Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Tough Stuff

by Jack Canfield

  “I don’t think I like being behind this truck,” Matt said nervously. “I’m going to get in the other lane.”

  Just as he turned his blinker on, I caught sight of the truck again. “Matt!” I screamed in terror. The next few seconds seemed to last forever, yet they went by faster than my mind could process what was happening. The huge truck spun out of control, landing on its side. Tree limbs, leaves and everything else imaginable came flying towards Matt’s car in a tangled mess. With a sickening crash, we came to a rest on the side of the road.

  I pried open my eyes. Broken branches and twigs were piled on my lap. The speed and force of the twigs hitting me had etched a pattern of bleeding scratches into my arms, face, and generally every other exposed area of skin. I couldn’t even see anyone in the front seat.

  “Becca? Matt?”

  No reply. Flying out of the car at warp speed, I ran around and pulled on Matt’s door. He was lost in a tangled mess.

  “Hold on. Hold on. I can get out.” He emerged, and I could hardly believe he was still alive. It didn’t even look like he had actual skin remaining on his face. But he was conscious, and at that moment, that was all I cared about.

  I ran around to the other side and flung open Becca’s door. Small tree branches were so densely packed into the front of the car that I couldn’t even see her. In a mix of fear and frenzy, I broke them away until I finally uncovered her.

  “Sara?”

  “Um-hmm. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I think . . . You look awful. Are you okay?”

  I think at that point my heart started beating again. “Yeah, fine. I’m glad you are. That was way too close. Can you get out?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to find someone who can call for help,” Matt announced, sprinting back in the direction we had come from. I prayed that someone would drive by; however, I knew that in the current weather condition, it was highly unlikely.

  “Okay, we’ll wait for somebody to get here.” I knelt by the door to keep her company.

  “I’m really glad you came to the dance with me,” she told me with a smile.

  “I’m glad I came, too.”

  Her smile turned to a grimace, and I followed her glance. Suddenly, I thought I was going to be sick. A large tree limb, at least as big around as my arm, protruded from her chest. Her entire left side was covered in blood and more was added to it with each pulse of her heart.

  “You’ll be okay,” I told her, feeling the phlegm in my throat. Taking her hand, I held on to it for dear life. My heart was smashed into a pulp as I watched her. With every breath I took, I could feel tiny, razor-sharp daggers stabbing every square inch of my body.

  She smiled again at me. Again, my heart took a beating. “You’re so sweet, thanks.”

  My face was wet, and I wasn’t sure whether it was with blood, rain or tears. It was probably all three. Soon, Becca’s hand grew cold and the blood that pulsed from her chest became significantly less with each beat.

  “Hey, Sara?” she whispered.

  “Hmm?” I managed, barely a sound at all.

  “Girl, I love you so much. Don’t let them keep us apart, okay?”

  Not really sure what she meant, I was willing to agree with anything. “Yeah, I’ll ride to the hospital with you.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Promise?”

  I searched for my voice for what seemed like priceless years. “I promise.” Becca smiled in her characteristically sweet way at me. Nodding, her eyes shut peacefully. The grip on my hand loosened.

  In a panicked choke, I thrust my head into the car, mere centimeters from hers. “Becca! Becca! Stay awake! Becca, no! Come on, girl! Bec—”

  Running out of voice, I stared in disbelief at the blood-covered, cold body of the person who had been closer to me than anyone else for eight years. Eight long years that had ended in a single unbelievable moment. I laid my head on her lap and sobbed her name until every last ounce of strength in me was gone. Dissolving into body-wracking tears, I fell onto the cold ground and grasped her hand again. The cold hail pounded my back, and I was all alone.

  Walking through those double doors again for the first time in two weeks, I braced myself as yet another wave of grief and loss blasted me in the face. It took complete concentration to make the interminable walk to my locker. I was aware that people were actually stopping to watch me go by. Finally I got there, and all I could do was stand there and stare at the cold, gray metal door.

