Introduction:
Hello There Readers,
Hello There Readers,
For the past couple of years I have had the greatest desire to write something, whether it be a standalone novel, a Harry Potter length series, or a children’s book. I have just been wanting to put something of myself on paper, and now I have. I have written a short story that means a great deal to me. I have been loving thrillers so that is where this story comes from. I wanted to create a plot that keeps my readers questioning what is going to happen and how it is going to impact people. I enjoyed writing this story so very much and I hope you enjoy reading it just as much.
With all my love,
Chantelle
Prologue: Where it All Began.
Noise, laughter, chaos—then everything stops, and all that’s left is immense fear. Charlotte isn’t sure where she is. There is only darkness around her. . All of a sudden a couple of bushes and some cars come into view. Charlotte looks up and is sitting in her car, or at least she thinks she is sitting in her car. She can’t really tell. She looks around some more but it’s almost impossible to make anything out through the darkness. She begins to panic. Charlotte cannot tell what is happening. She tries to look around again at her surroundings. She sees more bushes and more cars. Slowly, headlights appear— now she can see the outlines of a few bushes and several cars. Her eyes close, she loses track again and hears more laughter, then everything pauses and CRASH! Everything around her is frozen. Almost like time has stopped. Right now Charlotte can only feel fear. Earth-shaking, world-crashing fear. Charlotte looks at Poppy, then tears begin to fall. She shakes her head as she remembers what led up to this moment— she’d just hit someone with her car. Charlotte and Poppy look at each other blankly. The only thing they can do is stare. “What just happened?” they think. Slowly Charlotte starts to lose focus, the headlights begin to dim, the bushes and cars begin to blur, then abruptly there is only darkness. Charlotte hears more laughter and then her stomach turns as she hears another CRASH!
Charlotte jolts awake. She’s shaking, sweating, and having trouble breathing. She tries to calm herself down. She takes long, deep breaths. Slowly she is able to breathe normally again and in minutes she falls back to sleep, only to be awoken again into the same horrid nightmare.
Chapter 1: What the Fuck Did I Do?
Sunday morning Charlotte woke up just after noon with a splitting headache. This in itself was nothing new, since she had been waking up like this every Sunday for the past three months— ever since she found Travis cheating on her with her younger sister, Teagan. Charlotte had been trying to drink herself happy; however, there was something very different about this morning. Charlotte had a bad feeling that she did something that could land her in some serious trouble. She got up and began to pace her room while nervously twirling a lock of her hair and thinking, “What did I do? How much did I drink last night?” Charlotte couldn’t stand thinking about it anymore. She decided to get up and figure out what the hell happened last night.
With long, strawberry blonde hair that she usually wore in perfect beach waves, and soft, bright green eyes, Charlotte was quite beautiful. At barely five feet tall, she always wore heels, usually paired with skinny jeans and bright colored everything, because it made her feel more confident. She really hated being so short! Charlotte was very caring, sweet, energetic and loved working with kids. Currently enrolled in college, working towards her teaching credential, everyone thought she was perfect for the teaching program and she really didn’t want to lose this chance. Everything she’d worked for ran through her head as fuzzy memories from the night before began playing in her mind. She was one semester away from student teaching and couldn’t possibly continue with the program if she’d done what she thought might have done.
Pulling her long, knotted hair into a messy bun, Charlotte struggled out of bed and went straight to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water, and quickly chugged it down. Hitting the sƒhower was the next step if she was going to kill this headache and figure out what in the world she’d done last night. She needed to make sense of it before police came knocking on her door, demanding answers that she currently didn’t have. She took a quick shower, got dressed, and banged on her roommate’s door.
“Get up, Lo! I need you, NOW!” Charlotte shrieked, her panic rising.
“Charlotte, go the fuck away. I am so hungover from last night I can’t even think.” Lola warned, annoyed.
Charlotte slid down Lola’s door, beginning to sob quietly. “Lo, I think I did something bad. I have this horrible feeling.”
