The Miraculous Second Life of Blue Eyes

Her funeral was three days later.

I was numb the entire time. I had cried enough after the car crashed. I don’t want to remember staggering up to her body, sobbing for someone to help me with blood pouring down my face. The entirety of the car had been crumpled up like a can under the semi-truck’s lurking front.

The only two survivors: Me and my camera.

They gave me my camera, the one thing still intact from the wreck the day of the funeral, as if I needed any more pain on my shoulders. I watched in mute sadness as they lowered her casket into the shallow ground, exactly six feet beneath the grass. My dad couldn’t even talk to me after I told him what had happened.

I had taken no injuries while my mom had taken all of them for me.

But the funeral had been 224 days ago. You would think I had moved on, think that life had gotten a bit better at the least. Perhaps we would sob some more, weeks after the funeral, the weight of the world pressing on our shoulders. Perhaps after those weeks of mourning had gone by, my dad and I would grow closer together, leaning on each other for support, saying that ‘she’s smiling down on us now. We just have to make her proud’.

It was anything but that.

Weeks had gone by since her burial in a red oak casket in a cemetery too close for comfort. School had long since gotten out and summer time friends seemed to have run off. My dad didn’t look me once in the eye, never spoke a single word to me. Was he mute from the horror of losing his wife? Was he still so sad he couldn’t speak?

I found my answer 47 days after the Accident.

He spoke three words to me around the breakfast table. He couldn’t even look me in the eye when he said, “You killed her.” And then walked off.

And on the 47th day, it dawned on me that I really had killed my mother. It was all my fault.

And each day, it grew worse.

He could now look me in the eye and glare. He placed guilt into my head like no other. School started up again and I found myself at a lonelier place than ever. I couldn’t drive anywhere: My dad never let me. He never handed me the keys again. If I went anywhere, he had to drive me after asking him through a few strained words.

Time passed slower than ever. Nothing seemed to be working, no amount of apologies, no amount of space I could give him.

On the 153rd day, he looked me in the eye again, a bottle of half-drunk alcohol slurring his words.

“You killed her.” And he smashed the glass over my back.

“I’m so sorry!” I screamed through the pain. He kicked my back as I fell to the floor in a field of scattered shards. I rolled around in fire of the agony. I screamed mutely as he yelled as loud as he could.

He cursed me out. He kicked me until his leg was weak. Eventually, he looked down on me, glaring drunkenly. Four more words to shatter my soul.

“You’re not my daughter.”

And that was the end of that.

That night, I went to bed in tears.

For days on nights and evenings on mornings, I could only think of what I could’ve done better. I should’ve kept the radio on to keep me awake. I should’ve just booked a hotel for us to stay at for the night. I should’ve refused to drive. I should’ve just stayed awake.

I would’ve done anything to switch roles and be the one laying in pillows in a tomb of darkness. Anything, I would’ve done to stay awake.

It was all my fault she was dead.

I should be dead, not her.

And so, the days passed on by slowly.
It was on the 227th day of torture that he finally left.

I had spent nights being beaten, being told that I should’ve died instead of her, that I shouldn’t be alive, and now he was finally leaving.

I had graduated high school. I let go of my photography. The camera collected dust. Austin’s calls collected on my abandoned phone. The last time I used my device was to call the magazine I worked for and quit. After that, it just lay there. I had no use for it.

Occasionally, I took it out to see how many times Austin had called. I listened to his voicemails time and time again, crying at his worried voice wondering where I had faded to. I couldn’t face him, couldn’t say what had happened.

Too many explanations, too much guilt, and too many memories relived.

I sat on the couch, watching him as he came right up to me. He had a suitcase in one hand, the keys to the big truck in the others. I looked up at him with tears flooding my cheeks like rivers after a storm. He shook his hazel head of hair, not saying a word. This was the end of the family, I knew it.

“When I look at you, all I see is her.” He muttered. I looked up to him. He didn’t even meet my eyes.

I choked back my tears. “Please don’t leave.” He might abuse me, but he’s all I have left of family. The rest are all out of state. I tried calling one night. They won’t take me in. It costs too much to take care of a girl with college looming on the horizon.

“You killed her. Why did you do it?”

