Normal, Happiness, & Other Things That Don't Exist

Chapter One: Normal

I don't know the definition of normal anymore. There's just too many things in this life that people take for granted, like family. It used to be 'normal' to love the people around you. Not anymore. Now everyone acts like a dick. But just because everyone does that doesn't make it normal. Just instinct.

If I close my eyes and try real hard, I can feel the same feeling I used to get all the time... It's the one that makes you smile; I've pretty much forgotten what it's called. I was so stupid to think that it would ever last. Stupid and selfish. Just like the rest of the world.

“Holy shit, Anna! Are you trying to kill yourself?” I quickly snapped back to reality to see Anna with almost half of her body sticking out of the car window, waving her arms in the air like crazy.

“Jesus, Mark, pull her in!”

“I can't I'm driving!”

We were just on our way back from a party, the party, the party of the year, our Grad party. We were finally through with school, and able to go off on our own for once. Me, Mark, Anna, and our quiet friend Katie had been through thick and thin. We thought the end of high school would be the end of our problems.

“Anna how much did you have to drink?” My voice was caught between laughter and concern as I reached over the front seat and pulled her in.

“Lul,” Anna slurred.

“Lul? What the fuck is lul?”

We all broke into a fit of laughter, like we usually did at our drunken Anna.

“Chelsea, she's probably trying to say LOL or something.”

Katie, who hadn't said a word until now, chuckled in the seat next to me. “She's so wasted. Would it be wrong of me to take a video?”

“Oh yeah,” I said.

Mark nodded in agreement. “Totally wrong.”

“Do it!” We both shouted over our laughter as Katie shuffled through her purse to find her camera.

Annabelle flung one arm around Mark's shoulder (much to my disliking considering he was my boyfriend), and used her free arm to grab hold of the steering wheel.

“Shit Mark! Take it back from her!” Me and Kate glanced at eachother; those two were always the irresponsible ones. They would think nothing of a beaten up car and a police report.

“She'll be fine! Relax! Why do you always gotta be so uptight?”
Chills went down my spine as we swerved side to side. Me and Kate were gripping eachother for our lives while Mark and Anna were having the time of their lives putting us all in danger.

A white light shone in our eyes, (no, not that white light) and as i squinted my eyes I realized they were headlights. Headlights. Headlights! It took a moment to register in my mind, but then I finally realized what was happening:

We were about to die.

Beep. Beep. Beep. I hit my alarm clock and looked at the time. Six forty-five.

About to die, huh? I looked over at the little six year old girl sound asleep next to me. “Ugh, if only,” I thought out loud and rolled out of bed. “Come on, Sleepyhead. Time to get up.” I flicked on the lights and went to get dressed.

It's been about a month now since the accident. We've tried everything we could, but Macey still only talks to Kate and me. We thought that maybe school would give her a chance to socialize, but nothing.

Let me guess. You're confused, right? You thought the accident was a dream? It was. Well, a nightmare, but there was a real one before it, the source of just about all the crap going on right now. Let me take it back a few weeks.

Everyone in our car had somehow managed to kick the doors open and jump onto the road before the vehicles collided. My vision was blurred with red, gross I know, but if I don't tell it exactly as I remember it I might end up changing important parts. I looked at my hands, and there was a huge piece of glass embedded in my hand. I winced as I pulled it out, but other than that and a massive headache I was okay. The same couldn't be said for Kate.

I crawled out of the ditch I landed in and over to her on the pavement. Blood was all over her head and her left leg was bent in a way that it shouldn't have been. Her forehead felt cold as I brushed the hair out of her face and saw her eyelids flutter.

“Kate? Are you okay?” Bloody tears strolled down my cheeks.

Kate sort of smiled “That's a stupid question, don't you think?”

I let out an exasperated chuckle.

“Chels!” Mark yelled and waved us over, supporting Anna, who seemed to be sobered up and just afraid now.

I looked down at Kate. “Can you get up?”

“Yeah, I think so,” She staggered for a minute, but then she seemed fine, despite the uncomfortable position her leg was in. She ran, erm, limped over to Mark and Anna as I got to my own feet.

“What's that smell?” I called out to them.

