My mother could meddle with the best of them. She knew what she wanted to happen, envisioned success and joy and prosperity, and she made it happen by any means necessary.

She was an angel who sat upon a throne of fulfilled promises, the happiness of others, and plenty of know-how.

And I was only human. A human who had seen the lifeless skin, soulless body, and unmoving heart of another person before.

I knelt down beside Caroline, the light from my phone flashlight illuminating her corpse, which was barely even recognizable. There was no way she could be revived. I didn't see what happened, but if the force from the crash was enough to toss her through the windshield, she had some serious damage internally.

"Amanda, do something," Arti cried.

I snapped my head around to face her. "What do you want me to do? Poke her with a fucking stick and see if she'll wake up? She's dead."

Arti squatted down beside me, her breath heavy. "Are you sure? Can't you, like, CPR her back to life?"

"Even if I could, she wouldn't want me to."

I looked over my shoulder, and Blaine sat down in the grass thirty feet away by himself, his back facing me.

"Wow, that's, uh, sad." Arti sniffed, then shut her eyes. "What about Drew?"

I shrugged as a lump rose in my throat.

A tear fell from Arti's face as she opened her eyes back up. "I'll take care of her now. Don't worry, Caroline, wherever you are. I got Drew."

I brushed my eyes with my hand before anything could sneak out of there.

I didn't know what the hell to think about Caroline, but this was far too familiar for me.

Mom would have known what to do. She had had countless trauma patients as an ER nurse, and I used to listen to her stories of speed, alcohol, and poor decision-making. At the conclusion of each car crash chronicle, I swore to myself that when I finally got old enough to drive, I'd never break the law ever.

That didn't end up being true.

Shit.

Emergency room.

I still needed to call the paramedics or something.

I seriously needed to get my shit together for a moment, but I couldn't. Caroline's blood-stained lips and empty eyes drew me into a hell that I craved, the memories of a put-together woman who somehow managed to give birth to a fucking disaster.

"Amanda."

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked up.

"You okay?" Blaine asked.

I didn't respond.

"I called 911. They'll be here soon, okay?" he said.

I looked back at Caroline.

How could she kill herself in a world where death took people who didn't deserve it for no fucking reason?

How?

"Do you want me to call your brother?" Blaine asked. "You don't have to answer. I'm doing it no matter what."

I didn't answer, and I wiped my nose with my sleeve.

Why the hell did I think I could wave a magic wand and fix every single problem I came across?

I failed with Lukas, and I failed again with Caroline.

I just never learned, did I?

Mom told me that I didn't have to take on the world by myself, but somehow, it always ended up that way anyway. I had Blaine, Arti, Matt, and Viktor on my side, but despite that, I was alone.

I shook my head.

Lonely Amanda could only do so much.

I clamped my hands over my eyes and prayed that the darkness would mask everything going on in my head.

Tears didn't count if no one else noticed.

I huddled my elbows closer to my body, hoping to save just a little heat that seemed to be pouring out of my system with each passing hour, as red and blue lights lit up the night sky.

Final score: Caroline: Negative Infinity, Amanda: 0, Life: Infinity.

We both lost, and it wasn't even close.

***

I didn't drive on the way back to the house. Blaine didn't let me. Instead, I sat in the back of the car by myself.

What else could we do?

Blaine and Arti took the wheel from me in a metaphorical sense as well. I thrived on control, but I couldn't stomach one ounce of that shit, so they called all the shots.

The only thing I decided was that I would tell Drew that her best friend was dead.

Blaine unlocked the front door, and before we could even enter, Drew bolted to us and grabbed me by the shirt.

She was a solid four inches taller than me, and her eyes pierced into my soul.

"Where's Caroline? The guys won't tell me," she said in a low voice.

"She's gone," I said as calmly as I could.

"Where'd she go?" Drew asked.

My eyes darted away from her, because I knew that feeling.

I tried that same denial, and it wasn't a good look for me either.

My breath chopped my tummy into a million pieces faster than Bobby Flay, and though I tried to get words out, nothing happened.

Arti grabbed Drew's forearm. "Drew, she's dead."

Drew shook her head. "No. No. No."

"I'm so sorry, but—"

"No, no, no. I should have known. It's all my fault," Drew said, then burst into a sob. "And it's your fault too." She pointed to Viktor.

I wanted to scream out that it was no one's fault but Caroline's, but my vocal cords were still frozen.

Viktor stared back at her wordlessly.

"If you hadn't agreed to helping her, and then just left her for Amanda, this wouldn't have happened," Drew shouted, her finger shaking.

"That's not true. Just shut the fuck up before you fuck up his mind," Matt yelled back.

Usually his yelling was directed at NHL officials on TV, not actual people.

Drew threw her hands into the air. "She was the only friend I had, and all of you took her from me."

"Us? How the fuck did we do that?" Blaine crossed his arms and stared her down.

"You just did. She's the kindest person I know, and—"

"Drew, hey. I don't understand what it's like to lose a best friend, but screaming at everyone here isn't helping," Arti said. "I'm here for you. I promised Caroline I would be. I'm your friend now."

Drew's screaming subsided and was replaced with muffled sobs in Arti's embrace. Even though Arti was much shorter than Drew, Drew buried her face into Arti's shoulder.

