Making Amends

When I was a freshman in college, five of us traveled home for a weekend early in the fall semester.

I was all about my high school boyfriend at the time. I would soon be all about another boyfriend, and that was the way I was. Guys, fun, playing around, doing what I needed to do to make passable grades with the least amount of effort, to allow for more time for guys, fun, and playing around.

On the way back to school, very close to our destination, leaning up over the front seat (it was not a time of seat belt wearing), I spoke to the driver sotto voce. ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to pretend to run out of gas and freak out the other two girls?’ Immediately he played along, letting up on the accelerator.

And the other two girls responded so appropriately. Cries of dismay were forthcoming. The dark rural highway became so much more forbidding. The freshman curfew was suddenly looming. What was going to happen to us?

Nothing for it but to pull over, and start walking to what seemed a likely farmhouse nearby, which the five of us did, down a dirt road. And not far after starting, the driver, his buddy (who was in on it), and myself, turned and ran back to the car. See! Fun and games!

We made it back to the car just before the other two girls, barely, and they hopped, laughing, on the trunk. The driver pulled out from the shoulder, not really very fast, as I remember it.

But as the driver started up, and pulled out, one lost her grip, and slipped off. She fell onto the asphalt, and hit her head.

The car was stopped and we ran back to help her up, but something was wrong. She was unconscious and this was our first sign that she was injured. Somehow a law enforcement officer was there and I don’t remember how (this was before cell phones). Perhaps he just happened by, but he put her in the backseat of his vehicle and took her to hospital.
She was conscious now, so maybe she wasn’t in such a bad way.

We followed to the hospital, and I was very chagrined, as it did seem my fun idea had taken a rather dismal turn. It was obvious we were going to be in serious trouble, and it had been my idea.

Once at the hospital, we learned she had been taken into surgery. Her parents had been called, and were on their way from where we had just spent the weekend. She had hit her head very, very hard on the pavement, suffering a terrible brain trauma, and she died shortly before her parents arrived early the next morning, if I am remembering right.

I was not a close friend to her, or to the two fellows, having just met them for the ride home. I had been, in years past, a very good friend to the other girl. There were four 18 year olds in this tragedy, and I think I was the only one mostly concerned about the trouble I was going to be in. The lives, the real feelings, the depth of the heartbreak, none of that was going on in my little sphere. It just didn’t occur to me. I didn’t know any better. I really honestly was just that … self-serving.

I kept mostly to myself through the aftermath, not seeking out any with whom I might share feelings, or might help me find those feelings. Hell, I didn’t even know at this point in my life what honest feelings were. I was so, so clueless. My stupid, ‘fun’ idea resulted in a girl’s death, a set of parents living without a daughter, and three other rather more mature freshman having to grow up and live with the memories of that night.
And I am so, so sorry.