Wicked Road Read online

  Ronnie surely had feelings for me. That was the unmistakable truth right there. The way he spoke, the way he looked at me. Everything he did with me. I should’ve known about this too. I wondered when though. Why hasn't he made his first move on me?

  I think I know. He didn't want to ruin our friendship by admitting his feelings. Because if he thought that I didn’t like him, when I did, our friendship would just get awkward.

  I felt the same way. So, I figured at this point we were both chickens and were just not ready to take that step yet. I wasn’t even going to open my mouth about it.

  I couldn't believe we were arguing though. I knew he cared a lot about me. I'd let him go kick his ass, but I felt like Marylin was stronger than him. Plus, I didn't want getting him involved. He and Marylin never talked, so that's a good thing. I didn’t want Ronnie anywhere near the dude.

  He sighed, looked at me, and then he looked ahead at the dark trees, as if he saw something there that I couldn’t. “Have I told you that you look beautiful tonight?”

  The blood rushed in me, my heart raced. I moved my hand away, and crossed my arms against my chest. I couldn't stop smiling. Biting down on my lip, I played along. “No. You haven't.”

  Smiling as if he saw a shooting star, he looked at me, at my face. I looked at him from the corner of my eye. “You look beautiful Don-Don.”

  “Thanks Ron-Ron.” I giggled.

  He chuckled. The guys always call us that as our nicknames. But they loved Ron-Don the most since both our names are very similar. I wonder if Fate put us together on purpose...

  We sat together, rehashing stories of the past. We shared happy, sad, and funny stories. Tonight might’ve been fearsome, but in the end, Ronnie made it a better and special night for me to remember always. A night I would remember until I went to my grave. It seemed as if everything was crystal clear now, before me.

  If we were closer now by heart, I would definitely plant a kiss on his perfect set of lips, because he deserves it, deserves even more. If only I can...

  Chapter

  Five

  The more the days passed by, the more I thought about him, about Ronnie. The night of the dance, I couldn't forget about at all. I didn't want to. It was terrifying, in more ways than one, but it turned out to be a beautiful, memorable night. Not what I expected. With his arms around me that night, I couldn't find comfort anywhere else in the world. Not even in my own comfort zone, my room.

  I've wanted to be around him lately more than ever. These feelings of love, and all it brought with it, were absolutely excruciating. I couldn't shove my feelings down anymore, like I used to throughout the years. It was killing me. I needed to do something about it.

  Perhaps tonight I'd tell him, let him know how I felt, tell him the truth. I just need to get this done, awkward or not, I didn't care. I wanted to tell him. I should. It was time, because I couldn't take it anymore.

  Life, it seemed, was like rotten fruit. No matter how good it was at first, it was always rotten in the end.

  While sitting at the dinner table, I sighed. Todd and Angela looked from their dinner plates to me with blank, confused expressions. I shook my head at them indicating nothing was wrong. They went back to eating, leaving me alone with my over thinking, desperate thoughts.

  Mathew was over at Jade's house with Spike. Mathew wasn't really acting himself lately, ever since the dance, and it bothered me deeply. Sometimes I couldn’t find him anywhere when I wanted to chill with him. Once in a while he’d be locked away in his room, hiding it seemed. He didn't talk to me like he used to. He still had his cute, sweet, happy personality. However something was going on with him.

  I might as well talk to him, tonight, maybe after I'm done with the whole Ronnie issue. Maybe he's deeply involved in something that no one knows about or he feels really guilty about something?

  Doing the dishes for Angela, I let her go home for the night to rest, since she was a couple of months pregnant. Even though Matt and I were grown now, she still came to visit. She’d grown up with us. We were all still one big family. Todd gave Angela a ride back to her home to her husband, so I was alone in the house with the pets.

  Afterwards, I saw Mia and Candy-Cane sitting in front of the front door staring at me. I raised an unexpected eyebrow at them while they sat in silence, waiting.

  I opened the door and followed them out into the cold, November night, as a breeze blew my hair back from my face.