"She needs out of here. Let's go home right now," Arti said to the rest of us.

"Not now. Give her a night," Matt said. "I don't want to overwhelm her even more."

Arti thought for a moment, then nodded. "You're probably right."

I looked over at Viktor.

Caroline wasn't the only thing to die. Viktor's chances of getting drafted probably perished right along with her.

Who would want him now? He was injured (and on the mend, but who cared about that shit?), he was from a school that broke the rules to indirectly benefit him, and trouble seemed to follow him and his girlfriend wherever they went.

That only left me. I wanted him.

I didn't fall in love with what he could be. I fell in love with him.

"Amanda, let's—" Viktor said, and when I nodded, he trailed off.

I was never any good at emotions, and I hoped he wasn't expecting too much from me. I didn't know what was going on in my head or my heart, but he always seemed to understand me more than I understood my damn self.

Everyone would understand if I took a moment to figure everything out with Viktor.

The two of us went upstairs to our bedroom, but I didn't sit down on the bed. That was where Caroline sat before she ran out the door and never came back.

"I'm not even going to ask if you're okay, because I know you're not," Viktor said. "And you have every right to be."

"I don't get it, Viktor. I just don't understand," I said.

"What don't you understand?"

"Why she would just end it all like that. So violently, so horridly. She just left all of us to deal with this mess."

"It's really horrible. It's really, really horrible when you feel like you have no other way out besides death."

"She didn't even try to fix it. Death comes for everyone, I know, but he's going to have to drag me to hell as I kick and scream and fight the whole way down. You can't just—"

"Amanda, you don't know what she was going through." Viktor sighed. "Where was she supposed to go from here? She was going to get expelled, her dad is going to get fired, and I didn't want her because you're the only one for me."

I blinked twice. "Find a way. That's what the rest of us have to do now."

"But—"

"She threw her life away. Drew loved her. I wanted to be her friend. She wasn't alone." I took in a choppy breath. "She had everything going for her, and there's only one person who took it all away from her. Herself."

"If mental health cared about a person's situation in life, I would be perfectly happy all the time, but I'm not. She was really sad. Can't you empathize with that?" Viktor asked.

"Yes, I can, but at the same time, my mom was taken from me before any of us were ready for that. Who does Caroline think she is, just killing herself?"

"Is this too much for you? I know it hasn't been that long since your mom passed—"

"It's been months, Viktor. Most of the time, I can pretend like everything's just fine, but," I finally let my tears free, "I can't right now."

He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my hair, brushing through the tips with his fingers.

"I try, and try, and try, and try, but I can't ever win," I said.

"Eventually, you'll learn to deal with this too, and that will be a win. And after that, you and I will find something else to do."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't even be whining like this right now. Drew practically blamed Caroline's suicide on you. Are you okay?"

"I'm okay, but we're putting you first right now."

"And what about your hockey career?"

"It's not over yet. A beautiful, courageous girl taught me that nothing's over until it's over, and I'm just going to keep doing what I always do."

A small squeak snuck out of my throat. "Fantastic."

Someone knocked on the door.

"Hey, Amanda, do you—" Blaine began, but I interrupted.

"Just leave me alone. I'm not trying to be mean, but I just—"

"Will ice cream help?"

I opened up my hand and squinted. "Uh, no."

Ice cream, kisses, and music weren't a solution to anything. At best, they were just a distraction from the real problem that needed fixed.

The only thing was that I couldn't fix anything. Death was pretty fucking permanent.

Viktor gave me a sad smile. "Maybe you should try to distract yourself a little. Sometimes you get really caught up in your emotions, and it hurts me to see you like that."

"I do not. I'm the most unemotional person ever. In fact, I'm so unemotional that I'm gonna make Blaine get me ice cream, and while I'm eating it, I'm not going to give a single fuck about anything," I said.

"That's the spirit," Blaine said.

Viktor shook his head. "That's not exactly what I meant."

"But that's what we're going with, unless you want me to take a bath in my pajamas again," I said.

"Or we could learn healthy ways to deal with stress," Viktor said.

Blaine and I burst into laughter.

"This is bad," Viktor mumbled. "Amanda, please."

"Amanda, please what? I don't know how to handle anything right now without just crying, which doesn't fix a damn thing." I laughed again. "I tried to be all open with my emotions, but that shit didn't work. Life sucks just as much now as it did ten minutes ago."

"You're allowed to cry more."

"More? She actually cried?" Blaine asked, apparently still on the other side of the door.

"Go get her ice cream, please," Viktor said.

"You know, I used to be the leader of this squad. I don't get any respect around here anymore."

I listened to Blaine's footsteps down the hall.

"Okay, now I can cry again," I said, then let a few silent tears out onto Viktor's shirt.

Viktor was the only one who could handle every aspect of Amanda, the highs, the lows, and the super mega lows. He was the only one who could handle me.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, this just took a turn for the worst.

What are your thoughts on the situation? Caroline's death? Amanda's memories? Viktor's career?

I'm getting my wisdom teeth taken out on Friday (and I'm totally freaking out), so I hope I'll have the update on time, but I can't make any promises.