Breathing Chapter One

You never appreciate what you have until it’s gone.

That’s what my mother told me once. I was eight years old and had just learned that my hardly beloved goldfish had died.

She had been right, too; I cried for a whole fifteen minutes after finding Tuna floating belly-up in his bowl. I was thoroughly heartbroken, even though the only time I ever acknowledged his existence was the day I had begged my parents to buy him, and the twenty-four hours that followed.

Ten years later, my mother’s words of wisdom were forgotten just as fast as my late pet; both stored and buried among the once important, but ultimately irrelevant. Those words, whether remembered, or not, could hardly apply to me, anyway. I knew what I had, and I more than appreciated it. I just never thought that I would lose it.

I was eighteen years old, and in my naïve, little mind, I was on top of the world.

Having graduated high school at the very top of my class, I had earned myself a scholarship to NYU, where I would be starting as a freshman in the upcoming fall. I would be living out my lifelong dream of studying in my favorite city, alone, and away from parents or supervision. What kid in the world wouldn’t want that?

There was a time where I could validate that statement. There was a time when I could not wait to get out of the small, suffocating town where I had grown up dreaming of bigger and better things.
The getting away part never did change, but I learned that getting away did not necessarily mean escape, and alone meant exactly that, no matter how you tried to toggle its definition by use of synonyms.

I’ve heard people say that a split second is all it takes to change your life.

But just as the words of wisdom my mother had once offered me, I disregarded this statement as I did with most of its kind. Why bother listening to something if it didn’t apply to you?

I should have.

I should have listened, because she was right again.

I’ll never forget that one second. The one second that tore through my life faster than a bullet, ripping apart all I had ever held close to me.
This story begins with the end of another. A beginning I wish I had never seen, and an end that should not have come.

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I sat in a circle made up of my closest friends, watching my best friend since I could remember with a carefree smile as she toasted to us with a smile matching my own.

Anna was my first memory.

Sure, there had been bits and pieces of scattered memories here and there, but nothing ever as prominent or significant as Anna.

I don’t recall where or how we met, but the details of time and setting to that particular tale are unimportant. She was my first memory, and my life began with that one moment, and would continue to be made up of small―but no less significant―memories and details revolving around her.

We were three years old, running giddily and carelessly through the park when she fell and scrapped her knee on the edge of the sandbox. And as we sat on the ground, hands clasped tightly together as she cried out in pain, I knew I would always want to protect her.

It was a promise I kept for a very long time, until one day, I couldn’t. Until the day I had no choice but to break it.

Anna’s nearly polished bottle of Heineken was raised in our general direction, her eyes meeting each of ours as she spoke. It was our last night all together―our last night as a whole―before we all left for college. And this was her moment. No one dared to interrupt.

And even as I sat absorbing the remnants of our final summer and clinging to her every word, I did not realize just how crucial this moment was.

She had always been the leader. We had always blindly followed her, only too eager to see what she had in store for us next. And so if any last words were going to be said, it was only natural that Anna be the one to deliver them.

Years later, her words are blurred and unclear, but not any less important. But what remains clear and vivid to this day is the way she smiled as she spoke, her voice carrying into the same, gentle breeze that tousled her raven locks. My best friend’s face was sad and knowing, though for reasons others than the obvious.

Looking back, a part of me feels that she knew what was coming, that she knew her words of farewell were permanent and set in stone. Part of me feels that she knew she would never see us again.

The rest of the night was spent drinking and laughing atop a hill just outside our small town. We laughed and cried over shared memories, clinging to our pasts like an old security blanket.

It was nearly four in the morning when we were stumbling drunkenly and carelessly to our cars, ready to fall into bed and sleep off the night, before the morning would send us all away to different corners of the world.

Anna and I climbed into her mother’s black SUV, and after slipping the key into the ignition, she reached over and took my hand in hers, linking our fingers and squeezing lightly. I gave a small, telling smile as we sat in silence, happy just to be in her company.

The morning would take her away from me. Take away the one thing I had not spent a single day without for the last seventeen years. How could I live, breathe without my best friend? How would I go months without seeing her reassuring smile?

“It’ll be okay,” she would tell me repeatedly. “You’ll be great. You don’t need me cramping your style.”

Five minutes into the drive home, I looked over at our joined hands resting on the small compartment between our seats and smiled again. “I love you, you know,” I told my best friend earnestly.

She grinned widely. “It’s very tryingly obvious,” she replied, barely containing a chuckle. “But I love you, too, Alex.”

And then it was over. A symphony of deafening car horns and tires squelching painfully under the force of brakes tore my eyes away from Anna’s, blinding high beams temporarily obscuring my vision.

I had seen it.

I had seen the look in her dark eyes as they met mine for the very last time, the same sad and knowing expression gracing her beautiful features, just as it had earlier that night.

Permanent and set in stone.

Her hand, still tangled with mine, squeezed even tighter as a red van ploughed into us, sending both vehicles spinning violently from the impact.

A scorching, unbelievable pain seared through my body, all over and all at once. A scream fell from my lips, sounding a million miles away. When the car finally stopped spinning, I slowly, painfully opened my eyes, immediately wishing I hadn’t.

Slumped over the steering wheel, Anna’s body was unnaturally distorted, blood trickling grotesquely down her forever flawless face, brown eyes staring lifelessly into my cold blue ones.

I was eighteen years old when I lost all I had ever held close to me, when I fell from the top of the world, and lost mine.

Anna Millar was the last thing I saw before my terrified eyes fell shut, blacking out and away from the horror before me, as her story came to an end, and mine began. Before I realized that I was nothing but a lost, little girl without a best friend to help her find her way.