Lola, with her chestnut brown hair and caramel colored eyes, was almost the exact opposite of Charlotte. She always wore her hair cut to just past her shoulders, straight or in a half up double top knot. She was five foot seven and a bit more conservative than Charlotte, typically wearing pencil skirts and ballet flats. She always needs to be put together, since she was currently applying to law schools all over the country. She scored very high on her LSATs and could get accepted practically anywhere. Lola was very stubborn, hard headed and justice minded. She could argue her way out of just about everything. Let’s face it, she was born to be a lawyer. With what could possibly be happening with Charlotte, this could be a very good thing.
Lola opened her door and sat down next to Charlotte. Looking square into Lola’s green eyes while trying to make her own caramel eyes look calm and empathetic, she softly whispered, “Shhhh, Charlotte. Calm down, I am sure you did nothing wrong.”
Lola then grabbed Charlotte's hands and pulled her in close. She then slowly wrapped her arms around Charlotte’s shoulders and gave her a hug, a hug so tight that Charlotte had to readjust so she could maintain her already struggling breathing. Charlotte just stared at Lola’s lavender nails trying to stop crying.
“Lo, you don’t understand. I don’t remember anything from last night but I keep getting these flashes of my car hitting someone. That doesn't insinuate anything.” Charlotte whimpered in between sobs.
“Listen babe, you are not stupid or reckless there is no way that you could have done that. You never drive drunk. We didn’t even go home in your car. You couldn’t have done what you think you did.”
“I don’t know, but will you please help me figure it out? Maybe, we can go get my car and I can see if I can try to remember what happened?”
“Of course, give me ten minutes to shower and get ready. Grab my keys and wait for me in the living room. I’ll be quick, I promise.”
“Thank you so much, Lola, I don’t know what I would do without you.” Charlotte sighed and looked for a second like she was going to dissolve back into tears, but Lola stood up and immediately reached down to help Charlotte off the floor.
“I know babe, I know. I always have your back though, always and forever.”
Charlotte and Lola have been best friends since they were in preschool. On the first day of preschool Lola knocked over Charlotte’s apple juice during snack time. Charlotte instantly began crying— she cried over every little thing back then—but Lola quickly grabbed her own grape juice and handed it to Charlotte. That made Charlotte smile, and her and Lola have been best friends ever since.
Lola has been a true rock for Charlotte since her break up with Travis. In the midst of all that Charlotte was feeling, Charlotte was so thankful that Lola was her person; the Meredith Grey to her Cristina Yang, especially if she really did run over someone with her car.
In a panic, Charlotte turned on the news to see if there were any hit and run notices. And to her complete horror, there was. The girl who was hit is in critical condition, it happened right down the road from the party and they don’t think that she is going to make it.
“LOLA,” Charlotte screamed, “Get in here now! There was a hit and run last night, right down the street from the party, and they don’t think the girl is going to make it.”
Lola came running down the hall, throwing her black square glasses on to watch the news with Charlotte. Lola slowly turned toward her best friend, grabbed her face, and quietly said, “Don’t you dare start to panic. You have no idea if that was you. Let’s go get your car and we will figure it out. Okay?”
“Okay, let’s go.” It all came out in a soft sob. Lola just grabbed Charlotte’s hand and guided her to the car. Lola had no clue what was happening, but she knew that her best friend needed her and she refused to let her down.
Across town, Poppy had been pacing her room running her hands through her blue-black, extension-filled hair, sobbing and mumbling, “What did I do? What in the fuck did I do?”
Poppy was barely able to sleep last night. She kept having a nightmare of her running over some girl after the party. Poppy was too wasted to actually remember running over that girl, but the nightmares all seemed so real she had to have done it. She had to figure out what happened, but she didn’t even know where to begin. She let herself fall to the ground and just sob.
Poppy was a senior fashion student. Currently trying to put together her fashion line for her final project so she could finally graduate and start her own clothing brand, just like her idol Brooke Davis from “One Tree Hill.” She was planning on calling her line, “Sewing Poppies.” Poppy only wears clothes that she made herself. Maxi dresses, crop tops, tank tops, sundresses, all the works, all handmade by her. If she wanted to be a top fashion designer, she needed to advertise her clothing. She constantly had people asking her where she got her clothes, so she knew she was going to have a top line someday- that is, if she isn’t a murderer. She had too much at stake to have run over some girl.
