Author Information
Lost Sunshine
Stephani had been my friend since first grade. Well, my second year in first grade anyway. We had had our disagreements and there were times we didn't talk. There were a lot of fights between the two of us, one of them lasting almost two years, but every time we got through it and I always saw her in a better light afterwards. She had beauty and innocence that no other girls our ages possessed. She was the kind of person that could walk into a room of crying people and with one smile, make all of their days better.
When we were little our mothers would take us to the park so that we could play together, and one of us always ended up getting hurt in the process. But whether it was me, or it was her, the other of us was always there to kiss the scrapes and make each other better. And no matter how hard we were crying, we always managed to make each other smile.
People often thought our friendship was weird. We could communicate in ways that no one else understood. With just a nod of our heads or a movement of our eyes we knew exactly what each other was talking about. We would spend hours beating each other up for fun, and laughing about it. We'd show off the bruises and the cuts the next day and we'd brag about the bruises we had given each other. Once, she broke my lip open, causing it to bleed on and off for about three hours. We had a bond that no one could break.
We often got questioned about our friendship. No one really understood us, and for that no one wanted us to be friends. There were few people that we would trust, and when we found one, we held them close to us. Our age difference also played a part in the opinions of other people. She was two years younger then me and a lot of people thought that there was too many years in between. We never really saw it as a problem though, neither of us cared how old the other one was. Most of the time, it didn't even register to us.
Most of our friends were older anyway. The James brothers were eighteen and nineteen. Most of our time was spent with them, just going for rides and sitting in the car which we'd park on the side of the road. The four of us planned on going to California together one day, and we weren't going to tell anybody. We'd just leave, and we'd never come back. Like starting a new life, and never having to look back.
That day started out like any other day. We sat in my bedroom making stupid conversation and each doing our own separate thing. She laid on the floor with my Play Station Two controller in her hand, playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, while I sat in my computer chair talking to random friends of mine who always seemed to IM me. To an outsider, our lives would have seemed boring and dull, but we always seemed to have fun. Our conversations were enough to make the most angry person laugh.
"Do you think that you'd really be able to get away from the cops this easy in real life?" Steph asked from her spot on the floor. I looked to the TV screen noticing the little police badge blinking in the corner. I watched as she pulled into the garage in her beat up red car, coming out brand new and a deep blue.
I looked back to the computer screen and shrugged. "I don't know." I admitted, "Probably not, they wouldn't stop chasing you like that." She giggled and I smiled over at her, soon after, returning my eyes to the screen in front of me.
Then, my cell phone rang. I picked it up and looked at the name. Charlie and Will blinked on the screen as the familiar ring filled my ears. I looked at Stephani and grinned. She reached out her hands mentally asking me if she could answer it. I handed her the phone and let out a small laugh.
"Hello?" I heard her say. I could hear a distant grumbling from the other end. I immediately knew it was Charlie. It was too soft to be Will. "Yeah," she paused while the other one spoke, "The bridge." She nodded her head. "Alright, love you, bye." She looked up at me. "C'mon, we gotta go. They'll be at the bridge in ten minutes."
I nodded, grabbing my money and my cigarettes and pocketing them. We walked down the stairs and got on our shoes and hoodies and headed into the kitchen to say bye to my mother.
"Is it okay if we go with Charlie and Will?" I asked my mom. She nodded and I smiled, hugging her tightly. "Bye mom. I love you." I said kissing her.
"Bye mom. I love you too!" Stephani added, also hugging and kissing my mom. "See you later. I can spend the night right?"
"I guess so." My mom sighed, pretending like it was something she didn't really want. Stephani pushed out her bottom lip and pouted, causing my mother to laugh and push her gently. "Get. See you later. I love you guys. Be careful, and tell Will and Charlie that I said hi and I love them and that I'm making Irish Stew for dinner and they're welcome to join."
I nodded and we headed out the door. We took the short way to the bridge, running down the big hills. We hadn't seen them in what seemed like years, but was only really a matter of weeks. They'd gone to Maryland to see their grandmother and they'd got back yesterday. I was excited to see them again. It was hard to not be able to see your best friends for that long. They'd invited us to join, but we had plans with Chad to go to the Eminem concert.
We finally arrived at the bridge to see them standing outside the car waiting for us. I grinned screaming lightly and running up to Charlie, jumping on him and hugging him tightly.
"I missed you too, babe." he said spinning me around in the air a few times. I laughed and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He set me down and I ran over to Will, who was standing with Stephani laughing at Charlie and me. I threw my arms around my other brother figure, followed shortly by Steph and he hugged us back tightly.
"You have no idea how bad I missed you guys." Stephani said hugging Charlie. "It was like being in hell without you guys."
I nodded my head and added, "Pure torture. Like someone had me chained to a wall and was slowly cutting out my insides." Will squinched up his nose at my words and I laughed.
"It wasn't pleasant for us either, if it makes you feel better." Charlie said, "I had to clean and Will had to cook, but all in all, we didn't miss you at all." He joked, laughing. I hit him in the arm and gave him a hurt look. "I'm just kidding. But he really did have to cook. And it was horrible."
