Young Writers Society

Hey I posted the prologue a while back and got lots of mixed reveiws becuase it was confusing I've done some editing and I've written the frist (or so) chapter. Take a look and tell me what you think. Please be honest I really want to know.

“Best friends never break up, Chad. I promise.” That’s what she had told him. It seemed like such a distant memory but it stung with the same pain as always. She had left. Left him to turn to dust waiting for her to came back.

“You will always be my best friend, Chad.” Again a memory of her bit into his thoughts. She always seemed to intrude when he least needed it.

“I know Brendin and I have had some rough patches, but you and I will be together forever. Always. Just like Mom says. Joined at the hip, right?” He remembered they had laughed then. But he didn’t remember what her laughter had sounded like. There had been too much sadness, too much heartbreak since then. Sometimes when this memory occupied his thoughts he wondered what it would be like to hear her laugh again. Sometimes he fancied it would sound like bells or music of the sweetest kind. But now he replaced it with a dry echo of her grandness.

He missed her so much, but he had resigned himself to his fate. He would never see her again. Just like he would never see Alexis again. The only difference between the two loves of his life was one still walked this earth. The other abided in the Otherworld. Where no mortal could venture and return alive.

Oh! How the sadness stabbed at his heart. How had he lost both at the same time? How had he let Alexis’ heart stop beating and let the other go her own way, leaving him behind? No use. No use regretting his mistakes. Regretting his actions.

Because now he was alone. It was dark in here. In the coldest corners of his mind. His lungs were filled with mucus and the dust that lingered there. He had a chronic cough. A cold that wouldn’t go away no matter what he did. His throat ached and his back pained him. He couldn’t sleep at night, couldn’t flee the nightmares that had haunted him since Alexis’ death. Since his best friend had broken up with him. He was alone with no one left to hold him. Nothing to ease the pain of their passing.

But that was his punishment. His punishment for thinking he belonged with Alexis. He had killed her and his best friend had been unable to look him in the eye afterward. That’s what he got. Always the short end of the stick. Nothing else for him. He didn’t deserve it. What had he ever done to make himself believe that maybe he could find himself a happy ending? Nothing.

And because of that he was left alone.

With nothing.

Chapter 1

My ears are bleeding. The metal is shrieking and it’s tearing my eardrums apart. But I’m not in a mood of caring. All I can think is that Lexi is screaming. She sounds like she’s in pain. I try to call to her but the car is breaking, and protesting the abuse.

Only minutes earlier we had been having fun. Singing as loud, and as out of tune as we could. We were happy drunk and now we were ripping apart.

Something stabbed into my thigh and I cried out. Lexi’s screams grew into desperate screeches. Why wouldn’t anyone help her? Then I fell. Spinning and tumbling, tripping over myself. I hit the ground hard and then I floated, hovering on the edge of sleep.

I woke to beeping. Strangely rhythmic, the pitch oddly annoying, it irritated me. What was it anyway? Why didn’t anyone turn it off?

Then with crushing clarity it returned to me. Lexi’s screams. I heard it all again, saw brutal bloody images flash before my eyes. It tore at my soul. Where was Lexi now? Was she ok? My heart sped up and the beeping grew more urgent. I was in a hospital. Was I ok?

I didn’t know but I prayed. For Lexi. She had to live, if not for me then for Jackie. Her best friend. Her partner in crime. They had known each other for only a couple months but they knew everything about each other. They were soul mates, and Jackie was the reason I’d ever even gotten the chance to fall for Lexi. I owed everything to Jackie and if I got Lexi killed now she would never talk to me again.

He dreams sometimes, now, that if it had been different Jackie would have taken the easy road and never spoken to him afterwards. But she was a big person and not nearly so stupid. She would talk to him. She would forgive him, when all he wanted was for her to forget he ever existed.

The rain seemed fitting for the scene. Everything was cloaked in black and even the sky wore a shroud of gray clouds. The only light in this place seemed to be the glowing of the rows of white roses that surrounded the grave. Lexi’s grave. But I couldn’t think those thoughts. She couldn’t have died. Not so young, so full of life. Everyone had left me, except for one. I could feel her eyes on my back. She was waiting for me to turn away from the site. To go home and live my life. But how could I go back to the way things were before? How could I live when Lexi could not? It was so unfair.

I gripped my hands tighter around the rose in my hand feeling the thorns bite into my skin. The ground beneath me was soggy and I felt it might give at any moment. I hoped it would. That a chasm in the Earth would open up and I could join Lexi, eternally slumbering by her side. But at least I would be with her. A shiver passed through my spine, the wind slicing through my thin jacket and shirt. It seemed the cold traveled all the way to my bones. I coughed. I tried to rub the kink in my shoulder out, not noticing the pinpricks of blood on my collar from where the thorns had cut my palms.

I knelt before the grave and turned my head to the sky. I wanted to scream. The clouds answered my silent plea. Thunder booming and shaking the ground. It seemed that it would be the only justification I would get for Lexi’s death. I lay my rose atop all the others. It shone brilliantly against them, the red shocking against the white. I noticed the drops of blood that still clung to the thorns and I could no longer control myself. I held my head in my hands and sobbed. Great shaking, shuddering sobs of uncontrollable grief and despair. She was really gone. I cried until I could no more. I was empty now. Nothing left to give to the earth that now covered my true love.

“Lexi…,” I tried to say, but I chocked on the words the same way I had always when she was alive. I wanted to lay it here on the ground and leave. It was hers after all and I had no use of it now. Why carry around such heaviness? I separated myself from that part of me. It had died with Lexi. I would not forget her but I would not be burdened by her.

I got up. Jackie was still waiting and she held me close and guided me to the car. I looked back just once. I saw my red rose against all the white. I left behind my blood, my tears, my love. My life. It would wilt with the rose. It would die. It would be with Lexi once more.