The acceptance letters came in today. All of them, because it was agreed I'd open them all at once and look at my options then because that was family tradition. I tore them open right in front of my siblings and my parents and wore the biggest smile on my face and read every fucking word of the entire thing because I'd spent most of my damn life trying to accomplish the very thing those letters held and I'd be damned if I misread even a single bit of them. 

And it all said exactly what I'd hoped for. Told me that I'd accomplished what I'd spent the last few years struggling over. It should've made me very, very happy.

But happy people do not drown themselves in alcohol.

Happy people drink to celebrate.  They make toasts and cheerful exclamations, clink glasses and play games and bump shoulders. And then they go home to the family that is also happy for them and that has made them happy in return, because happy people do not drink to drown.

Because when you drink to drown, you drink to fill a void. To fill the empty with something else until that fades away and you're left sober and then usually, you end up drinking again. Some more. And you keep drinking until you're drowning in enough of it that the hole feels just a little bit less empty.

I am not a happy person.

I should be.

But I'm not.

I down another shot and almost choke on the way it burns my throat, wincing at the bitterness. My brother is laughing beside me, lifting one hand to clap my shoulder. The forces of it pushes me over a little, and maybe if I were still thirteen and he was sixteen, then it definitely would have, but now that we're both adults, it's not the same.

I think I hate having had to grow up.

"I'm fine," I say, but the way my voice rasps from the drink is a pathetic piece of evidence. My brother laughs again, like I'm some comedy act, and though I love my brother, at this moment he very much annoys me.

"Take it easy," he says, clapping me again, pushing me forward in the seat. I think he just likes seeing me move, knowing that he still has the power to push his little brother around even when we're both grown up. It's a childish thing, but I can't find it in me to blame him.

We're all children trapped as adults, trying to find that part inside of us to bring back to life.

"I saw that girl you were talking to at the cafe," he says, and this time I almost choke on my drink for an entirely different reason.

"Excuse me?" I slur, eyebrows raised indignantly, eyes half-lidded. I must not look like the most impressive sight, but my Fucks-To-Give Machine is temporarily out of commission.

"She was pretty." My brother's grin is the knowing kind, probably from experience. Our entire family is blessed in genetics, and none of us have ever shied away from the fact. My brother, oldest of the family, and with the most experience and freedom under his belt, has probably used it to his advantage the most.

"She definitely was," I say, taking another swig, wondering about the girl with pretty blue eyes. I wonder what she would've been like if she'd just sat down and stayed a little longer, perhaps talked about all the work she had out on the table and the way she looked so frantic to get away.

I wonder what made her run. It definitely wasn't because I was ugly.

"Get her number?" My brother asks, as if that's really what's important right now. But while Dante has always been smart, he's always been a little lacking in the empathy department. Not, of course, for a lack of trying. But simply because he's never really been that good at seeing it. After all, he studies engineering, not psychology.

The answering shot must be enough of an answer to his question, because he doesn't ask again.

"Which college?" He asks, and even though the question is vague, I know what he means. But I take a shot anyway, rub the excess on my lips with my sleeve and turn to him in my spinning barstool.

"What do you mean?"

My brother raises an eyebrow like I'm mentally challenged, but maybe the look on his face is because he knows exactly what I'm doing here, on the verge of getting shit-faced. Both could be brought on by my clarification; us siblings have always had a way of communicating in ways that needed less words or even none at all. The twins have it even stronger than the rest of us.

If it's the latter possibility, he decides to play dumb. "Which college are you leaning towards? You had some good choices."

Of course I do, which of us in the family wouldn't? We're a rich name with kids who've done sports and have top tutors and a shit ton of extracurriculars. We all fit into the perfect mold we're given; never thought about anything else.

"No clue," I say, and it's an oddly genuine thing. I know I used to, but something's been off in the last few months, and now I'm not sure of anything. I'm a sailor who's lost their path, and now I'm drifting aimlessly in the great expanse of sea, losing hope as the days pass and getting weaker as my spirit and supplies dwindle.

My brother gives me a wary look, unsure and concerned. "Let's head home soon, yeah?" He makes a move towards my drink, like he might cut me off in the middle of my glass, but he makes the decision not to, letting me slip deeper into my pit of self destruction.

How very odd to feel this way, to know my life has direction and to be lost anyways.

Maybe I could've figured it out the next morning, after both the fog of my life and my hangover clears. Maybe I'd pick up my sense again, choose my college, and then continue on with the exceptional life my family has always had.

Maybe is such a bitch of a word.

Maybe if I'd stayed a little longer before we got into the car. Maybe if we'd spent some time going through the radio station. Maybe if I'd kept quiet instead of giving my brother a hard time. Maybe, if I'd done things just the slightest bit different, then the car would've passed us and all we'd be is bystanders with a story to tell when we got home.

But we weren't bystanders; the story was spun entirely different, our choices building up to something else.

Because the car didn't pass us.

It rammed straight into our car.