Broken Glass (7 page)

             
I chuckled and with a motion of my index finger, told him to come to me.

             
“What is it?” he asked, coming over to the bed and sitting down.

             
“You want me to make you some breakfast or something?” I asked him. He shook his head.

             
“No, I gotta get going,” he replied. “I’m late as it is. I’m supposed to meet the guys at Pete’s house at nine and it looks like it’s not going to happen.” I smiled and wrapped my arms around his neck, giving him a squeeze.

             
“I love you,” I said, kissing his cheek. “Be careful, okay?”

             
“All right,” he smiled, giving me a soft kiss on my lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He got up and headed out of the room.

             
“Call me when you get down there!” I called after him.

             
“Okay!” he yelled back and I heard the front door of my apartment shut.

             
He called me when he arrived in Raleigh that afternoon, and then he also called me again that night when they’d finished their show. It’d gone great, he told me, and they hoped to get some calls
the next
week about signing on to another bigger record label in Orlando, Florida.

             
They headed back up to Virginia the next afternoon and Tyson called me as they were driving out.

             
“I’ll call you when we get into town,” he promised. “My guess is that we’ll be home around nine tonight.”

             
“Okay,” I said. “I love you, Tyson. You’re staying with me tonight, right?”

             
“You know it,” he replied and I laughed because I could somehow just see the sly smile on his face.

             
“Be careful,” I said. “Tell Pete to drive safe.”

             
“Hey, Pete, Ava says to drive like an old man,” Tyson said to Pete. I heard Pete laugh, along with Kemper and Dean, Tyson’s other band mates.

             
“What do we say to that, boys?” Tyson asked. And then, in unison, they all chanted,

             
“Hey, it’s all gravy, baby!”

             
“Have fun
,” I replied, laughing. “I’ll see you tonight.”

             
“Okay,” Tyson said. “Love ya, honey.”

             
“I love you, too. Bye.”

             
Less than two minutes later, I received a text message on my cell phone from Tyson:

Couldn’t say in front of the guys. I luv u

sooooo much, Ava, & I always will, no matter

what happens. I’ll always be here. I luv u

infinity + 1

Nine o’clock rolled around that night without my even realizing it. I was so into a paper I was writing for my English class that when Cassie came into the room and told me it was ten already, I almost didn’t believe her.

“Wasn’t Tyson supposed to be here at nine?” Cassie asked me.

“Yeah, he was,” I replied, sighing, an
d turning off my computer. “
I’ve been working on this paper so long, I lost track of time. Oh, and my phone’s in the bedroom. I hope he hasn’t called and I missed it.” 

“I’m going over to Trevor’s,” Cassie said then. “Listen, if you need anything, just call me, okay? And I wouldn’t worry about Tyson. He’s probab
ly just running a little behind because of
traffic or something.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll call him. Have fun, Cass.” She left then and I went to my bedroom and got my cell phone out of my purse. I had one missed call from Tyson at around 8:15 p.m. I dialed his number. His voicemail picked up. I waited about ten minutes and called him again. I got his voicemail. I repeated this same routine for the next ten minutes and got his voicemail every time. It was ten-thirty. I was getting worried.

I called Pete. No answer on his phone, either. So I called the other guys in the band, Kemper and Dean. No answer.

So, totally in a panic, I called Jake. He actually answered. I asked him if he’d heard from Tyson.

“Yeah,” he told me. “He called at around 8:30, I think. Said he was coming by here to pick up the
El C
amino and then head to your place. He said he tried to call you, too, but you didn’t pick up.”

“So he hasn’t come by
yet?” I asked, chewing nervously on my bottom lip.

“No,” Jake said. “I figured he’d just had the
guys drop him off at your place.
”

“Well, he’s not here,” I said, a slight edge in my voice. “And I keep trying to call him and he won’t pick up.”

“What about Pete?” Jake asked.

“I’ve tried him, too,” I replied. “And Kemper, and Dean…Jake, I’m really worried. Tyson wouldn’t just not call.”

“Okay, listen,” Jake said. “I’ll drive over to Dean’s apartment and see if they’re there. You keep
trying to call Tyson. I’ll call you back in a little while, all right?”

“Okay,” I replied. “Bye.”

I did as Jake said and kept trying to call Tyson. I never got an answer. I called Cassie at one point and told her what was going on. She offered to come home, but I felt stupid for worrying her, so I told her it was probably nothing.

At midnight
, my cell phone rang. It was Jake.

“Ava, there’s been an accident.”

6.

As long as I live, I shall never ever forget those words.

I lost my breath for a second.

“I went over to Dean’s house and no one was there,” Jake told me. “And so, on my way back, Pete called me from the hospital and said they’d been in a wreck.”

“Oh God,” I whispered. “What hospital? Are you going?”

“I’m coming to get you,” Jake said. “I’ll be there in less than ten minutes.”

When we arrived at the hospital, all the nurse could tell us was that there had been one instant fatality and one in extreme
critical condition.  W
e were left to wonder who the fatality had been.

Pete and Kemper were in the waiting room. Kemper had a cast on his a
rm and Pete was pacing around and w
hen he saw us, he immediately came to me with a hug.

“What happened?” Jake asked.

