Reminders of Him

Me: Silence
Them: Did you call for help?
Me: Silence
Them: Did you know he was still alive when you fled
the scene?
Me: Silence
Them: Did you know he was still alive when we
found him an hour and a half ago?
Me: Screams.
Lots of screams.

---

Screams until they put me back in a cell and said
they’d come back for me when I calmed down.
When I calmed down.
I didn’t calm down, Scotty.
I
think
I
lost
a
little
bit
of
my
mind
that
day.
They pulled me into the interrogation room two more
times over the next twenty-four hours. I hadn’t slept, I
was heartbroken, I couldn’t eat or drink anything.
I just. Wanted. To die.
And then, when they told me you would still be alive
if I had just called for help, I did die. It was a Monday, I
think. Two days after our wreck. I sometimes want to buy
myself a headstone and have that date written on it, even
though I’m still pretending not to be dead. My epitaph
would read: Kenna Nicole Rowan, died two days after the
passing of her beloved Scotty.
I never even attempted to call my mother through all
of it. I was too depressed to call anyone at all. And how
could I call my friends back home and tell them what I’d
done?
I was ashamed and sad, and as a result of that, no one
in my life before I met you knew what I had done. And
since you were gone, and your entire family hated me, I
had no visitors.

---

They appointed me a lawyer, but I had no one to post
bail. I didn’t even have anywhere to go if I could have
posted bail. I found comfort being there in that jail cell,
so I didn’t mind it. If I couldn’t be with you in your car,
the only place I wanted to be was alone in that cell where
I could refuse to eat the food they gave me and hopefully,
eventually, my heart would stop beating like I thought
yours had that night.
Turns out, your heart was still beating. It was just
your arm that had died. I could go into more gruesome
details about how it was so horribly crushed and mangled
during the wreck that the blood flow was completely cut
off and that’s why I touched you and thought you were
dead, and how, despite all that, you still somehow woke
up and got out of the car and tried to get the help I never
brought back to you.
I would have realized that if only I would have stayed
with you longer, or tried harder. If I wouldn’t have
panicked and ran and allowed the adrenaline to pump
through me to the point that I wasn’t even functioning
within the borders of reality.
If I could have been as calm as you always were,
you’d still be alive. We’d probably be raising the
daughter together that you never even knew we made.
We’d probably have two kids by now, or even three, and
I’d more than likely be a teacher, or a nurse, or a writer,
or whatever you would have undoubtedly given me the
strength to realize I could be.
My God, I miss you.
I miss you so much, even if it never showed in my
eyes in a way anyone would have been satisfied with. I
sometimes wonder if my mental state played a hand in
my sentencing. I was empty inside, and I’m sure that
emptiness showed in my eyes any time I had to face
someone.

---

I didn’t even care about the first court hearing two
weeks after you died. The lawyer told me we would fight
it—that all I had to do was plead not guilty and he would
prove that I wasn’t of sound mind that night and that my
actions weren’t intentional and that I was very, very, very,
very, very, very remorseful.
But I didn’t care what the lawyer suggested. I wanted
to go to prison. I didn’t want to go back out in the world
where I would have to look at cars again, or gravel roads,
or hear Coldplay on the radio, or think about all the
things I’d have to do without you.
Looking back on it now, I realize I was in a deep and
dangerous state of depression, but I don’t think anyone
noticed, or maybe there was just no one who cared.
Everyone was #TeamScotty, like we were never even on