Seconds Chances

Second Chances

BY: Colleen McLaughlin

            “My fellow students, I end this speech with one question. What will you do with the rest of your life? For now, it is in front of us.” A girl of eighteen said with a smile that could make a rain cloud want to be a rainbow. However all it made me want to do is get out of this God-forsaken place.

            I’d been at Williams high school for four years, and that was four years too many. I had enough bullying, school scandals, and teacher manipulation to last me a lifetime. I was ready to start my life, and ready to never see anyone from here again. Except, Of course, Marcy.

            The applause was overwhelming and made my, already throbbing, head pound. I dropped my head into my hands and rubbed the space between my eyes hoping for relief, with no avail. I took a deep breath and looked back up. Somehow, although it seemed impossible, the rain cloud girl’s smile had gotten bigger. I search my memory for her name. Blank.

            Everyone around me began to get anxious; knowing the next event gave them their ticket out of here, the calling of names to get your diploma. Hands began to leave laps and straighten gowns and hair do’s. Eyes began to turn and search for parents so they knew exactly where to look for the good pictures. Throats were cleared; coughs were made, all as the clapping died down.

            Finally it was silent, and a slightly plump man walked up to the podium. He cleared his throat and loosened his necktie as if someone were in the back of the room ready to shoot him. I turned, slightly hoping it was true, but the doors in the back of the large auditorium were empty and closed. “Man.” I thought to myself, “That would have made this a little bit more interesting.” As if hoping for someone to interrupt him, the principal stood there, eyes searching the room desperately. I sighed and crossed my arms, waiting for him to speak. His eyes gave up and fell upon the podium in front of him. His next words were so easy it made me wonder if he really needed a page in front of him to read from.

            “Please do not clap until all names have been called. Congratulations class of 2012, and we are all very proud. Mr. Johnson will read your names.” Then his sigh rang in the microphone and he went to turn and sit down. Mr. Johnson took the podium and said thank you to our sweaty principal. Our Principal nodded a nervous nod for the attention had once again been put on him. Lucky for him, the attention was quickly taken to Mr. Johnson as he began to call the first name. I kept a lingering eye on Mr. Pirelli, our principal, and almost laughed as sweat began to drip down his forehead and his eyes were like the eyes of a deer caught in the headlights. I wondered, what makes him so nervous, as Mr. Johnson ended the A’s, with Jessica Auden and Alexander Austin.

            I leaned back in my chair. My last name started with a T, I had a while to wait. There were about four hundred students in my graduating year. I began to pay attention to those being called; each of them had the same face. They were all beaming wildly and looking for the camera flash, hesitating a second so their parents could get a good picture of them shaking Mr. Johnson, Mrs. Summer, our vice principal, or Mr. Pirelli, hand. I almost laughed.

            The names went by in a blur and I almost felt bad for not paying attention. I began to doze off into my own world when Mr. Johnson got to the D’s. I began to think about Marcy and the first time we met. Her first words to me made me laugh out loud. She was so little, an eighth grader, and I was in tenth grade then. She was my sister’s best friend, so she was staying over that night. After Kate went to sleep we stayed up until all hours talking. It was so easy. We didn’t even have awkward pauses or too personal moments.              It wasn’t more than three months later and we were dating.  She was my first love, my first kiss, and the first girl I made love to. Our last two and a half years had been nothing but perfect. Don’t get me wrong, we fought, we got angry, but we didn’t care. Love was too strong between us to keep us mad for more than a few minutes. All she had to do to make me grin after a fight was lay her head on my shoulder and look up at me with her cute crooked smile, the one were only half of her mouth went up and she bit her bottom lip, and, man, was I toast. That girl was crazy, but I loved it.

            All of my thinking almost made me miss my name. As I fazed back into this world, Mr. Johnson was calling the boy sitting next to me and he was already half was to the stage. I began to stand right before Mr. Johnson called my name. Carson Tylor. When I was upright I walked down the row of chairs and out into the open floor. I took the remaining twenty-five steps to the stage and climbed the three stairs that led to it. Mr. Johnson welcomed me with a million dollar smile and one arm extended. “Great job, son.” He murmured before calling the next name and handed me my diploma. I walked past him holding my diploma in my left hand and shaking the two remaining people’s hands on stage. I walked off the stage just as the person behind me was shaking the hand of Mrs. Summer. Seeing this, I hurried back to my seat.