When Poppy’s roommate, Hadley, finally got home from work, she noticed Poppy sobbing on the floor by their couch and came running to her. She reached out for Poppy and cradled her in her arms and whispered, “Sweetie, it’s okay. Stop crying. Everything will be alright. Tell me what happened.”
Hadley worked nights as an RN; she just finished nursing school last year and practically eats, sleeps, and breaths nursing. If Hadley isn’t in her scrubs, she is in LulaRoe Leggings and Perfect T’s. She was more into comfort than fashion. Her long brown to blonde ombre was often in a high ponytail. The only times she ever dressed up or did her hair were special occasions and date nights. She was honestly just too busy with work to really focus on anything else. Hadley worked at a hospital two towns over, so she hadn’t heard anything about what happened with the hit and run just yet.
Poppy quickly explained what happened in between sobs. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but I’m having nightmares that I ran over some girl last night while driving Charlotte’s car. I don’t know H, it just feels so real, like it actually did happen. I was so drunk last night. I blacked out. I don’t remember much, so I have to believe that I did this.”
Hadley ran her nails, painted nude for professionalism, along Poppy’s back trying to comfort her.
“Hon, listen. You would never drive drunk, even if you were blackout drunk. You are not that person. Let me see if there was even someone run over last night, this is all probably just a nightmare.”
Hadley pulled out her phone and began searching for any accidents in the last twelve hours. To her complete horror, there was a girl who just died from a hit and run right down the street from where the party was last night. How could she possibly tell Poppy this? However, before she could decide, Poppy grabbed Hadley’s phone and began reading the page. She began to sob hysterically again, this time even harder than before, and began to struggle with her breathing.
“P, calm down. You need to just breathe. We still don’t even know if you did that,” Hadley said, trying to console her friend.
Poppy and Hadley hadn’t known each other for very long, but they’d instantly hit it off. They’d begun living together about nine months ago, after Poppy had posted an ad on Craigslist. It was right after her boyfriend, Shane, had moved to California to pursue his acting career. He’d broken up with Poppy, saying he needed to “find himself.” Poppy has been trying to find herself every Friday and Saturday night since, by going to different parties and getting drunk, hoping to forget her pain. Hadley had been trying to help her friend heal in a better way, but it hadn’t been working so far. “Maybe this will be a good wake-up call for her to stop drinking so much and actually try to heal from this,” she thought to herself. Hadley couldn’t believe she’d just thought this, but it was true. Poppy needed a wake-up call, and this could be it.
“H, what the hell am I supposed to do? I do not want to be a murderer. I don’t want to have killed this girl,” Poppy nearly shouted at Hadley.
Hadley calmly suggested a plan of action. “P, let’s go over to Char and Lo’s house and talk to them about what they remember.”
“Y-yeah…” Poppy stuttered, as she tried to tone down her sobs and catch her breath. “Let’s head over there. Hopefully Charlotte or Lola will have some answers. Maybe they’ll remember what happened.” Poppy honestly saw absolutely nothing else she could do.
Hadley, Charlotte, and Lola had been best friends since high school. Hadley was a transfer freshman year, and Charlotte and Lola were assigned to show her around. They became fast friends, and then a few years later, Hadley introduced the two girls to Poppy at a party they all went to together after Hadley had first moved in with Poppy. Poppy and Charlotte had hit it off quickly, but since Charlotte’s breakup they’d become even closer, given the fact that they were both trying to forget about their former loves by drinking the pain away every weekend.
Hadley laced her arm through Poppy’s as they walked together to the car. They needed answers fast, or Poppy was going to completely lose it. Hadley was exhausted and didn’t want to deal with a massive breakdown, because she didn’t have the energy to console Poppy appropriately. She was really relying on Charlotte or Lola having answers. She wasn’t very optimistic though, because Charlotte has been drinking just as much as Poppy and Lola is usually hooking up with guys and nowhere to be found at parties. Maybe Hadley would be surprised for once, and her best friends would know what had happened?
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