Holly, August 14th 2004
Holly, August 14th 2004
2009-08-26
From the night it happened.

"You can't possibly understand the feeling I am feeling now. I'm sure you've experienced it. But it's awful.

I just finished reading all of my friend's entries from while I was away, and I want to die, because it looks like I missed so many things. I looked at Chuck's pictures, and I looked at Julia's CTY pictures, and she was so pretty, and I looked at her up all night pictures and I wished I was there.

I fucked up some $500 transaction tonight at work, and I just sat around waiting for customers, and some stupid girl came in with her boyfriend and complained that we didn't have Bad Boys II on DVD and I wanted to tell her to shut up because that was a fucking horrible movie anyway and her boyfriend just sagged his pants and was white some more. I was talking to some guy and all these ambulances started coming to the main road, and pretty soon they had it blocked off. I got out of work fifteen minutes late and I went to the street and I wanted to start crying. I wanted to start crying before I got out of the store, because it was just one of those nights, and there were two ambulances, at least six cop cars, a firetruck and some motorcycles there, and I felt really cold and there was blood all over the street. There was a bucket of sand next to the blood. And yes, this time it was blood, because the girl's shoes were next to the blood.


I talked to Julia's mom tonight and when she asked me how my vacation was I told her the truth, that it was pretty bad, and she said, "Are you alright?" and I said "Yeah, I guess."

---

When I woke up, Julia told me on the internet about some rumor that AJ was spreading about Holly, that she died. Chuck called me minutes later to tell me it was true. I grabbed my keys to try and run out of the house but my dad stopped me and told me I couldn't drive and that I needed to calm down. He bearhugged me into submission until I stopped crying, and my mom took me to Julia's.

I ran up the steps, just hugged her and we cried, and then her mother took us to the Post Office, where for some reason we all congregated. Too young, too emotional to drive. As everyone arrived we just started hugging and crying on one another.

When Jessie approached us she didn't hug anyone, she just screamed what the fuck is going on and wouldn't stop. I heard her scream like that again, years later, when she was on salvia.

I only told Chuck and Julia that I thought it was my fault, that she must have been crossing the road to see me. She'd visited me at work that late. I don't know that it wasn't true. I've just chosen to believe I was being dramatic.

I called Tina at work to try and get the day off, but she just said "Fuck...I can't get anyone to cover." And so I went in to work and she tried to comfort me, the older sister/mom figure that she was and said that it happened for a reason.

We put flowers down and sat by the road where it happened. An autistic boy I recognized drove by and stuck his head out the window. He looked like an insensitive gawker, and Julia started screaming at him. We wrote messages on an electrical box. Five years later they're still there, faded, but I can still read Julia quoting Jeff Buckley.

"I miss my beautiful friend."

At karate, Audrey said that her daughter knew the girl who hit Holly, said that people walked by her house that night screaming murderer. I wanted to curb stomp those kids.

At the grief counseling they put us into AJ was hyperventilating, and I wanted to put my arm around her, but all I could do was regurgitate what Tina had said and stayed seated six inches away.

I tried to kiss Julia that night but it was too much for us, then.

At the memorial service I sat with my friends. Holly's mother spoke about Ben and Sam. We watched a spider devour a fly by the window while a cellist and violinist played "Mad World," as done by Gary Jules.

It rained for a week.

---

Another teen died in Marblehead this weekend, so similar. She was in the crosswalk at night and backtracked to get her phone that she'd dropped, the driver was texting and didn't see her.

I drove by today and her friends were gathered around a decorated lamp post. I wanted to join them sitting, but I just kept driving instead.

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