I still haven’t slept, I’m leaving the station now. I’ve been sitting in a holding cell. How is this my life?
I looked everywhere for her within reason while my brother’s girlfriend screamed at me relentlessly trying to convince me that it was all in my head. I didn’t want to get lost amongst the trees and be useless to her so instead I decided to call for help.
My brother’s girlfriend was fuming, she kept demanding that I stop acting insane and drive them home. My brother was vomiting in the back of my car and he needed to go home and get cleaned up.
I was not worried about him, this is how he spent Thursday through Sunday. I was worried about the innocent victim I had just mowed down running around hurt and bloodied in the middle of the night.
My brother’s girlfriend threatened to take my car keys from me, but she knew better, I intimidated her on a good day. She knew better than to test me, and even if she did get them, she barely knew how to drive, so what would she really do. I urged her to either help me find the girl or go sit and wait in the car. She stayed there like a broken record repeating that I was crazy.
I know what I saw. I managed to find a place with a signal and called the police and confessed. They came, a foolish pair of country bumpkins, a couple of dismissive bastards. They asked me if I was sure, they checked out my car and already made their mind up. They commented how there was no damage or blood. I insisted so they pretended to look around. They talked to my brother’s girlfriend as if I wasn’t even there. That made me angry and I started to demand that they call for back up and form a search team, that they get the dogs or something. There was a girl out there who was dying and they weren’t taking it seriously.
Instead of finding her, they detain me? They think I’m crazy, they think my drunken brother made more sense than me. They held me overnight because they thought I was a danger to someone. That was my point. I had endangered someone. They wouldn’t look for her.
That girl in the yellow dress was going to die and her blood was on my hands.
I’m headed back now, the minute I charge my phone. Apparently they got my brother and his girlfriend home safe, but cared nothing about that poor girl.
I pictured her for a moment frozen in that second before the car ran into her. She stood there, arms up, eyes wide, flowing yellow material catching the wind. She’d run out so fast from the tree line. I hated myself for what I had done, why didn’t I drive slower? I wanted to beg the police to come, to rush me over there, to send the paramedic, but I knew they would probably just keep me longer and I was her only hope.