Tears filled my eyes, but I wouldnt let her see me cry. Her hand laid in mine, but I soon filled with hate and slowly let it slip away. You could tell she was shocked by the sudden shake her body took. A tear rolled down her cheek and I made no movement to wipe it away, she looked hurt and I couldnt care. Just because she couldnt see my pain didnt mean I wasnt being cut just as deep as she was. A slight breeze made it's way by the tree's and in through the vents of my '87 black Corvette. She shivered, and my hands reached over automatically, but I wavered and pretended I had planned to turn the radio on all along. I turned the car on to feel the heat wash over me in a wave of sympathy. I fastened my seat belt and pulled away from my park on a hill in the middle of nowheres. It was completely dark out and I had paid no attention to the clock but it seemed as though we had been talking for hours. I started down the highway and out of the corner of my eye I could see hyer legs, where they met her short white skirt, how her arms crossed over her white haulter top, and I could see how her eyes fell over me as if they could see right through me.
She whispered words that sounded like I'm sorry, breaking the silence, and breaking my chain of thought which was bound to spiral out of control anyhow.
I didnt reply, I couldnt, I didnt know how to. My throat clenched and I knew I was going to cry again.
"Jamie...please understand..." She pleaded before I cut her off. "Amanda, how am I supposed to understand what you're doing to me when you can't even make yourself understand."
Tears welled up in her eyes and anger pulsed through my veins. She had been playing me from the very beginning, she never loved me, I was a tool, just a sweet boy to make her feel good about herself, but I would never be as good as Jay seemed to be.
"You're telling me you love me and than you go running to him telling him the exact same thing." I ran my mouth off, I knew I shouldnt be saying these things and I knew I would regret them later but I couldnt help myself. "James...he's my boyfriend, I have to tell him eveything I do."
God, how could she even say that, it made me want to scream.
"If you love him so much, why are you here with me?" My voice softened and I turned to look at her, a single tear escaping from my baby blue eye. I turned my attentioon back towards the road, lights so blinding it caused my eyes to feel as though they were exploding. "What is..." Her piercing scream erupted through the small car, followed by the sound of torture, torment and grinding metal. Sounds so disgusting they made my stomache churn as everything went into slow motion. My body plummeted forward, caught on my seatbelt. Something cracked and pain erupted throughout my chest. My windshield shattered, showering me with tiny pieces of glass which stuck into my skin like eels biting me as I drowned, I could only watch as Amanda's body was thrown through the windshield and over the 4x4 truck. The car had been hit straight on but from a left angle and now started to roll. I felt as though I was a rag doll, my head smoked something hard, either the steering wheel or my window, I lost consciousness after that.

Sweat dripped down my back and off my face, the heat was unbearable, scorching at my face. My eyes fluttered, it was extremely painful to keep them open, but I had to try. My head was pounding from the force of the blood rushing from the rest of my body to gather and settle there. I kept my eyes open long enough to see a bundle of metal ten feet away blazing like a bomb filled with destruction. The seatbelt was killing my chest, driving itself into my ribs which seemed to have been cracked if not broken. I wanted out of this mess I once called my car. My eyes stayed fixated on the burning truck, and only now did I realize it was upside down. Wait, it was I who was upside down, thar car had been laying on its roof the entire time. I grabbed at my seatbelt, fumbling to press the release trigger. I could smell the gas now as it filled my nostrils and went straight to my brain. Damnit, my seatbelt was stuck, I need to cut it loose but I didnt have anything that I could cut it with. I glanced around for something I could use as a substitute for a knife, like a piece of metal. My eyes focused on a piece of glass still stuck in the windshield, it had seemed so far away but when I reached for it, it was right in front of me. Grabbing at it I could feel the shard edges find their way inside of my hand, I pulled it free and blood streamed down my fingers, dripping onto the roof of what used to be my car. The fabric on the seatbelt started to peel away under the pressure of my weight and the sharp edges of the glass. It snapped, I had not been prepared for it to break so soon, I fell from my seat and landed on my left arm, crushing it under my weight. The snap was faint but the pain seemed to over power the sound of the flames slowly reaching my car. I propped myself up onto my right arm and used a type of army crawl to get out through the broken windshield. I was halfway through when I felt a sharp pain erupt near my ribs, I didnt have time to stop, the fire was moving fast. I was finally out of the car, I stood and glanced around for Amanda, I then made my way around the fires. The scariest thing a seventeen year old could ever see, the body's, there were two. One was so torn apart you couldnt tell who is was, burnt and scraped from the debris, the one laying beside it was a male in his thirtie's, he had sandy brown hair that was almost a buzz, his clothes were ripped and torn and he clearly had been killed. This proved my greatest fear true, the mutilated body must be Amanda's. I killed my best friend, my lover, the only one I would ever actually take a bullet for. I stumbled over beside it, her body, the only evidence it was still her were the most amazing set of hazel eyes I have ever seen. My throat clenched for the hundreth time that night but this time I had to let it go. A light caught my eyes and I turned to see the sirens coming my way, an ambulance, some police cars and a fire truck. I sat patiently, staring at her wide, lidless, hazel eyes a memory that would haunt me until the day I gave my last breath. A hand tapped my shoulder and asked me if I was okay, then to step away from the body. As if on cue my lips mouthed I love you, and then they sat me in the back of the ambulance and tended to my wounds, placed a sling on my arm, bandaged my ribs, my head, and my cut arms, then the took me to the hospital and that's where I stayed until the day of her funeral.

The leaves blew and the birds sand song's that sounded like good-bye. I stood beside a freshly dug grave with a brand new tuxedo on, I just wanted for her to have the best.The funeral service had finished and everybody except me staying in to say some last words. Amanda's boyfriend, Jay, still didnt know and I couldnt bare to break his heart and have him remember her that way. To have him remember her as the slut who cheated on him with her bestfriend. I could hear the murmur of the people who were to upset to actually speak start to approach the empty grave in front of me. Amanda's mom stepped up beside me, her black dress rustling in the wind, anybody could have told me that I had been crying, and the moment she touched my hand and smiled at me a tear streamed down my cheek. She pulled me into a hug and assured me that it hadnt been my fault but I knew they all blamed me. The rest of the people had arrived now, and I turned to see Amanda's Dad, Jay and two other people I had never met carry her casket over towards the crowd and I. They reached the grace and her mother started to cry, I put my arm around her and told her that I was sorry, I didnt mean to, I would never... They lowered her casket into the grave and I somehow caught Jay's eye, it was so hard to look at him, so hard to try and smile, and all that seemed to come out was a sob and a few tears. Amanda's mom took a picture of Amanda's Dad, herself, and Amanda than placed it in the grave on top of her casket. Jay stepped forward and kissed a picture of him and Amanda then let it sink to where not only his broken heart lay but where mine settled too. I had nothing to give to her, instead I started to cry and thought about how I loved her. Nobody could ever think you would fall in love at seventeen, that you would find the person you have been searching for all your life and were willing to spend the rest of it with. She may have pictures of those she loved, and as the dirt filled the grave I knew that's where my heart would stay.
Amanda Fletcher 1989-2006. "Beloved".