  Sitting in the middle of the driveway to our house, I looked up at the stars that lit the beautiful, calm night sky. This was the exact same spot that Ronnie swayed to the slow music with me. He stopped my crying. I closed my eyes to remember how it felt all over again. I never stopped thinking about that night. Just that the whole thing felt real, as if we were actually together.

  I needed to stop thinking about it. I knew that if I wanted everything between me and him to be real, I had to do something about it instead of moping around. I was going to do it tonight right after he came back from work.

  The band was still on pause. No hope in a guitarist anytime soon, just their horrid luck. But I knew Matt would not give up on this. It was his one big dream. I wished Ronnie would just join in, surprise me and the guys, that he'd fill the space. But I knew that it was a dream that wouldn’t come true...

  Sighing, I looked from the shimmering stars to the darkness before me, all through the neighborhood.

  Being so deep within myself had made me forget about what was going on around me. The pets were nowhere to be seen. I stood up and whistled for them to come, nothing. I whistled again, calling out in a desperate, searching voice.

  “Mia? Candy-Cane? Yoo-hoo!” Still, I heard nothing. Not even a chirp of a cricket or a croak of a frog.

  Weird, I thought. I walked to the middle of the street, looking around more carefully, searching for anything white that moved. Then, from behind me, I heard a car screeching.

  The rumbling of an engine warned me as a car flew towards me. I turned quickly as its headlights shone in my direction. Not a second later, I realized it wouldn’t stop. The bright lights flashed my eyes, blinding me.

  I turned, trying to jump out of the way and ran towards the sidewalk, falling clumsily. The car nearly hit me, speeding by. It had to be going eighty-five miles an hour or more, not twenty.

  I’d hurt my knee when I’d landed. Yep, a bruise was definitely going to form there.

  “Damn, psychotic drunk!” I hollered from the ground.

  Wobbly standing, I watched as the guy jumped from his still moving car. My eyes followed it as it crashed head-on into a silver car. Eyes wide, my hand covering my mouth in horror, I approached the vehicles slowly.

  Tears formed as I recognized the silver car before me. Both exploded in that next moment, the force so intense it pushed me backwards, where I fell to the ground.

  I leapt up and ran, my brother’s name torn from my throat. “MATT! NO…MATHEW!”

  Ignoring the heat, the flames, the horrid memories of my past, I ran to his door. Another image burnt into my mind of loved ones in flames, with me unable to help, unable to save them from their agonizing final moments before death.

  The flames were alive, were everywhere, as if it were refusing to give up its victim. It madly consumed everything, an impenetrable shield between myself and my dying brother.

  I was not going to let another person I loved die this way. I reached for his door handle, to open it and pull him out. He would not die like my own parents. I would not stand by, staring, unable to do anything.

  So many images, feelings, crashed over me like a wave as I smelled burning flesh.

  Eyes burning, tears falling, and heat beyond excruciating while I pulled on the burned handle with so much strength and force.

  Just as I felt the metal give way the other driver pulled me, screaming, from the fire. Pulled me away from my burning brother, away from any chance to save him, and stop the macabre dream. I struggled, thrashed underneath the guy’s
strong arms, calling for my brother.

  “Let go of me! I have to save him! Save him!” I screamed.

  I struck his arms, his face, with my fists when he refused to release me. Part of me knew it would mean my own death but I didn’t care.

  “Let go of me!” I cried, through gritted teeth, voice cracked. I tried to untangle his arms from my stomach.

  Suddenly, I collapsed, giving up. I couldn’t fight anymore. I knew it was too late to do anything anymore. My brother, Mathew, was dead and gone. He’d burnt to a crisp before my very own eyes. I could not look away from the blackened figure in the driver’s seat. I sobbed uncontrollably, because of Mathew, because of my own parents. The burned flesh on my hands and arms mattered little, despite the blistering pain.

  Any grief I’d felt before, this was nothing compared to what swallowed me up in that moment. The darkest moment of my life despite the blazing fury of the fire before me that lit up the whole block.