They were a distance away, but I could've sworn I'd seen Anna roll her eyes. “Who cares? Let's go!”

For the first time I took in the scene around me. Mark's hummer didn't suffer much, besides a shattered windshield and a few dents in various places. The other car though, was totalled, flipped on its side and on fire. My eyes scanned the scene for the source of the smell, and they hovered over a pool of something by the totalled car.

Kate was going near hysterical. “Chelsea! Come on! It's probably just the smoke!

I shook my head, still staring at the liquid on the pavement, racking my brain for the name of it. Gas. “It's Gas!” I shouted back to them.

Anna threw her arms up in the air like I was hopeless. “Then that's all the more reason to get away from it! For God's sake Chelsea, do you want us all to be thrown in jail?”

I squinted my eyes to get a better view of the figures inside the car. None of them were moving, but a small, thin figure in the back seat caught my eye. I gasped when I made out that figure to be a little girl. “There's a kid in there!”

“What?” Kate screamed.

I rushed over to the car, Kate following close behind me.

Mark and Anna were in a fluster, yelling for us to come back, but then we heard the yelling stop as their footsteps fled from their guilt.

“Call the cops or someone,” I instructed Kate and got back on my hands and knees and inched closer to the burning vehicle.

Kate was terrified when I started to pull open the car door, shattered glass falling. “Chels, what are you doing? If we move her we could kill her! Unless she's...” She trailed off.

I looked at the little girl as I tried to find a way to pick her up without hurting her. “She's not dead. Well, not yet anyway but if we don't hurry this fire's gonna spread and we'll all go up in flames.” It was scary to me how calmly I said that.

Kate started talking into the cell phone, and then started going hysterical again. The little girl moved then, and we both grew quiet. Her eyelids fluttered like Kate's had earlier, but they didn't open.

“Oh,shit, Chels...” I looked up to see Kate's pale face and followed her gaze to the flames. A lot of flames.

“Fuck!” I got to my feet and picked up the little girl, making sure to support her neck. We kept staring at the flames that creeped closer and closer to the gasoline. “Run!” Kate dropped the cell phone and we both ran as far as our feet could take us, which to neither of our likings was just the ditch in the other side of the road. Suddenly our ears were ringing and we felt the heat hit our backs like a sauna. We were blown back a couple feet, and I held on to that little girl with everything I had. Our backs hit the pavement and the wind was knocked out of us.
We didn't move until we heard sirens, and paramedics found us and helped us up. The rest is just bits and pieces for me, I kept either blocking things out, like the sight of the girl's parents, or I would just plain zone out. All I remember after that was a news reporter up in my face being so inconsiderate I would've liked to hit her some.

“It seems that four irresponsible teenagers went out for a joyride tonight, thinking that everything was happy-go-lucky like them...” Uh, hello? Two of them are standing right here. “But in fact things took a turn for the worse, literally, when the vehicle swerved uncontrollably into another, killing two, and leaving a young girl orphaned.”

Kate was holding the little girl in her arms. She was awake now, a couple minor cuts on her forehead but nothing serious. Her long golden locks were disshelved, and her pink flowery dress was torn, but thankfully not bloodied. She couldn't have been any more than five or six, but she still cringed at the word orphaned.

Watching her cringe got the better of me. “Um, excuse me?” I said politely to the news reporter, who looked at me a little less politely. “May I?” I pointed to the microphone and the woman smiled into the camera, trying to pull this off as being planned or something.

She handed my the mike, but instead of turning to the camera, I turned to the reporter. A huge smile spread across my face. “Fuck. You.”

I would've loved to see her reaction to that, but at the time she would've been looking appalled, my entire body started teetering backward and everything went black.

Up until that night, I thought I'd just live a normal little life. Graduate, go to college, with any luck marry Mark eventually. The thought makes me cringe now. Before that night, I couldn't fathom the idea that he would let a little girl die on his hands. But he was going to. He ran away, leaving me and Kate to be blamed, the little girl to slip away from the world before even having a chance to live her life. But it wasn't a dream. He did. At least he thought he did.

There is nothing normal about letting a girl die when you know you can help her. From this I learn that the Mark I thought was normal doesn't exist.

From this I learn that normal doesn't exist.