiling.

"That post was about how I used to feel about you, okay? Not how I feel about you right now."

"Which is?"

"Annoyed."

"You sure you don't mean, enamoured, Jersey?"

Her jaw hangs open for the second time this afternoon.

"How do you even know that word? You can't use synonym in a sentence, but enamoured is in your vocabulary?"

"I know a lot of words, Jersey. You'd be surprised how smart I actually am."

"Then what does it mean oh, King of the dictionary?"

"To be filled with love for someone--like how I felt about you after the first night we were together."

Jersey clears her throat more times than is healthy and then goes back to tangling and untangling her fingers.

"Oh. That's--nice. Me too. I guess. Um. Anyway, we should change lanes. The lady in front of us is driving like a snail, and we'll never get to San Diego if we're following a grandma."

I check my mirror to make sure the left lane's clear. There's no one around except for a lonely VW about a half a mile back, so I flip on my signal and start to switch lanes. Halfway through the merge, a bright red Dodge Ram comes speeding out of my blind spot and nearly clips the side of Indigo's car. Jersey screams, I jerk the wheel hard to the right and swerve out of the way, but the damage is already done.

My chest locks up, my hands go numb, and the lane lines ahead of us start blurring into nothing. Jersey says something to me, but I'm too rattled to make sense of it. I open my mouth to tell her that I need her to help me, but my throat stops the sound.

The only thing I hear are sirens screaming into my ears, drowning out everything.

The inside of the car turns to noise.

Static.

Sound bites from that night at that intersection that I can't forget.

That life won't let me forget.

All I had to do was pay attention.

All I had to do keep was my eyes on the road, and I could've--

"Elias!"

I could've changed things.

"Elias, you need to--"

I could've changed everything.

"--calm down. Just breathe."

But then I wouldn't have met Jersey.

"I can't do this. I can't drive right now. I need you to--"

She reaches across the car and slides her hands on top of mine. She takes control of the wheel and instructs me to let go as softly and carefully as she can.

"Now, this isn't the safest thing in the world, so if we're gonna do this you need to trust me, okay?"

I nod and a halo of sweat comes tumbling off my forehead and runs down my face. My skin's on fire, but her hands are cool to the touch. Sometimes, I wish I was man enough to tell her all the little ways she saves me, but my mouth's too dry to do much of anything. So, I sit there and wait on her words instead.

"I'll drive the rest of the way to San Diego, but you're gonna have to pull over so we can switch. I'll check to make sure it's clear, but I'm going to have to let you go to do that."

"Don't move. Please. I can't."

"Yes, you can. I'm right here, so we're going to do this together. Just take a deep breath, and focus. You got this."

I look up into the rear view mirror and see a long line of cars trailing behind us. I'm going too slow, but my foot's frozen on the pedal. Two or three cars switch lanes, zoom past, and cut me off.

I used to be able to fly like that. I used to breeze down the freeway like I owned it. But now it owns me. It's got my heart and mind in a chokehold, and I'm dying for air.

"There's too many people," I say.

"Don't worry about them, just focus on us. When I count to three, we're gonna switch, and everything's going to be fine."

Nothing's fine.

You don't know how fast things can go wrong.

And I don't ever want you to.

"What if another car comes outta nowhere and--"

"Elias Alexander King, I swear on my Dad's lasagna that I will not let anything bad happen to you. But you have to trust me."

Jersey takes one hand off the wheel and presses it against my heart.

"You ready?" She asks.

I breathe for what feels like the first time in minutes, and let her take control.

"Yeah."

"One, two, three."

On Jersey's count, I flip on the signal and veer the car to the right without any problems. I try to manage a smile, but we're still two lanes away from safety.

"See? Easy peasy. We're almost there. Here we go! One, two, three."

My second switch doesn't go anywhere near as well as the first. I swerve in and out of the lane a couple times before merging all the way.

Even with how shitty everything just went, Jersey keeps that patient smile on her face.

"One more lane, Elias. Are you ready?"

"I think so," I say.

She turns to look over her shoulder and starts the count off one last time.

"One, two,--"

We never make it to three.

***

(To be continued on Saturday ;P. Sorry to leave you guys with a cliffhanger....but if we didn't what fun would that be :D!? Hope you guys enjoyed reading and listening to this chapter! Kristen and I had a blast writing/recording this chapter so we hope you enjoyed the read!)