  Desperately I wished something would wrench out my still beating heart to stop the all-consuming, anguishing pain I felt. My sorrow, cut deep to my core, I wailed to the world.

  He’s gone! Mathew!!!

  Time must have continued despite my gut-wrenching agony. I was sitting on my lawn, staring as the flames consumed Matt’s car when the authorities showed up to put out the fire.

  The guy whose car had hit Matt’s, was a jock from school, Tyler. He sat at my side. I wanted, no needed to punch him. I needed to scream at him and ask why wouldn’t he let me burn with my brother. I couldn’t find the energy to do more than whimper, much less stand.

  Sometime after the emergency vehicles, Todd arrived.

  Jade and Spike came saying they felt something had went wrong, and that Mathew had left Jade's house acting all weird and talking gibberish.

  Ronnie came later, after leaving from his night shift at work. He’d been heading to his house when he saw the fire, and came to check it out.

  Everyone then knew that Mathew was dead and never coming back.

  I cried in Todd’s fierce embrace, which did little to ease any pain. It was more like I needed to have Todd by my side to breathe, to have some kind of hope. So I would not feel traumatized all over again.

  The paramedics took care of my burned arm and Ronnie stayed by my side. He was talking to me, saying something, but I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. I felt the words were nothing at this point. They were pointless, being said no matter what they were. I was paralyzed and looking off into the distance, watching the memory of my childhood haunting me, coming back to me all over again. I shuddered...

  “I told you for the hundredth time, something was wrong with the brakes. I couldn't take control of my car. I didn't drink tonight. I was heading home from my girlfriend's house,” Tyler replied in a calm, defensive tone to Todd and the cops.

  Todd couldn't believe this happened. He was in shock that Mathew was gone forever. He had never been in so much pain in all his life.

  I’d never seen him so angry or this upset in my life. Mathew was like his own son to him. I knew how he felt in a way. It could not hurt more if he had been my flesh and blood brother. I couldn’t keep looking at Todd’s face. It hurt too much to not look away.

  Tears drenched my face. “He’s gone… just like my parents,” I whispered, voice cracking.

  I felt like I was reliving the memory. It took me years to recover from my parent’s death. I even had to take therapy for it. By the time I was nine, the horror had all but vanished. But now, it all came flying back to echo inside me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  We; the police, Todd, my friends, Ronnie and his dad, and I, finally went inside the house. I didn’t feel comfortable seeing anyone so I ran up to my room and broke down all over again, as soon as the door was shut. I dumped myself on my bed on my stomach, covering my face, and let it all out.

  There was nothing else to do, nothing else for me to do except to weep over him.

  There would be no more good memories with him, no band, no smiling Mathew to wake me each morning, no more watching action movies in the late nights, no more playing video games, no more recording, or taking pictures of the band. I would never hear the sound of his voice.

  That's it. Life was over for Mathew. All his dreams, his goals, everything were crushed. The soul within him had vanished. There was no getting him back.

  Tonight I’d made special plans to talk to Ronnie and to talk to Mathew about what was going on. I wanted to know what was going on with him lately. Now I'll never know...

  “Donnie?” I heard Ronnie's voice softly calling me.

  I didn't know when he’d come in or for how long he’d been watching me release my pain. I stared silently into the distance.

  I felt my bed move as he sat beside me. Placing his hand on top of my back, he rubbed comforting circles. He sighed so deeply. “I don't know what to tell you to make you feel better. I may not know how you feel. I can try and understand it since Matt was like a brother to me too. I wish I could take all of this pain away from you. You have had it so bad, more than anyone I know in my life. I wish there was something I could do to–.”

  I turned around and jumped on him and knocked him back onto the bed as I hugged him tightly and cried on his shoulder. I didn't want him to say anything. Just being here was enough for me for him to say all the words in the world. He hugged me back, surprised by my sudden reaction.

  He probably thought I was too emotionally dead to react to anything. He patted my hair and tried to calm my new bout of sobbing. I needed him again right now, more than ever. I never want him to leave my side.