Stephani and I laughed, while Will tackled his brother to the ground. "It's true though. You do suck at cooking." Stephani said grinning down at them. The two boys looked at each other with sly grins and Steph and I found ourselves pinned on the ground being tickled to death.
"Stop!" I screamed kicking and punching at Will to try and get him to stop. But the more I tried to fight him, the more it tickled. "Okay! Okay!" I said grabbing onto his hands. "I give!" He rolled off of me and the four of us found ourselves in a fit of laughter.
Once we'd calmed down Charlie stood helping Stephani and I to our feet. I reached out my hand for Will to grab and he pulled himself up off of the ground and raised an eyebrow at Charlie as to say 'Thanks for the help, bro!'
"Alright." I said grabbing a hand of each of the boys and pushing them together. "Let us take a look at you." Stephani and I took a step back away from the boys and took in their appearances.
They hadn't changed much. Will's red hair fell into his equally brown eyes. His lopsided grin was plastered onto his face, and he had in the same eyebrow ring as he had when he left. Charlies's shorter black hair was as curly as ever. His brow eyes sparkled with happiness and he also grinned, exposing the two teeth he'd lost while he'd been in a fight.
I walked over to Charlie, grabbing his arms and checking them for any new cuts. None. I got down on one knee and lifted his pant legs to see if there were any more on his legs, none. I stood, lifting his shirt, but there were no new cuts on his chest either. I smiled and hugged him again.
I was quite proud of him, I'd told him before he left not to cut himself anymore, but I hadn't thought he'd listen. He never listened to me when I said those things. He liked the pain, though I was in the dark as to why. I couldn't ever imagine cutting myself. It made me sick to even think about.
We found ourselves in the parking lot of McDonalds each of us eating a cheeseburger and sharing a coke. Something we did often. The CD that occupied the disk player was Cradle Of Filth. We jammed as we ate.
"Midwinter wrongs the rites of Spring, her spinal chill rakes the earth, whilst pensive souls at zero sing." Charlie sung with the lyrics to Beneath the Howling Stars. His voice was soft and sweet, and he was the only one that seemed to think it was bad. He turned around, looking at me and Stephani, as if serenading us.
The four of us had always been in love with each other. But not the kind of love where you get married and divorce two years later. It was the kind of love that you shared with only a few people. The kind that would last forever, and that no one, no matter how hard they'd tried, could break. And we knew that we'd be friends for the rest of our lives, no matter what life threw at us.
We headed back to my house, we'd stopped at the mall shortly after we went to McDonalds. We walked through the door, Will and Charlie immediately going into the kitchen to greet my mom with hugs and kisses. They shared a short conversation before the two boys returned to the living room.
"We're staying the night." Charlie said grinning. The James Brothers were the only boys my mother trusted enough to let them stay. They were the only boys she knew well enough to know they wouldn't try anything, though they probably were the only boys that could sleep over a girls house and not do anything.
"Well let me just throw you a party!" I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes and shooting a grin in the boys direction. Stephani laughed and shook her head.
We finally fell asleep around four. We'd been talking all night and catching up on the time the boys had been gone. Stephani was the only girl that I trusted sleeping in the same room as the two boys, besides myself. I slept easy.
Steph and I were the first ones up in the morning. We sat in my bedroom talking quietly as not to wake up Charlie and Will, who were fast asleep on the two beds that had occupied my room. Charlie had passed out in between us while Will was asleep on the other side of her.
The girl that had come to be my sister, nodded at the door. I grinned knowing exactly what she was thinking. We stood up and stepped over the boys, being careful not to wake them. We walked into the bathroom and headed strait for my vanity. We each wore a simple grin on our faces as we sorted through my make-up. We headed back into my room with bright pink and green eyeshadow, purple and white eyeliner, and blue and black lipstick.
I carefully seated myself on Will's chest, while Steph sat upon Charlie. We giggled and laughed, while putting the make-up on the boys, being extremely careful not to wake them. We smiled and looked at each other's work. I shifted my eyes to look at the boys and she nodded. We laughed again, before licking the side of their faces, waking them up.
"Morning Sunshine!" I said to Jon as his eyes opened. He groggily raised an eyebrow at me and looked at Stephani. He knew we were up to something.
"What'd you do to us?" Josh's tired voice came.
"Us?" Steph said in an innocent tone. "Do anything to you? Never!" We laughed, giving ourselves away. Jon raised his hand to his lips smearing his blue lipstick and looking at his fingers. He stood up, sending me tumbling off of him and ran into the bathroom. He came back into the room with an irritated look on his face. Josh, noticing the make-up, too ran into the bathroom.
"Three... Two..." I counted down. A scream came from the bathroom, sending Steph and I into a fit of giggles. Josh came back into the room, and soon we found ourselves in another of our tickle-fights.
The boys went home later that day, leaving Stephani and I alone again.
"I missed them so much." She said while we played Tony Hawk.
"I know, you don't realize how much you love them until they're gone." I replied to her statement. We played for a little while longer before I set my controller on the floor and sat on my bed. She soon joined me.