            I sat through another fifty-five names and then stood up and clapped along with everyone else. Mr. Pirelli, sweat and all went back up the podium and told us congratulations and every student around me threw up their hats and shouted in celebration. I thought about throwing up my hat too until my eyes glanced side ways and caught sight of her.

             This moment seemed to go in slow motion as I glance at Marcy and she winked at me. I felt my heart skip a beat, my melancholy face begin to change, and the butterflies begin their flutter within my stomach all at the same time. She’s mine, I thought, our forever is so close now.  I smiled for what felt like the first time today and began to walk over to her. She smiled back at me and I began to open my arms to her when, poof, she disappeared. I was left standing there dumbstruck and lonely until loud beeping rang in the room and I opened my eyes to a bedroom. At that moment it all came back to me. The car, the crash, the blood, the last beeps of machines and then . . . It hit me like a bullet to the heart and I almost cried. I wasn’t with Marcy anymore. Marcy was dead. And it was all my fault.

            My breath was rough and shallow. Cold sweat had stuck my blanket to me as if it were a sticker to a piece of paper. I closed my eyes hoping to get control of my quivering hands and torso. It was hopeless I told myself after trying this four times.

            “Marcy.” I whispered under my breath. I opened my eyes and moaned. My breath caught in my throat like my tears were caught in my eyes. I blinked my eyes to hold them back, keeping my eyes shut for what I wished was a lifetime. I opened my eyes once more and stared at my ceiling. The plain white on the ceiling reminded me where I was. I wasn’t at home where my baseball trophies sat near me, or my walls were dark blue with white trim. No, I was far from home. I was in my cell, cell 42, at the Dayton county corrections facility for men. After the car hit my motorcycle on their turn from Jackson onto my road, I was the only one who survived. I had been charged with five counts of vehicular manslaughter, Marce, and a family of four including two kids under ten.

            I clenched my fist and closed my eyes hoping, selfishly, to just drift back to a peaceful sleep. Eventually I did, however it was far from peaceful. When my eyes closed all I heard was the piercing, spine tingling screams of those around me. And all I saw was Marcy right before the machine keeping track of her heartbeat fell to a flat line.

            The thoughts about the incident only brought more tears to my eye and suicidal thoughts to my brain.  I clenched my teeth until I tasted blood and dug my nails into my palms. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” I shouted, pounding my cells wall, “How could I be so stupid?”

            Marcy was gone because of me. Because I wouldn’t let her drive after I’d had one too many drinks at the graduation after party. Because I drove even though the road had doubled and the lights showing my path were exceedingly too bright. Marcy, a four year old, an eight year old, and two thirty four year olds. Gone. Just like that.

            Now because I made one stupid decision they had lost their lives, those babies will never get to grow up, I had lost my future and my freedom, I was going to go to Brown, and the love of my life had disappeared and was never coming back.

            I waited for my cellmate, who was in here for beating his wife to death when he got angry, to return, and when he did I insulted him, knowing what it would come to. A fight. And I knew I wouldn’t win.

            I floated between life and death. As I did this I thought, I deserve this; I deserve to die for killing five people, I deserve to rot in unbearable heat. I deserve it. When I was sure I was dead, the white light disappeared and I appeared to be floating on clouds.  I stood on them as if they were carpet. A man with brown sandals—I wouldn’t look at anything higher than that, I was way too ashamed—stood before me. He waited, and waited until I met his eyes and then he spoke two simple words, “FIX IT.”

            The bright light was back and I felt like I was falling. My vision returned and I woke up . . . in my bed . . . the morning before graduation. There was a light tap on the door and then Marcy walked in. I hugged her, tears falling from my eyes faster and with more force than a waterfall. “I missed you too, Carson.” She laughed.

            I didn’t know whether it was a dream, a warning, or God giving me another opportunity, but honestly, I didn’t care. This was my second chance.