  Looking to the ceiling for some kind of help, some kind of comfort, I prepared myself for the inevitable. There would be no little card taped to the top shelf, no recent sign of someone else’s presence besides my own there. Bracing myself against every emotion that beat against my body, I slowly spun my combination lock. Twenty-one . . . thirty-nine . . . twenty-two . . . click. I painfully swallowed the hard lump in my throat, removed the lock and slowly swung the door open.

  A new card was taped to the shelf, the handwriting on the envelope so unmistakably familiar. And yet . . . it just couldn’t be. Using every bit of control I had left, I peeled the envelope from the shelf. The well-known scent it carried actually knocked me over. Sitting hard on the floor, new tears came running down my cheeks in a rushing torrent. There was nothing left to do. I had to open it.

  Opening the card, I could barely read the lines through my blurred vision.

  Sara,

  Hey, I know you didn’t really want to come to the dance tonight, but I’m glad you agreed to it. Girl, I love you, and I hope I didn’t drive you nuts trying to convince you to do this. We’ve always stuck together, and it’ll never change, right? Hope you have fun. I’ll see you soon. Becca

  I let my eyes wander to the inside of the locker door and found exactly the picture I didn’t want to see. It had always been one of my favorites, dating back only about two months to band camp. We had our arms around each other, saluting with our instruments. The picture showed us laughing about something or other. We were always laughing about something. . . .

  I didn’t know how I was going to keep my promise to Becca. It seemed that fate had done a pretty good job of separating us. Already, I couldn’t vividly recall her smile, her laugh, her voice, her expressions.

  The bell rang, but as everyone drifted to class, I slipped outside. I lifted my face to the sky and let the sunlight dry my tears. New resolve filled my being. I grasped every memory, insignificant as some seemed, of my best friend and locked them into the big, empty space in my heart. They came nowhere near filling the gap, but I would never let them go, and for the first time I understood what Becca had meant in her final breaths. There was nothing that could ever keep us apart; time had proven that was impossible. Turning back to the school building I had entered for the first time not long ago, I knew that this time I had the strength to go back inside.

  After all, this time I wasn’t alone. I carried the spirit of my best friend, and she and I would never truly be apart. She lives on in every smile I give away.

  Sara Preston

  [EDITORS’ NOTE: This story is not entirely factual. Some aspects have been fictionalized.]

  Losing the Best

  My childhood was easy. You might even say I was spoiled, mostly by my mother. She was always in the mood to spoil me. If there was something I wanted, I knew to go to my mother. She was an angelically beautiful woman. She had this heavenly smell, kind of like ripe strawberries. And her hands felt like velvet, like a newborn baby’s fat and tender cheeks.

  On the other hand, for as long as I’ve known him, my father has been an overweight, balding man with thick bifocals. According to my mom, he used to be “a real catch,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. All I know is he has worked hard all his life to make sure my life is full of all the opportunity it can be. He has been saving money for my college education since I was five. I don’t think I have ever told him I appreciate him.

  My best friend Donny
was two and I was three the summer his family moved across the street from ours. One of the first conscious memories I have is of the two of us. It was the Fourth of July. The neighborhood families had a small fireworks show in the street in front of my house. The only part of the evening I remember is when I was lying on my mom’s shoulder. I remember looking over and seeing Donny lying on his mother’s shoulder, looking at me and smiling.

  Later, when we were in school, Donny and I would spend the night at each other’s houses on the weekend. This is when we would talk. We had anything-goes, no-holds-barred conversations. We talked about what we thought about life and what we wanted to be when we grew up. Donny wanted to be a billionaire, and I wanted to be everything from a teacher to an architect. For me, it changed almost as often as my underwear.

  For my sixteenth birthday, my mother wanted to get me a new car. My father said, “Joyce, let him get a job and buy his own car. He will appreciate it more.” He has always been an advocate for working hard and earning the things you want. During one of our father-son talks, he told me, “Life has this peculiar way of leveling out. What I mean is, if you work hard in life, like I have, you will get a break. In my case, the break has been our financial stability and our wonderful family. If you take it easy, you will get knocked down later.”

