It's Like I Know You...
an excerpt

I have got a serious headache.

And it’s not exactly the type that you can use Advil to cure.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, as I jumped out of my car and slammed the door shut, much harder than I had intended to slam it. I pushed my hair behind my ears as I jogged forward, towards the accident that I had just witnessed.

I’m going to explain something real quickly. Imagine that you’re seventeen. You just want to go to a mall forty miles away to buy a sexy pair of boots. You witness a car accident.

Wait – what?

Yeah. You heard me correctly. A really nasty car accident, by the looks of it. The blue Sedan’s owner, who had crashed into the owner of the Mercedes, looked frozen in her seats. Behind me, I heard thousands of honks from held-up people. Vain, I thought furiously to myself. Someone was hurt, and they were just worried about whatever they needed to do. And as far as I was concerned, unless you have a wife in labor in the backseat, they could go straight to hell.

I knocked furiously on the crasher’s car window. “Get out,” I called through the glass. I had a tendency to butt into situations that had was no concern of my mine, and this just happened to be a big one of them.

The woman – she couldn’t be older than twenty-two, quite possibly still in college – seemed to unfreeze and quickly unbelted herself. She got out of the car quickly, and the two of us ran towards the front of the screwed up car.

“Holy shit,” she breathed. I was thinking the same thing, but I was a little busy to start cursing. I examined the car, which had been tilted onto its side. Several other onlookers had gathered, so I gestured to several of the strong-looking ones. They came forward, looking confused.

“Help me set the car straight,” I ordered them. Like my followers, the helped me push all four wheels back onto the ground. The car landed on the asphalt with a thud. “Thanks,” I told them absently. I circled around to the other side of the car and opened the door.

And nearly threw up.

Sitting inside the car was a teenage boy, who couldn’t be older than me, looking like he was dressed in blood. The force of the crash had sent him into the windshield, but he had somehow landed back in his seat. I suddenly had a new appreciation for the seatbelt law. His muscular chest, still easy to see due to his not-so-loose black shirt, was still rising and following, but very slowly, and he was gasping, as though he had trouble getting air. The window had crashed in, the glass shattering into his face. Horrified, I backed away and slammed into the chest of one of the guy’s who had helped me set the car back down onto the ground. He grasped my arms and steadied me.

I freed myself from his grasp (he had really nice hands), and stumbled a little farther away, pulling out my cell phone.

“Police? Dudes?” I asked, realizing that I sounded very frantic. Figures.

“How may I help-”

“Cut the polite crap,” I interrupted. “There’s been a really bad car accident, I think someone’s really hurt. And I don’t say this often, but get the hell over here. Now-ish.”

“Exactly where has-”

“Route 19.” I told him.

“Thank you. We’ll be right over.”

I snapped my phone shut, pushing it into my closet quickly. The woman, who had been sitting on the hood of her car, praying – psychotic bitch – leapt up and walked over to me. “What’s going on?” she asked. I restrained myself from hitting her, at great difficulty.

“The dude you hit is messed up pretty bad,” I informed her, brushing past her back to my car. “The police and the ambulance are coming over.”

“The police?” she squeaked, horrified. “I’ll be put in jail if he dies! It’s like manslaughter.”

By then, I had opened the door of my car and had already started to get in, wanting to listen to a few good songs to calm me down before the police came. Instead, I stood back up and slapped her hard.

“That kid that you hit might die, and you’re only worried about yourself!?” I knew that people could be vain – I lived with four people like that – but I had never heard of someone with this amount of carelessness for other people’s lives.

She held her bruising cheek silently. Instead of retorting or hitting back, she turned and walked away, back to her own car.

I climbed into my car, slamming the door shut as I did so. I quickly turned on the radio and turned the music up high, putting my feet up on top of the wheel and inching my seat back. I closet my eyes and forgot about the accident, thinking about the sexy boots that had gotten me into this mess, anyway.

It wasn’t until I heard the faint noise of the police sirens over the blaring music that I opened my eyes and shut the radio off. I quickly got out of my car and locked it, than hurried over back to the crashed car, where the police were scribbling away at some sort of notepad. I resisted the urge to grab it and toss it into the nearby woods.

“How is he?” I asked the police officer, who put down his pen to look me in the eye. Pushing the thought of advising him to get a haircut out of my mind, I glared at him squarely.

“Not good,” he answered. “We’ll have to get him to the emergency room as quickly as possible.”

“So why the hell,” I demanded furiously. “Are you just standing here doing nothing?”

“I’m not doing nothing,” he snapped at me, clearly getting pissed off with the teenage girl who was talking to him as though he was four. “I’ve got to write an-”

“Screw that,” I interrupted him. “What are you doing for the boy?”

“Who the hell are you, anyway? You’re not family, as far as I can tell. Nor did you crash into him. What are you, an over-concerned nosy teenager?”

“Exactly,” I retorted. “Which makes up for the police officer who doesn’t give a shit about the people he’s paid to help.”

“You better watch your-” I didn’t bother staying for the rest of his warning. I was done with his bullshit, and if the police weren’t going to help, I certainly was.

The paramedics were mulling over the boy’s bloody figure. I grimaced again. The last time I had seen him, the blood had still been wet and dripping around him. Now the blood had been dried and was crusting all over his body. His chest, which had been moving visibly the last time that I had seen him, was now only rising, but barely. I gently rested a hand on his chest, grimacing at the hard texture of the crusted blood that brushed my hand. There was a faint heartbeat.

And suddenly, under my fingers, everything stopped moving. His chest, his heart, and maybe even mine too. His skin turned icy. My lungs and my brain suddenly seemed to be in different bodies.

And all I had wanted was a sexy pair of boots.

