Please stay. The ebony roads were completely glassed over with the ice that the tires skated on. Harsh wind rushed through the trees, making even the stars go into hiding. The air was bitter and nipped at the tips of his fingers, the sweet taste of frost froze on his lips. Four wheels had spun out of control and instantly time had stopped. The sound of the breaks squealing and hanging on for dear life torment me everyday I’m alive. Soft white crystals fell from the nightmare of obscured variations of black, it blanketed his tender, blushed face. Red and blue lights blinked through the snow, syrians wailed over the blaring silence. Street lamps flickered through the immense tension, fog covered the harrowing air. Everything happened in moments, and in moments, he was gone. The light was sucked from his fathomless blue eyes and the life was taken from him. All of him, gone in instants. Two single flowers fell from his hand, a white Carnation and a red Rose intwined around each other with a golden ribbon that said “to my love, Samantha. Im so sorry” in bolded script. I saw the blush leave his cheeks as I clung to the stretcher, raindrops poured from my eyes, and he left me.

“Chance, stop!” I laughed as he tickled my stomach. “Stop, stop, stop!” his famous crooked smile spread widely across his face, his blue eyes twinkled in the light. “Why?” he grinned wider. My hands grabbed on to the carpet and I managed to yank myself away from him. “Because!” I exclaimed.

“That’s all you’ve got?” I looked at him perplexed and he leaped for me. The next thing I knew I was wrapped in his arms.

“Hi” my eyes stared into his, he kissed me on the forehead.

“Hey beautiful” he beamed.

He leaned his neck down to kiss me, I closed my eyes… please stay

“Samantha!” my mother shook me back into reality, “honey it’s time to go in.” The doctor motioned me towards the door. Stoically I got up and walked in the room. For a few minutes my eyes wandered around, staring at all of the paintings I had admired as a kid. The door opened.

“Hello Samantha” said a friendly, greying face “how are you”? I nodded my head in her direction.

“Have you been feeling well?” I looked at her and then back down at the ground.

“Your mom is really worried about you dear, she’s just trying to help you.” I refused to make eye contact with her. She looked awkward for a moment, unsure of what to do. She wasn’t aware on how much I had my mind set on silence, she’d be in for a surprise.

“I know you’ve been through a lot this year Samantha, I understand. When I was just a little younger than you, my father died in a car crash. I was devastated, for weeks I didn’t eat, I didn’t speak, but once I did, I started to get better. You need to talk it out, I want to help.” I adjusted my weight in the chair. For a few minutes we sat there in silence, I twirled my thumbs in the space between them.

“ I guess we’ll just resume this next week.” I nodded and started out the door.

“Samantha? Please consider what I said” she called, I just kept walking.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just talk to her, Samantha!” my mother yelled angrily in the car. “You don’t think that maybe, just maybe, she could help you?”

“No.” I shoved my headphones in my ear, I could just faintly hear her over the blaring music. “You won’t even talk to me about this!” my mother’s voice turned into a memory of the harsh velvet voice of Chance.

“Of course I won’t talk to you about this! It doesn’t involve you.” I shouted. He took a U turn and banged his hand hard against the wheal.

“When you’re going to blow me off and have me waiting for hours in panic for you then it does.” he acted so calm, his voice grew more bitter.

“You knew something was wrong.”

“Yes, and I guessed it on my own. What if I didn’t know your parents hated me, Sam? Don’t you think I’d be shocked when you didn’t show up every so often? It does involve me, I’m the problem.

“You’re not the problem” I retorted.

“Oh, how so?” he asked and I didn’t have an answer, he was right.

“Exactly. Exactly Samantha. This will never get fixed if you can’t start telling me what the hell is going on.” his voice faded back into my moms. Please stay

Our car turned into the driveway and my legs slid off of the seat and onto the icy tar. I watched them gently glide over the snow covered ground and stared at my reflection in the broken bits of ice, I was losing myself. Blue eyes were suddenly in the place of mine, he was looking through me. I shook my head to break the hallucination and sped up towards the door.

“Sam” his voice shook disapprovingly as I pulled him towards the bed. “Please?” I begged, “just for tonight?” His shoulders shrugged while his hardened pale hands slid around my waist. “Samantha…” he started once again followed by a kiss planted on the top of my head. “Please?” my voice became a faint whisper. Chance dropped his weight and collapsed on the bed, his arm curling my body closer to his.

“Just this once” he stared deep into my eyes, hesitant as he seemed I could see a vague smile crawling across his face while he did a unsuccessful job of hiding it. I fell asleep to the melody of his slow breaths and the quiet thumping of his heart. Please stay it seemed to scream.

I woke up sobbing, I had the dream, again. He was there, like always. I couldn’t do a thing about it, I just watched the car get smashed one hundred times over. Screaming and sobbing all I could and I still couldn’t save him, I watched him die a thousand times. My feet took me down stairs and I found peace in a glass of milk. The house was pristine and silent, some things never change. My eyes roamed around the room and rested on a vase filled with the two flowers, and a picture of Chance and I from Christmas. I couldn’t help myself, my mind drifted to that night when he took me to his parents abandoned ski cabin..

“Sammy? What are you doing up?” My fathers husky voice startled me as it came from the other room.

“It’s nothing” I looked around, taking in the silence. “I had the dream again.”

“You should have listened to me, I told you that boy would be nothing but trouble” His cold voice phased into an old memory that I hated to relive.

“No. I don’t care what you think!

“Sweetie, we just want what is best for you” my mother said as she unsuccessfully tried to calm me.

