I still have not slept, I am leaving the station now. I have been sitting in a holding cell. How is this my life?
I looked around for that girl while Alyssa screamed at me relentlessly. She kept trying to convince me that it was all in my head. I ignored her, she was too caught up in her own things to notice, typical Alyssa. Her voice echoed in the night, “You’re being crazy! Crazy… crazy…”
I tried to see through my tears that formed from fear and guilt. I looked around the edge of the road by the trees, but not too far in. I did not want to get lost and be useless to her. I did not know the area and it was very dark. My phone’s flashlight made a thin beam which was not much help and it drained the battery.
The car was parked on the edge of the road with the hazard lights blinking. My brother in the back, still hardly functioning or conscious, useless to me. I could not make much out and Alyssa was no help. It was time to call for help.
She 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 them. She should get her damn license and maybe she would not have to rely on me for a ride, again. As for him, this is how he spent Thursday through Sunday he would be fine. He always was.
My concern was the innocent victim I had just mowed down. That is who I worried about, she was out there somewhere hurt and bloodied in the middle of the night. I wondered if she knew the area or if was she wandering aimlessly and terrified.
Alyssa threatened to take my car keys from me. I paid her no mind, she knew better, I intimidated her on a good day. She was not going 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 losing my mind. I finally erupted with an insult that I had been holding back for some time and it came out like sharp daggers.
She winced and ran to the car crying, but unlike the poor girl in the yellow dress, Alyssa would be okay.
I could not deal with her anymore, I know what I saw. I would only hope someone would not leave me out there, injured and alone.
I managed to find a place with a signal and called the police and confessed. If I had to serve time, pay a fine, whatever it was, I am ready to accept my punishment.
The deputies came, a foolish pair of country bumpkins, a couple of dismissive bastards. The type who use the badge to overcompensate for something, to yield power to make up for a childhood of being bullied.
They asked me if I was sure. Really? Was I sure? How often did they get phone calls from someone confessing to something they did not do? I explained what happened again, trying not to cry although the thought of her out there was making me very emotional and i always cried when I was frustrated.
They used their industrial flashlights to check out my car. Unlike the tiny glow from my phone, their lights illuminated the car, highlighting the fact that there was no damage or blood. They asked me again if I was sure. I wanted to scream. They asked asked a few more questions, but it was obvious that they had already made up their minds. They commented how there was no evidence of hitting anyone or anything. One of them said in what he thought was a whisper, that it could be hormones and something about lady drivers.
Did they think I’d invent this? That I would be out here going through this for no reason?
I insisted they take me seriously so they humored me by pretending to look around. They talked to Alyssa as if I wasn’t even there. She told them she thought I was having an episode or was exhausted. She denied seeing anything. I tried to cut in, explaining that she wasn’t even looking at the road, that in the split second it happened she was not paying attention. They told me to calm down, that I was hysterical.
Hysterical? I was justifiably upset. That made me angry and I started to demand that they call for backup and form a search team, that they get the dogs or something. There was a girl out there who was dying and they were doing nothing.
Instead of finding her, they arrest me? They listened to Alyssa and they think I’m crazy, they think my drunken brother covered in vomit made more sense than me? They held me overnight because they thought I was a danger to someone. That was exactly my point. I had endangered someone. They would not look for her.
That girl in the yellow dress was going to die and her blood was on my hands. I cried and shouted. I pleaded, “Keep me if you want, but please, please go find her.” No one responded except my cell mate who threatened my safety if I said it again. I stopped asking, but I did not stop crying.
I am headed back now, the minute I charge my phone. Apparently they got my brother and Alyssa home safe, but no one cared about that poor girl. She was not safe and it was all my fault.
I pictured her for a moment frozen in that second before the car ran into her. She stood there, arms up, flowing yellow material catching the wind. She’d run out so fast from the tree line that I did not see her until it was too late. I stopped as soon as she appeared, but it was not fast enough.
I felt as if I swallowed a boulder, I was heavy and sick from guilt. 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 paramedics, but I knew they would probably just keep me longer and I was her only hope. I needed to find her now.