Give and Take

He’s tall. I know that. Probably a few inches taller than me. And muscular, enough to be intimidating. He has brown hair with blue eyes (though I can hardly tell because his face is usually twisted in a squinty-eyed glare). His nose looks as if it’s been broken once or twice, and there’s perpetual stubble on his face (I would guess he’s in his early twenties, but he mentioned high school once). I don’t know his name, but after experiencing his macho-man appearance (sleek black suit included) and attitude, I’ve taken to calling him Agent Bond. Not to his face, though. He doesn’t need an ego boost.

At first I thought Agent Bond was just a hunk I dreamed up. Then he started talking to me, and I realized he is a complete doucher, and I wouldn’t never dream up someone who is so wholly intolerable. Then I decided he was a demon coming to rape my virgin body. That theory hasn’t been disproven yet.

For a month, I saw this asshole every night, always in the same place. I would be on the roof of a tall building, sitting on the ledge. Beneath me would be the entirety of Nowecky, Georgia (which isn’t much). I am never scared up there, not even staring at the cracked sidewalk many stories beneath me. I don’t know if I would jump, because before I can entertain the though, Agent Bond sits next to me. Until two weeks ago, I ignored him. Kind of. As much as one can ignore a hunk of man-meat in a suit. Then one night, as I was staring at the skyline of my small town, he talked to me. Walked up as usual, sat down, then, “Yo.”

Fucking yo.

Who the fuck says “yo” anymore?

And that’s exactly what I said back to him. We exchanged words after that, which ended up with me shoved onto my ass on the dirty concrete of the roof. Two weeks pass, and each night he gets more infuriating. He didn’t stop saying “yo”, either, which I think he does to piss me off.

Then last Friday night, my world went to shit.

Literally.

I was driving along a small back road, heading home. This road is known for the deer that will jump across it, which I knew but was too stupid to care about. So I went around 30 miles over the speed limit. As I was rounding a curve, a doe jumped out of the woods on the side of my car. I swerved, hard, and the momentum launched my car off the side of the road. Through the guard rail, over a small ditch, and straight into a neighbor’s septic tank.

The thing exploded, sending watery, foul-smelling shit across the spotty yard. I gathered later that the tank had stopped my car, and the momentum sent my face through the steering wheel. Shit had rained down on me (I was dead at this point, so I wasn’t too grossed out) and covered the yard and car in a fine coat of feces. Looking back, I don’t feel too bad about the neighbor’s yard (who the hell doesn’t have an underground septic tank?).

Approximately 5 minutes later, I raised my head from the steering wheel to vomit on the passenger’s seat. After emptying my stomach, I crawled my way out of the twisted metal, and slid my way through liquid feces to the ditch I previously vaulted over. Luckily I was too disoriented to notice the mess around me. I stumbled a hundred yards down the ditch, where it turned into a small creek, passed out in the shallow water.

The next day, after a long trip home and an even longer shower, I tried not to think about it. Of course, my parents had heard that their car was found as a heaping hunk of metal a few miles away, so I made up a feeble tail of auto-theft. Shockingly, they believed me, and I was left to wonder what the hell happened.

I knew I crashed the car. No one would steal that piece of junk. But how I was sitting in my room, without a scratch on me, was the puzzle.

Before I continue, you should know something about me. I’m usually a perfectly reasonable kid, a regular white sheep. I curse, drink a little, and kiss other boys, but nothing bizarre. Except for my one hamartia: a tragically insatiable sense of curiosity. So when my mind jumps to the most drastic reactions, I want to follow them.

Sunday night is when I caved. I had been obsessing over what ifs about the car crash, and my curiosity and possibly watching too many episodes of Heroes finally overwhelmed common sense. I knew I should’ve died in that crash; my brain should’ve been in pieces over the front windshield. So the drastic conclusions that I jumped to were: I am Claire Bennet or I am crazy.

Either way, I figured jumping off a building wouldn’t be too risky. Only a few stories up, nothing possibly fatal (I’m not sure what height a fall would become fatal. This information was also based on movies.).

So on Sunday around 9 at night, I climbed to the roof of my apartment building and stood on the ledge. I don’t remember thinking anything at all at that moment, not until I jumped. After I took that step off the ledge, my mind snapped into focus. I was falling through the air and staring down at cracked pavement. In that instant, I saw him. The boy from my dreams. He was on the street below me, still looking straight ahead and walking. As I let out a reflexive scream, his head turned towards me. We locked eyes, and continued to stare at each other as I rapidly approached him. I had fallen parallel to the earth, so I could see his shocked expression easily. Then, a moment too late, I realized that I was heading straight for him. And with a sickening crunch, I ended my descent directly on his surprised face.