18 of 50 Songs and Chapters Dedicated to the Friend I Lost Too Soon

Like Jewee has been implying this whole time, I'm a coward. He was right, and it explains a lot. It explains every piece of my life that hasn't worked out. I thought there was some outside force that I could blame, as if the gods out there just hate me and are out to get me, but come to find out, I've made that up in my own imagination so that I didn't have to blame myself.

I've been afraid of failure, and therefore, afraid to try and afraid to pursue. He's been rubbing that in my face, and even so, I've been refusing to be open-minded and pay attention to it, but finally I've had to. I've had to accept that he was right. I have no grounds to argue about it.

It's for the better too, I think. I've needed this for a very long time. I've needed to properly see my reflection, because there's stains across me that I wouldn't have learned to clean up otherwise. At least before I die, I've learned.

I've learned the reasoning behind why I could never find someone to fall in love with. It's too late for that to change, but at least I know. I didn't want to rely on anyone. I spent the bare minimum I had to with friends or with family, and I've always been unavailable somehow, mostly emotionally. I try to act like I'm confident enough to confront other people, and I spill a negative piece of me when I try to, but through it all, I couldn't actually confront myself, let alone look at me. Truly look.

Maybe I've never been the most desirable person regardless. I don't really know. It's not like I've ever seen myself in someone else's eyes or in another's view, but I didn't do the most on my part. It's as if I didn't want it enough. I didn't put myself out there. I didn't give people chances so easily. There's not many out there who even got to see me, physically even, and for who I really am -- I've made that impossible.

I could've been good to people, I think. I could've, but I never allowed it to happen. I just went through one day after another, taking on whatever came my way, and I got used to that. Every single day was the same, not because it had to be, but because I made it that way, and at the brink of death, I freaked out. I wanted something out of the ordinary. I wanted something different -- something to look forward to.

I should've thought about that a long time ago, but I didn't, and now, there's nothing that I could do about it. Turning back time wasn't an option. I could only stare right into my own stupidity, and despise it -- despise what I became.

I came here only to express hate who I thought was a terrible liar, when the entire time I was hating me, the only person telling lies, and with that, telling lies only to myself.

I'm the real liar here. I've always been, and I didn't realize it. That's the only thing I'm good at. Fooling myself. I've been honing the skill for as long as I've been alive, behind my own back.

I feel like garbage.

"Jewee?" I called his name hesitantly. After he had told me that I had right to the front seat because the entire world had reason to understand why we would be seen together, and I had obliged to his kindness, feeling the wind through my hair with the windows rolled down a reminder, my insides turned to mush. After everything he had to put up with, he didn't attempt revenge.

He jumped in and saved me when I was drowning in flashing lights after I've spent nearly every moment we had together threatening to drown him first, and he expected nothing in return for his life-saving act.

How embarrassing on my side of things that is.

"Yeah?" He responded. His right hand loosely on the 2 o'clock of the wheel, I could tell he wasn't fully engulfed in attention toward me. He was taking in the scenery of the place he was proud to be raised, and he was circled around the carefree side of him that the universe knew him to be, again a slap in the face that he wasn't a liar. Everyone has different pieces that make them who they are. He's more true to himself than I've ever been.

"I'm sorry for--," I paused. How could I describe it right? There's too much to explain, little things and big, and it was best all of it was accounted for. I wouldn't want it any other way, but to say it in words, I couldn't touch base on every piece. "I'm sorry for everything. I should've known your life isn't simple." I settled on.

The man studied me for a quick second. It wasn't long, but it was deep and it still felt to linger. His hair, curlier than ever was blowing back behind him too, and in it, I saw the guy I admired again. He wasn't someone on the receiving end of my hatred. He was who I thought he was when I didn't meet him yet. The guy who I screamed about every time his face and his name would appear in the opening credits of his show. The guy who I followed for consistent updates, and the guy who I found online when I had a bad day to get some laughs.

And here that man was like this, reassuring me. Me of all people after I've made a fool of myself.

"Don't apologize. You don't have anything to apologize for."

"But I really am sor--."

"No, it's a simple mistake. It was a tiny misunderstanding. It happens to the best of us." If I'm not going crazy, I saw him wink upon finishing the statement.

"Seriously, Kyler. It's not that simple. It really isn't." I had to insist. Of course he was going to claim that I didn't owe him anything, but I wasn't going to live the rest of my life feeling like crap because of that. It was common sense that I owed him for what he had to put up with. I was a terrible person toward him, and for someone without status and who is so painfully average, it made things worse. In fact, the more you consider the more it goes downhill.

"Alright! I forgive you, Jaiva Shyne. I do. I mean that, and I swear to God if you apologize one more time there'll be consequences," Jewee raised his voice, but jokingly. That didn't mean that what he was saying wasn't said to be taken as the truth, but it meant that he wanted to tell me in a way that I believed him -- with conviction.

Fine, I thought to myself. I might as well give him what he wants if that's how he's gonna be. I felt better knowing that I could at minimum say that I tried to enforce my apologies and that I tried to make sure he understood that I regretted how I've treated him.

"Okay. Jeez, I'm sorry, dude," I spit it out more in defense than in actual apology this time, but once it clicked on what I've said, I cringed. I've said it again. Of course you could count on me to make a conversation awkward. I've mentally sworn I would end my cycle of begging for forgiveness, and once more it comes out.