“No, you want someone like you. Someone rich, and classy, and speaks proper with their nose stuck up in the air. Don’t you care what I want? He may not have money or walk around in a polo all the time but he’s brilliant, and I love him. I don’t care whether you like it or not.” My feet pounded harshly on the floor, matching the beat of my furious words.

“He’s a bad influence,” Dad began then turned to look me directly in the eyes “I don’t want you to see that boy ever again” his voice got raspier as he created a harder emphasis on his words.

“Watch me” I whispered. Please stay

I stormed out of the house to the car. The handle was frozen shut, I began to shake it loose and tears fell from my eyes, one by one freezing against my cheek. Before I left, I had to run back into the house and get something.

My eyes shut, I could hear mom upstairs crying.

“Bob, have you seen her, she walks around like a ghost!” she sobbed. There was some rustling, my father was pacing back and forth.

“She’s fine, Mary. It’s just going to take her a while to get over it. I still can’t believe we let her date that delinquent. It was the best thing for her when he cheated” His voice grew louder. There was silence for a few moments, I stayed frozen to where I stood.

“He, what?” Mom repeated calmly.

“He was nothing but a nuisance, he was only going to bring her down. I was thankful when she finally came to her senses and broke up with that hell raiser.” Dad’s voice grew more bitter. There was more silence, mom must have mumbled something.

“No, he didn’t. But it was better for her to think…” Anger froze up inside of me and my fists clenched, hot tears flowed from my eyes.

“I can’t believe you did this to her. Our ONLY daughter, Bob. She loved him, I don’t know how I let you talk me into wanting her to break up with him. HE really loved her. Sometimes people don’t change, do they? You’ve always been selfish. Always put yourself first. What about when you cheated on me, remember that Bob? And I ignored it because I didn’t want Samantha to hate me for divorcing you. But now she’s going to anyway because of you. How could you do this to her? She didn’t deserve this. Now get out, or I’ll call the police this time.” My heart shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and I felt my blood boil on the same page as my mothers was. I smashed my fists hard into the counter. My parents came running downstairs. My mothers eyes were filled with tears, my fathers full of anger.

“Daddy?”I whispered so quietly. He walked forward and I backed up towards the door.

“Sweetheart..” my mother started.

“I love you mom,” I mumbled under my breath. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly. “I’m so sorry” she spoke softly into my ear.

“I am too” I replied and kissed her gently on the cheek. For a moment my eyes were closed and then I stumbled out the door.

The night was black as pure Onyx with shattering of glassy stars across the broken sky. Wind ran between trees as if they were cooing soft lullabies to each other. Cars sped down the highway, racing to a million different places for a million different reasons. Maybe the people in them were going to have a romantic date with their lover tonight, maybe some of them are just leaving work to come home to a loving family, maybe some of them are off with their friends being reckless and stupid simply because they’re young and they can. And then there’s me. The car slid a tiny bit over a patch of ice, my heart skipped a beat and my mind flashed to the last time I saw Chance’s face. His bright blue eyes fading. I began to breathe harder.

Soon enough I regained control of myself and continued to drive on my journey to nowhere. Maybe someone else was on a journey to nowhere tonight, too. Maybe there was someone else out there who had lost everything and just didn’t know what to do anymore, so they decided to drive. Please stay his velvet voice whispered over and over in my head, cooing through the trees and crushing on the hardened tar. Samantha, please.

“Chance, stop it, GET OUT.” Fury poured out of me as I stomped around my room and threw all of his crap into a tiny wicker basket.

“Samantha, stop. You need to listen to me, I would never do that to you.” his husky voice sounded like a plea for once.

“No.” I looked into his eyes for a brief moment and then looked away. He caught my arm and made me face him.

“I love you, don’t go.” He had never said those words to me before and I didn’t doubt for a second that he meant them.

“Go be with her, or get drunk, or something. I don’t care. Just GET OUT!” I fumed.

“I didn’t do any of those things! You.know.me. Would you just listen and let me explain? His fists clenched tightly together and then released slowly.

“No, not this time.” I finally finished filling up the basket so I opened the window and chucked it. “There you go, there’s everything. Now leave.”

“Samantha, stop, please stay”

please stay

please stay

please stay

The phrase wouldn’t stop repeating through my head.

“Just get out.” I whispered and looked him directly in the eye, the hints of golden had disappeared and in their place was just a shadow of what used to be.

“If thats what you wish.” His booming voice turned into a whisper. He stepped towards me and pressed his lips gently against my forehead.

“Goodbye, I love you.”

I wanted to hold him there, his soft, warm, lips pressed against me, his hands wrapped around my wrist, but I couldn’t. He turned around and walked out the door. His dark brown hair blowing from the breeze coming through the open window. I’m so sorry I whispered quiet enough to know he’d never hear me but loud enough to hope he did. Whether it was my stupid pride or being scared of falling too hard and being broken, he was gone.

Midnight, I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing.

“Hello?” I barely made out.

“Samantha, please,” I could tell by the first syllable it was Chance.

“No,” I hesitated, yes, yes, yes I screamed in my head. “Don’t make this worse on yourself” I lied. Please, don’t make it worse on me.

“Please stay” he whispered,

and then there was a crash, the breaks screamed, and syrians roared. I ran out of the house and down the road, I saw the last tear roll down his face.

The fight that night, I regret everything. He didn’t do it, I hissed. A picture of my mothers broken face flashed through my mind. I wanted to end it, he begged me not to go. “Now, I’ll stay” my foot fell hard against the peddle, the very same white Carnation and red Rose fell from my hand as they did his with a ribbon reading “to my love, Chance. Im so sorry” wrapped around them, his beautiful face flashed before my eyes, and then I let go.