“We were on Franklin Road, going around that curve,” Pete explained
, talking too fast
. “And there was this car on the other side of the road going what had to be at least 80 miles per hour or more, and he was on our side of the road. So I-I panicked and yanked the steering wheel to the right as fast as I could. I-I overcorrected. I thought I could maneuver the car quickly enough so that we’d skid down the embankment and stop, but we hit a tree head on, the car flipped three times down the embankment, and landed upside down in the field below.”

“God, man, that’s bad,” Jake said. “What happened? Did you get hurt at all?”

“What about Tyson? Is he okay?” I spoke up, my voice unusually high and shrill. Pete didn’t look directly at me.

“I got out with a scrape on my arm,” he replied, showing us. “And some bruises on my back. Kemper was in the backseat sleeping and he was shoved so hard against the side of the car that it broke his arm…and he’s got a few bruises, but that’s it. The right side of the car was smashed flat, though, and Dean was pinned in. It took an hour with the Jaws of Life to get him out. And Tyson…” Pete’s voice faded.

“What happened to Tyson, Pete?” I demanded, tears beginning to well up in my eyes. Pete sighed and, after a moment’s pause, finally answered me.

“When we hit the tree, Tyson was ejected from the car out the front window,” he said quietly. “When I got out of the car to go back up to the road and get help, Tyson was…he was still in the branches of the tree…”

I stared at him.

“What does that mean?” I asked, my bottom lip beginning to quiver.

“Ava, I’m so sorry—”
Pete started, reaching out to touch my arm, but I jerked away violently.

“Pete, what the hell does that mean?” I said loudly, my voice shaking now. Other people in the waiting room had turned to look at us.

“Ava, he didn’t make
it,” Pete looked down at his shoes
.

I shook my head, backing away from him.

“No, no,” I muttered. “You don’t know that. You don’t know that. The nurse said she didn’t
know who the fatality was, so how could you-“

“I saw him, Ava,” Pete said then, tears in his eyes. “I saw him there and he…he was
—
” Pete broke off, covering his face with his hands.

“He couldn’t have gone out the window,” I was muttering incessantly. “
He always wore his seatbelt…
”

“He took off his seatbelt right before we wrecked,” Kemper spoke up
, and his eyes were full of sadness
. “To take his jacket off.”

“No,” I whispered, the tears beginning to roll one after the other down my cheeks. “No, no, no, no…NO! I WANT TO SEE HIM!” I was screaming now. “HE’S NOT DEAD!!! I WANT TO SEE HIM!!! I
DEMAND
TO SEE HIM!!!!”

Jake gently grabbed me by my shoulders and was trying to calm me down.

“Shhh, shhh, Ava,
” he was saying. “Don’t scream—”

“LET ME GO!!!” I screeched, trying to jerk away from him. “LET ME GO!!! I WANT TO SEE HIM!!!”

“AVA!” Jake said loudly, pinning me against the wall firmly. “Stop this! You’re not making it any easier by causing a scene!”

“He wouldn’t leave me like this, Jake,” I whimpered, everything going blurry from the massive flood in my eyes. “He wouldn’t…” Jake pulled me to him as I began to sob uncontrollably.

No matter how much hope I had that Pete was wrong, it wasn’t enough. An hour after my outburst, the doctor confirmed that Ty
son was the one who’d been the instant fatality.
He’d died as soon as his body had hit the tree. I wanted to see him, regardless, but I wasn’t allowed. There wasn’t much left of Tyson’s body, apparently, by the time they’d gotten him off the tree. When Pete had told me that he’d seen Tyson still in the tree limbs, he’d meant it literally. I’d asked for the goriest details and I’d gotten them. The limbs had gone through the love of my life, and after the paramedics had finally pulled him down, he’d been in pieces.

We all stayed at the hospital until the next afternoon, waiting for Dean to come out of his unconsciousness. When he did wake up, I wanted to leave, so Jake drove me to my apartment. I didn’t say a word the whole way. I was stone.

Cassie was waiting for me inside. I didn’t even look at her. I went to my room and locked the door.

I lay in my bed for two days, until Jake and Trevor managed to unhinge my bedroom door and tell me that Tyson’s funeral would be the next day. I called my mom and told her, breaking down in a sob fit again. She knew what it was like to lose your soulmate to death. She was the only one I
could be with who
would understand what I was going through.

She came and picked me up for the funeral the next day. Tyson’s mom had also called me and asked me to briefly speak at the funeral. I’d agreed, but I hadn’t planned what to say. How could I ‘briefly’ speak about the one person in the world that I would’ve spent infinity plus one with?

There were a few of us chosen to speak in the church before going to the cemetery.
First, Tyson’s little sister, Laura, spoke a few words. She lost control of her composure, but was determined to finish what she had to say about her brother, even if it was in tears. I went up to
the front of the church next.

“I was engaged to the most wonderful guy in the world,” I said, and my bottom lip began to quiver when I saw all the faces watching me. “There isn’t much I can say that you don’t already know, except that…he was so wonderful that I wanted to spend every second of every day of the rest of my life wi
th him—”
I broke down then and left the podium. I sat back down in the front pew next to Tyson’s dad. He patted me on the shoulder and took his turn to talk about Tyson.

We went to the cemetery after the service and I watched with more tears as Tyson’s casket was lowered into that hole in the ground. It was a beautiful day outside…not a cloud in the sky. I couldn’t help but think to myself bitterly that it wasn’t
my Tyson
that was in that box. No, the love of my life would be buried in jumbled pieces like
a
puzzle left unsolved.