There was before you and there was during you. For some reason, I never thought there would be an after you.
But there was, and I was in it.
I’ll be in it forever.
There’s still more to read, but my throat is dry and my nerves are shot and I’m scared of what Ledger is thinking of me right now. He’s gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles have turned white.
I reach for my bottle of water and take a long drink. Ledger directs his car all the way up his driveway, and when we reach his house, he puts his truck in park and leans his elbow against his door. He doesn’t look at me. “Keep reading.”
My hands are shaking now. I don’t know if I can continue to read without crying, but I don’t think he’d care even if I read through my tears. I take another drink and then start reading the next chapter.
Dear Scotty,
This is what it was like in the interrogation room.
Them: How much did you have to drink?
Me: Silence
Them: Who took you home after the wreck?
Me: Silence
Them: Are you on any other illegal substances?
Me: Silence
Them: Did you call for help?
Me: Silence
Them: Did you know he was still alive when you fled the scene?
Me: Silence
Them: Did you know he was still alive when we found him an hour and a half ago?
Me: Screams.
Lots of screams.
Screams until they put me back in a cell and said they’d come back for me when I calmed down.
When I calmed down.
I didn’t calm down, Scotty.
I
think
I
lost
a
little
bit
of
my
mind
that
day.
They pulled me into the interrogation room two more times over the next twenty-four hours. I hadn’t slept, I was heartbroken, I couldn’t eat or drink anything.
I just. Wanted. To die.
And then, when they told me you would still be alive if I had just called for help, I did die. It was a Monday, I think. Two days after our wreck. I sometimes want to buy myself a headstone and have that date written on it, even though I’m still pretending not to be dead. My epitaph would read: Kenna Nicole Rowan, died two days after the passing of her beloved Scotty.
I never even attempted to call my mother through all of it. I was too depressed to call anyone at all. And how could I call my friends back home and tell them what I’d done?
I was ashamed and sad, and as a result of that, no one in my life before I met you knew what I had done. And since you were gone, and your entire family hated me, I had no visitors.
They appointed me a lawyer, but I had no one to post bail. I didn’t even have anywhere to go if I could have posted bail. I found comfort being there in that jail cell, so I didn’t mind it. If I couldn’t be with you in your car, the only place I wanted to be was alone in that cell where I could refuse to eat the food they gave me and hopefully, eventually, my heart would stop beating like I thought yours had that night.
Turns out, your heart was still beating. It was just your arm that had died. I could go into more gruesome details about how it was so horribly crushed and mangled during the wreck that the blood flow was completely cut off and that’s why I touched you and thought you were dead, and how, despite all that, you still somehow woke up and got out of the car and tried to get the help I never brought back to you.
I would have realized that if only I would have stayed with you longer, or tried harder. If I wouldn’t have panicked and ran and allowed the adrenaline to pump through me to the point that I wasn’t even functioning within the borders of reality.
If I could have been as calm as you always were, you’d still be alive. We’d probably be raising the daughter together that you never even knew we made. We’d probably have two kids by now, or even three, and I’d more than likely be a teacher, or a nurse, or a writer, or whatever you would have undoubtedly given me the strength to realize I could be.
My God, I miss you.
I miss you so much, even if it never showed in my eyes in a way anyone would have been satisfied with. I sometimes wonder if my mental state played a hand in my sentencing. I was empty inside, and I’m sure that emptiness showed in my eyes any time I had to face someone.
I didn’t even care about the first court hearing two weeks after you died. The lawyer told me we would fight it—that all I had to do was plead not guilty and he would prove that I wasn’t of sound mind that night and that my actions weren’t intentional and that I was very, very, very, very, very, very remorseful.