  I looked at him awhile later. We were so close, our faces, our noses just merely an inch from touching. I sighed as I looked into his eyes. “Never leave me, okay?” I weakly asked him. Just imagining him leaving me tore my insides, literally ripped them apart.

  He stroked my cheek hesitantly and carefully. My skin tingled. Never had he touched me this way, so carefully, so fragile as if I were a ceramic doll. If he put too much force in his caress, I could break.

  It took him awhile to answer. “I won't,” he replied as he removed his hand from my cheek. He looked up at my ceiling and away from my eyes.

  Confused by his words, they felt dead to me. Something was not right with him. Something was going on. He's hiding something from me. Of course there's something he's not telling me, there's been something he's not telling me aside from the guitar thing.

  My heart clenched tightly in my chest. I was about to ask him what was going on and what he meant by his action exactly, when he held me in his arms again tighter. He made me forget what I wanted to ask him. I had plans to tell him how I felt. But the time was not right tonight. I laid my head down against his chest while silent tears fell. He brushed my hair with his hand trying his best not to touch my bandaged arm.

  As my inner pain eased my outer, my burns, flared. It was just something else to keep me awake. I couldn’t cry myself to sleep if I’d wanted to.

  If Ronnie had been there when I was trying to get Matt out, he’d gone berserk. He wouldn’t have let me.

  An image of Mathew appeared in my head, smiling. That was even more painful, making my heart become heavier than it was. Then, he suddenly vanished. Just poof! Darkness took over my mind just as painful as the emptiness took over my heart.

  Seeing Mathew burn in his own car and seeing him disappear from my mind was as if he never existed on earth in the first place. Just like when I imagined my parents. It was just too much to handle in one night. I knew I was reliving the nightmare, and it felt like on purpose.

  Chapter

  Six

  So you were the only one with the pets? There was no one else around you or anything? You didn't have anyone over to the house? Any other witnesses?” Detective Malcolm asked me.

  “No,” was the only dead answer I gave him.

  “Well, sounds like his death wasn’t an accident due to the failure of Tyler's cut b
rake lines...Do you have anyone in mind, any suspicions towards someone who might've hated Mathew?”

  That question brought me off. Hated? Brake failure? Wasn't an accident? Who would do such a thing? Matt did have some haters in school. But I had no idea who they might’ve been, because the haters never showed it. They kept it to themselves. But even if it were haters, why would they go so far as to kill him? They're high school kids for crying out loud! They wouldn't go to that extreme, would they?!

  Suddenly, one name came to me. I began to open my mouth, but then decided against it. Something told me sharing his name would be a bad idea. Plus, it brought some fear to me.

  Detective Malcolm noted my expressions, his eye brow raised, curious. “Is there anyone you have suspicions of, Miss Sparks?” he asked again.

  I looked at him for three seconds and shook my head. I knew my eyes were telling him I was hiding something.

  He finally gave up and realized if I had a name I wasn’t sharing it. He scrunched his eyebrows and dug in his jacket pocket. He handed me his card. Still giving me that look, he said, “My card. Give me a call if you have anyone in mind we can look up.”

  Gingerly taking it, I held on to it tightly, like it was my lifeline.

  Finally he was gone. Todd stood nearby, sighing, after I closed the door behind the Detective. “You know who you could've told him Don,” Todd said, out of the blue.

  “Todd, I don't think that would be such a good idea.”

  “Well, why not?” He asked, starting to get mad.

  That made two of us. “Because!!!...Why don't you go out there and tell him! And plus, he has nothing to do with this!” I cried, convincing him, running up the stairs, not wanting to hear more. Both the pets were right on my heels.

  Mathew's funeral was this coming Saturday and today was Tuesday. Mr. Greene suggested that I should stay home this week, but I didn't want to. Whether I was at home, or school, it mattered little when I knew Mathew would be in neither of those places. He would never be with me and that sad truth reminded me that I was now the only teenager left in Todd's house. I was so not used to feeling like this.