The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (13 page)

             
“Where do you want to go?”

             
“Home.” I replied instantly, “Manda, if you knew what I had seen...”

             
“You just told me what you saw. It sounds like the apocalyp
se to me.”

             
“If you knew how it
felt
to see that...” I corrected myself, “I think...”

             
“What?”

             
“I think the end of the world is coming.”

             
“The end of the world?” She asked me with so much skepticism and sarcasm in her voice that I could have slapped her. “It was just a dream, dude. I get th
at it feels real to you still, but you just had it. In a couple of hours, you'll be fine. I told you, I had a dream once about my teeth falling out...”

             
“This was nothing like the dream where your teeth were falling out! That's a vanity thing, Miranda! Thi
s was...
catastrophic
!” I yelled at her and luckily, we had pulled into my neighborhood because she slammed on the brakes, angered by my outburst.

             
“I'm just trying to make you feel better.” She told me bitterly, “But if you want to believe that you just h
ad some sort of psychic vision and now you have to save the world, then go for it. But I'm not going to tell you that I believe it!”

             
“You don't know how it felt! You don't know how real it was! I
know
this is something real. I know it! And I don't need yo
u or anyone else to believe me!”

             
“Yeah? Then what are you going to do?”
             
“I'm going to...” I stopped because in that moment, when my frustration had built to such a point that I couldn't control it, my purse that I had put up on the dashboard slid onto
the floor. The car lurched forward despite the fact that her foot wasn't on the gas pedal. The lights on the dashboard started to flicker on and off and the radio blared in our ears at full volume.

             
“Turn it off!” I screamed at her, covering my ears but as
she reached for the dial to turn back to the volume, the car stopped acting on its own accord. Everything was silent, including us.

             
“What was that!?” She screamed before pointing an accusatory finger at me, “It was you!”

             
“Me?!” I exclaimed, stunned that
Miranda, who was always so logical, could believe something so preposterous.

             
“You were angry, so you...” She was frantically trying to explain exactly what I had done and when she came up short (a first for her, believe me), she looked back at me in a te
rrified rage, “Get out!”

             
“What?! Miranda...”
             

             
“Get out! You're a freak! You're...
insane!
You're...”

             
“Manda, I didn't do anything! Your car was just acting stupid!”

             
“It's never done that before! It was doing that because you were mad! You're just...” A
nother frantic search for an explanation or maybe even an insult, “...a
freak
!”.

             
“I didn't do anything!” I cried again, tears now starting to stream from my eyes. “Manda, please, I need you to help me. I need you to help me figure this out! I can't do it
on your own!”

             
“Well, then, call your
freak
sister and get her to help you! You've both always been
freaks!
”

             
I should have walked away after that. But I kept begging her, quite shamelessly, to help me. We had been best friends for almost four years and sh
e had always had a solution to every problem we encountered. We had never fought or disagreed. She had become the first source I went to if I needed to be comforted once my sister moved out. During those times when I needed her, she
always
knew what to say
. It was almost stunning how easily she was able to rectify any fear or sadness I felt.

             
But she insisted that I leave, threatening to call the police if I didn't. Finally, I knew the battle
was lost and I obeyed. She sped away, her tires squealing and sli
pping on the ice that had covered the road. I stood there on the street, crying and swiping at my eyes, watching her car move further and further away at a hazardous speed.

             
I have an awful habit that I learned from my sister. When I cry, I feel weakness.
She was so good at forcing her sadness away to some deep, dark recess inside of her that our parents worried she harbored sociopathic tendencies. When she felt any level of despair towards anything, she flipped some switch in her mind to anger, an emotion
that, in her not-so-humble opinion, was far more comfortable.
Everything
came back to anger with her. That particular tendency didn't abet my parents' anxieties over her potentially depraved insanity.

             
I was not nearly as skilled at suppression as she was.
But as I watched Miranda's car speed to the end of the street, I felt my sadness flip abruptly to anger. I was furious that she had abandoned me when I needed her. I was furious that she had called me a freak. But above all else, I couldn't stand that she
didn't believe me.

             
It wasn't her fault that she doubted my story. I wish I had known that then. I'll never be able to express how strongly I wish that.

             
I don't know exactly what happened but as that rage gripped me, I heard one loud pop that was actuall
y the sound of four tires exploding simultaneously. I watched Miranda's car veer sideways suddenly. Even from where I was standing, I could hear her feet furiously stomping on the brake pedal. The snow silenced what would have been a deafening bang as the
car slammed, head-first, into the lit street lamp. The bulb inside flickered twice before going out.