"What's up?" she asked looking at me. I shrugged, I didn't know exactly what was up with me. I missed them already and they'd only been gone an hour or so. "You love them don't you."
"Duh." I said a bit of irritation evident in my voice. "And you do too. And they love us back. But the fact that we can't be together just tears me up."
"Who says we can't be together?" Steph objected.
I lifted my hand and smacked her in the head. "That's just the kind of thing that breaks up friendships like ours. I mean, our friendship with them isn't one you come by everyday. It's one of those things that everyone wishes they had, but rarely anyone gets to have. We have it. The only thing that could possibly go wrong with the four of us is an actual relationship."
Stephani nodded, knowing exactly what I had meant, though we both new that being just friends with them wasn't going to be for long. We all knew exactly what the others felt, because we each felt the same thing in our hearts. We knew that no one would approve of us a couples, they hardly approved of us as friends.
A few days later, we sat once again, in Jon's car, which sat parked on the side of the bridge. It was weird how we could find fun in a car on the side of the road. We listed to The Misfits in the CD player this time. Josh's seat was leaned back so that it rested on my legs. He laid down staring up at me with a grin on his face. He reached up his hand and took mine in it. He sung softly with the words to the song, his eyes never leaving mine.
"This magic moment, so different and so new, was like any other, until I kissed you." He sat up and smiled at me. Our lips met in a soft kiss. It wasn't like the kisses I'd shared with him before. I smiled at him, and looked over at Stephani and Jon. Stephani's smile was guilty, like she knew it was going to happen. Jon, too looked guilty.
Later, I found out that the two had known about it. From that moment on we saw each other in a different light. We weren't dating, there was no way we were getting the boys in trouble as they were over-age, but we were like any other couple in the world, with one accepting, we loved each other more then any of them could ever love each other.
Months passed and I school had started for Stephani and I, which meant less time with Jon and Josh. I was turning Seventeen that day, and that excited me because that meant that there was only one year left before Josh and I could become official.
That night the boys picked us up from my house to take us to a party. Though it wasn't a direct party for me, it was something to do on my birthday, and there was going to be alcohol there. At the time, the most fun thing that I could do would be to get drunk on my birthday.
We left the party around twelve, all of us completely drunk. Not one of us stopped to think that we shouldn't have been driving. We all got into the car, Stephani and I leaning on each other to stay upright. The party was about an hour away from my house, and we were all just going to crash there. Jon and Josh's mom would have had a cow if they'd have shown up at the house drunk.
It wasn't long before we went a little crazy. The windows were rolled down at the radio was up as loud as it would go. We decided to have a little bit of fun and started to go faster down a small windy road. Luck wasn't our friend that night, and it wasn't long before the car had hit a telephone pole.
I woke up the next morning to find myself in a hospital bed, next to Jon. I looked around for any sign of Stephani and Josh but there were none. I began to worry. Something was wrong. I was able to feel it. Two of the people I loved most in the world weren't beside me and I knew that my mom would have made it so the four of us shared a room. The soft beeping of the Heart monitor that was connected to Jon made me comforted in some sort of way. Maybe it was just knowing he was alive was good enough.
I looked at his face, which was covered in cuts and scrapes that had no doubt been a result from the night before. I stared at him until I was interrupted by a door opening. It was Jon and Josh's mom, followed by my mother and Steph's mother. They all looked like they'd been hit by a bus.
"Where are..?" I didn't get to finish my sentence as I was interrupted by the sobbing of the three women. I knew something bad had happened, and I didn't like it. I looked over at Jon, and back at the mothers. I watched my mother walk over to Jon and take his hand, placing a gentle kiss on it.
"Baby." she said, walking over to me. "Bad news." I felt the tears start to well up in my eyes. "Josh and Stephani were pronounced Dead on Arrival last night when the four of you were pulled out of the car." I began to cry, how could I have let that happen. "And the doctors say it's not likely that Jon will wake up."
I looked over at the boy I knew as my brother and let out a soft yelp. I stood slowly from my bed and walked over to his, crawling on it with him and hugging him tightly. "Wake up, Jonny." I said sobbing wildly. "Please don't you leave me too."
I was released from the hospital a few weeks later, I spent every waking moment with Jon on his bed coaxing him to wake up and crying madly. I attended Stephani and Josh's funeral. They were closed casket. I think it hurt even worse that way because I couldn't see them, and that made it all to real that they weren't coming back.
They were buried next to each other, with a long headstone with their names and dates on it. Next to them lied two blank ones that I knew were for Jon and I. A few months later they unplugged Jon. I remember holding his hand as the heart monitor went into one steady beep. I remember the feeling of emptiness inside of me. I knew that I'd never find those kind of friends again. I was one of those few lucky ones. And it seemed that as if all in one moment everything changed.
So this is where I find myself now. Laying along the graves of my three best friends. I come here to visit them once a week at the least. I find myself remembering all of the good times we shared and everything that the four of us had gone through together. I knew that they would always be with me in some way. They'd always be in my heart and it would be a story to tell my grandchildren one day. They were my lost sunshine. And I felt as if it was all my fault.
