“CHASE!” I screamed and wailed on the man to put me down, “CHASE!” Everything was so silent, yet so loud at the same time. I couldn't hear the sirens, I couldn't hear the shrieks and sobs from his family, I couldn't even hear my own voice anymore. I can't describe what filled my ears, only that it was deafening.
I continued to struggle to get to Chase, and somehow realized I was no longer being carried away. I must have fallen to the ground and now two people were holding me so I couldn't get back up. I saw Konrad crushing Bree to his chest a few feet away from me, both sobbing and falling to the street as well. I didn't know where Claire and Robert were, but I couldn't make myself look around for them. My eyes snapped back to the truck as a few men pulled Chase through the passenger side door. He was limp, his blond hair and body covered in blood. A surge of adrenaline shot through my body and the next thing I knew I had pulled away from the people holding me and was running towards where they had put him on a stretcher in the street.
“Chase! Wake up! Please wake up!” I grabbed his lifeless hand before a female EMT could begin to remove me from the area again. I screamed at her and reached back towards him, “Don't leave me like this! Wake up Chase, please!”
I was taken to the back of a police car where an officer was trying to calm me down, and find out my relationship to the victim. I couldn't concentrate on him anymore, the high pitched silence was back. I looked over to Chase's family where they were standing next to a couple officers. Robert was the only one speaking, Claire and Breanna were clutching each other as Konrad was being taken to a second ambulance so the medics could tend to his arms. He had torn them up pretty severely when he tried to get Chase out of the truck. Another medic walked up to the family and spoke to the officers, I didn't need to be near them to know what he said. Bree's jaw dropped in a soundless scream and Mom fell to the ground while Robert bent at the waist, gripping his chest with one hand, his hair with the other. My arms cradled my belly as my little gummy bear gave a soft kick. “Daddy's gone baby.” I whispered.
~~~
Konrad was driving back after talking with, and dropping Brandon off at Chase's house, he had seen the whole thing. Chase blew through a red light, never once slowing down, the driver of the semi had been going almost sixty miles per hour.
“If there is anything we can do for your family, please let us know.” A couple I vaguely remembered from the New Year's Eve party hugged the four of us and turned to leave.
My eyes glanced over to the coffin and I felt the air leave my body. I'd been careful to keep my gaze on everything but the coffin, and now that I was looking at it, I couldn't seem to stop. I gripped Bree's arm and struggled to catch my breath.
“Breathe Harper.” A deep voice commanded as someone wrapped their fingers around my wrists.
My breaths came but they were coming too fast, and my ears were ringing. Chase was in there. Chase was in that box, dead. It was my fault, why did I let him leave that night? Big hands cupped my cheeks and turned my face, effectively tearing my eyes from the front of the church. As soon as the coffin was no longer in my sight I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on my breathing.
“Good girl Harper, keep breathing.” Thumbs brushed tears away from my cheeks, “Just keep breathing.”
I opened my eyes to see worried hazel eyes staring back at me.
“Better?”
I nodded and wrapped my arms around him, pressing my face to his blue shirt, “Thank you for coming Brandon.”
He rubbed soothing circles on my back until I unwrapped myself from him and latched back onto Bree. Ever since I'd been dragged out of Chase's bed this morning to attend the funeral, I felt like I constantly had to be touching someone, to make sure that this was all real. I desperately wanted to go back home, curl up in Chase's bed, breathe his scent in and numb my heart and mind again. This was all so much easier to deal with when I didn't feel anything.
Bree's next intake of breath was audible and her entire body tensed. “You have a lot of nerve showing up here.”
Trish was standing next to Mom, who after looking at her body covered in tattoos and pin up girl looks, put two and two together and stepped away. “I need to talk to you Harper.” She choked back a sob.
Brandon and Konrad moved so they were in between us, “I'm not sure that's the best idea, and this definitely isn't the place.” Konrad warned calmly.
She peered around Brandon, her eyes pleading, “I have to talk to you, you don't understand.” Trish burst into tears and took a step towards me, “You have to know.”