I sobbed into my hands, shaking my head. I saw a tear trace his jaw as I looked up through watery vision. “I didn’t mean to. I was too tired and closed my eyes for barely a second. I’m so sorry.” I sobbed.

He didn’t have it. He turned his back, hand on the door handle. I could hear the alcohol in his bag.

“I’m sorry, but I look into those blue eyes and all I see is her. I can’t live with that anymore. Goodbye, Julianna.”

And he was gone.

I waited for an hour.

He never returned.

I went to bed that night and woke up the next morning.

It was deathly silent.

And I knew, that was the end of that.
40 days after he left….

I was cold, I was miserable.

A week after my dad left, I knew I had to pick myself up. That’s when my steely determination started to kick in. I had no one left. Friends had all but turned invisible to my eyes. They were nowhere to lean on. Family wouldn’t pick up my calls. Dad had changed his number. Mom was miles high above my head.

So I did the only thing I could:

I called Adam.

In the year I had been a photographer for concerts, I had met one man who had changed my entire hobby. Adam Elmakias had been standing in the pit for a Sleeping with Sirens concert, my first one. Of course, I had been wearing my favorite cat shirt when he poked my shoulder.

“I like your shirt.” He had noted. I smiled.

“Thanks. I like your baldness.” I teased. I had been high on energy then, getting the adrenaline rush that concerts always produced. We talked, we exchanged phone numbers, promising to be in contact one day. Although our paths took us to many locations, I never ran into him again in the year I was a photographer for the magazine I worked at. I never called him either.

It was when I moved into my own apartment that I found his phone number and called him up.

Thirty three days later, I had moved into my own apartment, lived off the very basic essentials, and was preparing to go to another Of Mice and Men concert.

A knock on my door made me look up from my thoughts. I put the book I was reading down and headed towards the little door to the hallway. Peeking out through the peephole, I grinned at the familiar face.

The door opened and squealed in surprise. A familiar bald man happily chuckled and gave me a hug.

“Hello, Jules. It’s been a while.” He looked down at me and shoved his hands into his pockets. I let him into my apartment, blushing at the mess. We sat down on the couch, opposite ends of the coffee table. I offered him cheez-its, the only form of a thanks-for-helping-me-out that I could give.

“How are you?” I asked kindly. He shrugged.

“Pretty well. Are you excited for the Of Mice and Men shoot tonight?”

Not really…I thought.

“Yeah! It’s been a while since I’ve shot a concert. Hopefully I don’t mess it up too badly.” Adam shook his head at my words.

“No worries, I have faith that you won’t mess it up. When I talked to Austin about having you shoot, he got really excited. It’s been a while since you guys talked.” Oh how easy Adam could switch subjects and suck me in! I laughed, looking over to my little photography nook that I had dusted off and gotten ready for tonight.

“I know, I know! I feel terrible, but a lot has happened since I last shot them, so I kind of had to take a break.” I excused, trying to hide my nervous twitches and the memories that had flooded back like the dam had broken.

I hadn’t told anyone. No one knew of her death except for Dad, me, the cousins in other states, and the policemen who found her body.

No one knew of her death and it was fine like that. No one needs to know that I killed her, that I killed my mother.

Everyone has a secret that they’ll take to their graves; this just so happened to be mine.

“School hard?” The photographer asked. I nodded.

“Pretty tough, but I’m out now. I’m seventeen and free.” I chuckled humorlessly. Adam smiled.

“Well come on, Jules. We gotta get ready.”

The moment I walked through the doors to of the venue, I knew I was back in my own little realm, a little haven of safety and energy that would keep me distracted from reality.

The moment I locked eyes with Austin Carlile, I was lost, helpless under his gaze. He smiled, making me wave gently. He pushed the interviewer away, excusing himself as politely as he could. I tried to duck my head, to mentally escape, but my feet were rooted to the spot. His arms engulfed me and I bit my lip to keep from crying. Eventually I hugged him back, feeling him smile down to me.

“Aw Jules, it’s been a year and a half. We’ve all been missing your pretty blue eyes around here.” He mumbled. I hugged him tighter. How could I explain why I had been missing for so long?

I just couldn’t.

“I missed you too, Austin.”

Notes