Reminders of Him (23 page)

I don’t know how long I was on the side of the road. Cars were passing me, and I still had your blood on my hands, and I was scared and angry and couldn’t stop seeing your mother’s face. I had killed you and everyone was going to miss you, and you wouldn’t be around to make anyone feel appreciated or important anymore, and it was my fault, and I just wanted to die.

I didn’t care about anything else.

I just wanted to die.

I walked out into the street at what I’m guessing was around eleven at night, and a car had to swerve to miss me. I tried three times, with three different cars, but none of them hit me, and all of them were angry that I was in the road at dark. I got honked at and cussed at, but no one put me out of my misery, and no one helped me. I had already walked over a mile, and I didn’t know how far away I was from my apartment, but I knew if I could just get there, I could step off my fourth-floor apartment balcony, because that was the only thing I could think to do in that moment. I wanted to be with you, but in my mind, you were no longer trapped under your car in that wreck. You were somewhere else, floating around in the dark, and I was determined to join you because what was the point? You were my whole point.

I began to shrink with every second that passed, until I felt invisible.

And that’s the last thing I remember. There’s a long stretch of
nothing
between me leaving you and me even realizing I left you.

Hours.

Your family was told I walked home and fell asleep, but that’s not exactly what happened. I’m almost positive I fainted from shock, because when the cops beat on my bedroom door the next morning and I opened my eyes, I was on the floor. I noticed a small puddle of blood on the floor next to my head. I must have hit my head going down, but I didn’t have time to inspect it because police were in my bedroom and one of them had his hand on my arm and he was lifting me to my feet.

That’s the last time I ever saw my bedroom.

I remember my roommate Clarissa looked horrified. It wasn’t because she was horrified for me. She was horrified for
herself
. It was as if she had been living with a murderer all this time and had no idea. Her boyfriend,
we could never remember his name
—Jason or Jackson or Justin—was comforting her like I had ruined her day.

I almost apologized to her, but I couldn’t get my thoughts to connect with my voice. I had questions, I was confused, I was weak, I was hurting. But the most powerful of all the feelings flooding me in that moment was my loneliness.

Little did I know, that feeling would become perpetual. Permanent. I knew when they put me in the back seat of the police car that my life had reached its peak with you, and nothing that came after you would ever matter.

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.

But I didn’t care what the lawyer suggested. I
wanted
to go to prison. I didn’t want to go back out in the world where I would have to look at cars again, or gravel roads, or hear Coldplay on the radio, or think about all the things I’d have to do without you.

Looking back on it now, I realize I was in a deep and dangerous state of depression, but I don’t think anyone noticed, or maybe there was just no one who cared. Everyone was #TeamScotty, like
we were never even on the same team
. Everyone wanted justice, and
sadly, justice and empathy couldn’t both fit inside that courtroom.

But what’s funny is I was on
their
side. I wanted justice
for
them. I empathized with
them
. With your mother, with your father, with all the people in your life who were packed inside that courtroom.

I pleaded guilty, to my lawyer’s dismay. I had to. When they started talking about what you went through after I ran away from you that night, I knew I would rather die than sit through a trial and listen to the details. It was all too gruesome, like I was living some horror story, and not my own life.

I’m sorry, Scotty.

I tuned it all out somehow by just repeating that phrase over and over in my head.
I’m sorry, Scotty. I’m sorry, Scotty. I’m sorry, Scotty.

They scheduled another court date for sentencing, and it was sometime between those two court dates that I realized I hadn’t had my period in a while. I thought my cycle was messed up, so I didn’t mention it to anyone. Had I known I was growing a part of you inside me sooner, I’m positive I would have found the will to go to trial and fight for myself. Fight for our daughter.

When the sentencing date came, I tried not to listen as your mother read her victim impact statement, but every word she spoke is still engraved in my bones.

I kept thinking about what you told me as you were carrying me up the stairs on your back that night in her house—about how they wanted more kids, but you were their miracle baby.

That’s all I could think of in that moment. I had killed their miracle baby, and now they had no one, and it was all my fault.

I had planned to give an allocution statement, but I was too weak and too broken, so when it came time for me to stand up and speak, I couldn’t. Physically, emotionally, mentally. I was stuck in that chair, but I tried to stand. My lawyer grabbed my arm to make sure I didn’t collapse, and then I think he might have read something out loud for me, I don’t know. I’m still not clear on what happened in the courtroom that day, because that day was so much like that night. A nightmare that I was somehow watching play out from a distance.

I had tunnel vision. I knew there were people around me, and I knew the judge was speaking, but my brain was so exhausted, I couldn’t process what anyone was saying. Even when the judge read my sentence, I had no reaction, because I couldn’t absorb it. It wasn’t until later, after I was given an IV for dehydration, that I found out I had been sentenced to seven years in prison, with the eligibility for parole even sooner than that.

“Seven years,” I remember thinking. “That’s bullshit. That isn’t nearly long enough.”

I try not to think about what it must have been like for you in that car after I left you there. What must you have thought of me? Did you think I had been thrown from the car? Were you looking for me? Or did you know I had left you there all alone?

It’s the time you spent alone that night that I know haunts us all, because we’ll never know what
you went through. What you were thinking. Who you were calling out to. What your final minutes were like.

I can’t imagine a more painful way for your mother and father to be forced to live out the rest of their lives.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s why Diem is here. Maybe Diem was your way of making sure your parents would be okay.

But in that same vein, not having Diem in my life would mean it’s your way of punishing me. It’s okay. I deserve it.

I plan to fight it, but I know I deserve it.

Every morning, I wake up and I silently apologize. To you, to your parents, to Diem. Throughout the day, I silently thank your parents for raising our daughter since we can’t. And every night, I apologize again before I fall asleep.

I’m sorry. Thank you. I’m sorry.