             
As quickly as that anger had taken me in its grip, it dissipated. It was a snap of the fingers, a jolt that happened in less than a millisecond. It melted
away like the flakes of snow landing gently on my face. My mind went completely blank as though every memory and every bit of knowledge had been wiped away in one swipe. I was running to the car but didn't realize it. My footsteps were being erased by the
rapidly falling snow. The snow... I didn't even feel it anymore, nor did I feel the frigidity that had made it possible.

             
When I reached the car, the grief was immediate. I had no way of knowing if Miranda had died, but I was sure that if she was still dr
awing breath, it would not be for long. My knees buckled and I was lying with my face in the snow as horrified, frenzied sobs shook not just my physical body but my soul, as well.

             
I don't know for sure if the accident was my fault. I will never know for s
ure if I killed Miranda. Most people wouldn't want to know but I would give my dying breath for that certainty. If her death was my fault, she deserves for me to suffer for it. She deserves to watch from above as the crushing guilt I felt drove me insane.

             
I looked up after several long, agonizing moments. I wanted to run to the car, pull her out, and give everything I had left in me to revive her. But the thought of her mangled body brought a wave of warmth from the pit of my stomach that went spewing out
onto the ground. Once the last of it had fallen from me, I was in the clutches of another bout of tears that sent me falling sideways into the snow.

             
If there are words for that kind of longing regret and harrowing guilt, I cannot find them, even after all
these years have passed.

Brynna

             
“I realize that you're getting tired, but unless you want to die right now instead of when the end of the world occurs, I would not suggest you letting me drive.” I snapped at James as I furiously cleaned my glasses with
a terrycloth.

             
We were both tired, hungry and cold. We were cold because for some inexplicable reason, the heater in his car had broken. We stopped the fight we had been having to stare at it in shock. Then, we
tried to blame the faulty heating on each ot
her, quite ridiculously.

             
“We are an hour from your house, you said. I'll grab the wheel in the event of an emergency.” He snapped back at me in a voice dripping with sarcasm.

             
“No, you will not because you will be asleep! Is that not why you want me to
drive in the first place? Something tells me that while you're dozing peacefully you will be unable to stop a fatal car crash from occurring. Given that I do not want to die nor do I want to commit vehicular manslaughter, I need you to remain conscious.”

             
“I wasn't planning on going to sleep. I was just going to rest my eyes. I've told you that now like, seven times. Has it absorbed yet?!”

             
“You will not be alert either way! If you want to place your life into my hands, then pull over and I will drive.”

             
“N
o. Forget it. You're never going to let me hear the end of it if I make you drive. God, I thought you said you were a genius...”

             
“What in the name of all deities and Gods does my proven genius have to do with my ability to drive in inclement weather? I do
n't drive in the snow!” I threw my cigarette out the window in a huff, “Where did the snow even come from?! It was somewhat light this morning!”

             
“
Somewhat
being the key term there.”

             
“I knew you were going to say that! Just focus on the road, please. I do
not wish to die today and the snow is falling heavily...”

             
“Is that my fault, too?”

             
I exclaimed loudly in annoyance, my eyes wide.

             
“God, you are insufferable!” I grabbed the lever on the side of the seat and pulled it, pushing backwards until I was lyin
g flat on my back.

             
“Don't even go to sleep right now.”

             
I lowered my sunglasses and closed my eyes.

             
“No! That is not even fair!

             
“Okay, it's not fair.” I rolled my eyes, “What are you, twelve?!”

             
“Just shut up.”

             
“What?!” I grabbed the lever again and fl
ung myself up, the seat following behind me, “Lest you wish to swallow every last tooth in your mouth, do not tell me to shut up!”

             
Two days without sleep and almost twenty four hours without food turn even the calmest (James) and the smartest (me) people
into squabbling, immature children.

             
I frowned when I brought my hand back from the side of the seat. The lever that moved the seat forward and backwards was in my hand.

             
“Did you just break something?” He asked, his exasperation evident as his eyes stayed
fixed on the road.

             
I glared at him and reached my hand over. After a moment, I dropped the lever into his lap.

             
“Damn it, Brynna!”

             
“I'm sorry that the people who constructed your fancy, high-dollar, electric car were more interested in aesthetics and en
vironmental preservation than quality.”

             
“Do you
always
have something to say? Some smart-ass remark?!” He yelled, turning the windshield wipers up to the next speed as the snow began falling even more quickly.

             
“Turn your lights on.” I said, just to prove
that yes, I did always have some derisive comment up my sleeve. I grabbed an issue of
Men's Health
that was on the floor of his car. On the cover, there was some buff movie star posing in a loincloth for a film that the headline exclaimed was made for wel
l over two hundred and fifty million dollars. Even if the world wasn't ending, the film would probably bomb.