***

I sort of got depressed after that. It’s one thing to see to hear about a stranger dying. You feel bad for him for a moment, than move on. To see a stranger dying can hurt you a lot. But to actually touch him while he dies sort of brands you with a deep guilt, as though it was your touch that ended his life.

That’s not really something you want to live with all through your life, is it?

I didn’t think so.

My parents, who had been extremely concerned with my sister’s anorexia, noticed after a while (say…six weeks?) that I only came out of my room to pee and go to school. I brought food to my room and spent time staring at the wall.

“Hey, brat!” my sister called through the door. “Wake up!”

Good morning to you, too, Haley.

“Go to hell!” I hollered at the door, pulling the blanket over my head, curling my legs to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. “I’m not feeling good.”

“Whatever.” Haley answered, and thankfully left. I grabbed my pillow out form under my head and stuffed it into my face, knowing what would happen next in the cycle. My mom came stomping up the stairs, using her huge jangle of keys to unlock my bedroom door. I felt her icy grip on my ankles as she dragged me off of my bed. I slammed into the hard wood floor with a thud. Satisfied, my mother left, her work done.

Scowling at the closed door, I stood and stumbled into the shower, not at all eager to hand in my science project.

I got dressed quickly and grabbed a waffle, heading outside. Although I had my license, I stopped driving completely after the accident. If I ever got in a car, it had to be a Volvo and the ride couldn’t be on the highway. Nor longer than fifteen minutes.

The walk to school was cold. The wind was blowing against my, hitting my skin like icy bullets. I pulled my hood up and stuffed my hands into my pockets, picking off bits of waffle every now and then. Every now and than a flashy car would pass by me and honk at me, telling me that they knew me and thought that I was going to date them. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t date anymore, and they knew it. But they ignored that little fact.

When I arrived at school, I pushed past the crowds of cliques over to my own little group of friends, who sat at the top of the stairs, most of them dressed completely in black. Several of them wore grey, and a couple wore dark blue jeans, but mostly black.

“Did you hear?” Veronica asked me, as I sat down at the feet of Spike. (His real name is Josh, but the football captain has the same name and we loathe football players, so he was given the strange nickname.) “Apparently there’s a new kid. I saw him earlier when I was walking to school. He’s hot.”

“Fantastic,” I answered absently, looking out at everybody. Several people looked up at us and laughed, making their disdain for us known. I threw pieces of waffle at them. They turned away from me, scowling as they did so.

“Are you still on with that shit about not dating?” Veronica asked me, twirling one of the green streaks in her hair around her thin finger. “I don’t get how you can live without guys.”

“I don’t get how she can sleep without guys,” Elisha chimed in. She was the only blonde in our group, and by far the easiest one of us all.

“It’s easy,” I told her. “You put your head on the pillow, keep your clothes on, and close your eyes. Sweet dreams.”

“God, I haven’t done that in over three years,” Elisha said, shaking her head. I flinched when several locks slapped me in the face. I hated when that happened.

“Listen, we really should go in,” Spike interrupted our sex chat. “And as much fun as it is to watch you three to throw around sleeping tips – whether or not the clothes stay on - we’re going to be late – and if I ditch on Mr. Keeler’s class my folks will freak.”

“Thanks for the concern,” I said to him, slapping him on the knee as I stood up. “Spike’s right. We should go in before the stampede starts.”

The rest stood and followed us into the empty school. We had kicked out the people who had the newest and most hidden lockers and took over them. I opened mine and caught the avalanche of books that hit me. Stumbling, I shoved them all back in my locker. Holding them all with one hand, I stuffed my backpack in and grabbed a notebook, than slammed it shut before anything could fall out.

“Listen, I heard the new kid was a junior so I can’t see him,” Elisha whispered to me, slinging a hand around my neck. I glanced at her arm, thinking that everyone would think that we were lesbian if anybody saw us like this. On top of our freaky reputations, gay didn’t need to be added to it. Not that I had anything against homosexuals. I was friends with at least three of them. “I need you to survey him and tell me if he looks like my type of guy.”

“Don’t you think you’re better off sleeping with seniors?” I asked. “You seriously need to date guys your own age.”

“Sorry,” Elisha shrugged. “But I’m bored with them.” I leaned over and smacked her upside the head.

“Fine, I’ll take a look at him.” I agreed reluctantly. I shrugged away from her and ducked into the junior hallways. Elisha gave me an air kiss and kept walking past.

I made sure to trip Carrie (Queen of the Popular Bitches) in the hall as I passed her, earning several glares. I pushed past the crowd who all seemed to be going in the opposite direction, finally reaching my homeroom. I kicked open the door and walked in as the door whacked me on the butt and sent me toppling into Logan, a tanned boy with nice brown hair who hated me after I punched him for calling me sexy.

“Watch it,” he snarled.

“Don’t need to,” I retorted, straightening up. “You have that bit covered.” His pale cheeks turned red.

“Okay,” I said to Spike as I slid into a seat next to him. “Either this school is extremely insane, or we were born on Pluto.”

“Eyeliner’s smeared, Bella,” was his only response. I shrugged. I didn’t quite care about my make-up status. I left that certain obsession to the cheerleaders, who deemed to have a heart attack if they went for ten minutes without looking at themselves. I wonder how they slept.

“Sit down, you hooligans.” Our teacher said to us, walking in. I glanced at Ms. Brooks, who was wearing a ridiculously tight skirt. So much for following the school dress code.

“Okay, I’m sure that rumors have circulated by now. Yes, we have a new student. And I wouldn’t be telling you this if he wasn’t in this homeroom. Raise your hand, Alex.” I looked around for a raised hand. I turned in my seat, knowing full well that Elisha would kill me if I didn’t.

I blinked, shut my eyes, and opened them again. Because I’m very sure I saw this kid die a few months ago.