Jewee broke out in laughter. The car pulled over to the side of the road, and the moment he could regain control over himself, he searched for my face before he would speak. I knew already that whatever he would say wasn't going to be out to get me, and that he wasn't intending to scold me, because his laugh was far too genuine and real to snap into madness so quickly, but just knowing that he was up to jokes and kidding around didn't make me too happy either. No one could ever guess where that might bring you.

"You heard what I said, didn't you?" He asked, a wide grin still plastered to his face. "I told you there would be consequences for another apology. Now, I wouldn't say that if I didn't already have one in mind."

"Oh, God please, Jewee. Just let it go. Come on! I didn't mean to say it. It just happened." I complained, but his expression alone was all the proof necessary to know that he wasn't going to listen to me. I gave in. "Alright. I get it. I screwed up. What's the consequence?"

"We're gonna restart. We're gonna go back to the day things were hella angelic between the both of us. Do you remember?" He put the car in park, his voice getting sing-songy the more we went along. "Get out," he commanded, giggling. My seat-belt shot up from the buckle, which he undid to move things along. "Get out right now!"

"What?"

"Get out of the car. You drive."

"No, no," my hands waved frantically, denying his request. I tried to laugh so that the atmosphere would remain on a lighter note, but on the inside, I was petrified. "You can't make me do that. An absolute beginner driving in the streets of Vegas, eleven hours away from her hometown? Illegal. You have a death wish for the both of us."

"Don't worry, Princess. I'll instruct you. You'll be fine," he fought against my detest, getting out of his seat. Somehow, he'd managed to get the passenger door wide open, and him being on the side of oncoming traffic, he forced his way into my seat while I was still in it, pretty much kicking me out of his car. Standing outside on a random road, traffic inching forward, I had to do what he asked. Otherwise, we wouldn't be getting out of here. We'd be here all night.

With trembling hands, I made my way around the front of the car and into the driver's seat, placing them uncomfortably on the wheel. He was leaning over toward his left, basically hovering over me, in attempt to show that he was there if need be. As my foot sat above the gas, afraid of pressing down, I prayed that his guidance from the passenger side would be enough to do something so reckless.

But isn't this what I've wanted for a long time? To step out of my comfort zone? To be a little reckless? To be a little out there and insane? I guess it was.

And the person I accused of being too structured was the one who was pushing me to do so. To go with the flow. To get out there and live.

Maybe this really is what I've been asking for.

~

"Pretty good for a first-timer," Jewee stated. We were parked in the parking lot of a market of some sort that's long been out of business, a place he chose since most people wouldn't normally pass by here and because it couldn't be seen from the main road.

Isn't it sucky that these people have to plan out their privacy, when we don't have to think twice about it?

He was messing with his seat buckle, getting ready to step out of the vehicle, but he didn't. He acted like what he had left to say was too dang important to up and leave so rapidly. "You almost killed a family of seven, a carpool of like four probably, and the two of us, but like I said, pretty good for a first-timer."

Upon finishing those sentences, he did step out, and I rolled my eyes as I followed after him. He was climbing up to the roof of his car, laying out against it like a starfish while facing up toward the sky. I stared at him from the ground.

"You asked for it," I pointed out. "I think, technically, their blood would be on your hands, not mine. Besides, what did you expect? There's people out there who've had their licenses for the past decade if not more, and they still can't drive or park properly to save their life, and you dare to make me drive out there with them? I'm sorry that I never had the gut to go out in the street and possibly kill myself in a metal box."

"Touché. I'll go on, but wow -- you're feistier than I thought you were," he had to say, while he gestured for me to follow him up to the car roof.

I was near to rejecting his offer, but with his hand out for mine, I had trouble declining. Being helped up and finding a spot beside him, I focused instead on his words rather than responding to what he said through his body language. "I'm not feisty. I'm just saying what's true," I muttered out. It felt oddly good to say I was telling the truth and know I meant it. Even if it's only for me to comprehend, I've built up a reputation of the opposite and it made me sick.

Jewee nodded happily, eyes sparkling. "I guess you are," he shrugged. "You are a fast learner, if it amounts to anything."

And I smiled, genuinely, when I heard that. It would've been nice to have heard that throughout my life -- things like that that would keep me going when things were dark, and things that would actually give me the motivation to try. My stomach churned accepting that I wasted precious time with him being angry over nothing, when I could've been hearing things like this, especially because nobody could know how long I'd be able to listen to it.

Head snapping up from massaging my palm, I searched for his gaze, and thoroughly this time, like I'd never be able to do it again. "Can I ask you a question?" I said, wondering.

He was beginning to look different. He didn't hold the admiration that I had for him as a fan, but he held the admiration I had for him as a person -- as a woman, sitting across from him on a personal level. His lips were looking different. It looked like something that I'd long to come home to after a long exhausting day, and I can't tell if that made me stronger or if it made me weak.

"Sure, anything," he answered.

Automatically a hair of fear wrapped itself around my heart. How terrifying it would be to become close to someone who I knew I would have to leave, but on the other side of the coin, how terrifying it would be not to create a bond with someone who could, with guarantee, add magic to your life.

My throat went sore to bring it up -- a question deep and nerving that nobody existing knew the answer to.