  I was young, dumb and didn’t listen. I rarely did my homework, and I scraped by on the tests. I didn’t cheat, lie or steal, not too much anyway. I just took it easy and put forth as little effort as possible to get by.

  My mother wouldn’t give in on the new car, so my father finally did. Mom bought me this cool black Toyota 4x4, with an earsplitting CD player and blinding KC lights. I felt invincible. The first thing I did that day was buy a radar detector. It became my “lookout man.” I never got pulled over for speeding. With my truck, I found a new freedom. With the radar detector, I acquired a new sense of rebellion.

  My seventeenth birthday was the year my father’s advice caught up to me. All day I had pleaded with my mom to lift my barely existing curfew for one night. Since I knew exactly what levers to pull and buttons to push, I got my way.

  That night, Donny and I went camping with a couple of friends of ours. We took my truck and John’s truck over Cook Mountain and down into the Lake Abundance campground. John and Rick made a stop in Cook City, while Donny and I drove on to the campsite. We had been to the site at least a hundred times with our Boy Scout troop, and knew the forty-five-minute drive like the back of our hands.

  Donny and I started setting up camp. About a half-hour after we arrived, John and Rick pulled up. They unpacked John’s truck and helped us finish setting up. Then we all relaxed around the huge fire Rick built. That is when John revealed the surprise he and Rick picked up in Cook City. They had found a bum standing at the edge of town with a sign that read, “Why Lie? Need Beer.” They made him an offer and he accepted. They paid him the change from what was spent out of fifteen dollars for a twelve-pack of Bud Light. He made somewhere around six bucks. I’m sure the whole thing was John’s idea because he was always doing the kind of crazy stuff he could get into a lot of trouble over.

  None of us had ever had more than a sip of our father’s beer before, and I was kind of hesitant. My dad had lectured me on the responsibilities and dangers of drinking alcohol many times.

  “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt ya,” Rick said, after he was halfway through his first.

  That has got to be the weakest argument that has ever come out of anybody’s mouth, but it was enough to convince me. I thought to myself, Three beers, what is that going to do to me? At the worst, I’ll get sick and puke.

  After we had guzzled, chugged and ripped apart three cans each, Rick spouted out, “I’m not feeling anything. We need some more.” It was time for a beer run.

  Donny and I were voted to go, so we jumped into my truck and went tearing off towards Cook City. We were both kind of excited by this little campsite rebellion. It was the first time we had ever done anything we knew our parents wouldn’t approve of—unless you count the time we snuck out of my house and got caught, but that shouldn’t count, because we didn’t do anything.

  I was probably driving a little too fast, but I am not sure because things were a little blurry—not to the point where I don’t remember anything, just to the point where things like speed and seatbelts don’t seem to matter. Donny suggested we take the shortcut. It would cut at least ten minutes off the trip, so we cut across Rattlesnake Field.

  It was mostly grass, the waist-high kind, perfect for lying on your back and watching the clouds roll by or a good game of hide-and-seek. The field was a whole lot steeper than the access road we had come in on. My truck would have made it on any given day, but it was night and we couldn’t see very well.

  The truck came to a quick stop with a loud thud. We had hit something and were hung up. I looked out my window. “I don’t see anything; you got anything over on your side?” I asked Donny.

  “Yeah, you hit a tree,” he said. “There is a rather large tree just behind your right front wheel.” It wasn’t really a tree; I wasn’t that drunk. It was a log that had been hidden by the tall grass.

  At this point, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do so I did what any young driver would have done: I floored the gas. The tires were ripping and spinning, and I was rooting for my truck. The log slipped out of place and threw my truck off balance. The truck started to roll. As I felt the truck start to fall off balance, I remember that feeling of panic you get when you know something bad is inevitable. I was almost immediately thrown from my door. Donny went through his window. I was thrown up the hill and out of the path of the truck; Donny was thrown downhill, under the truck and crushed as the truck rolled over him and on down. I remember hearing Donny yelp as the truck rolled over him.

  I started to run for help, but I heard his voice pleading, “Don’t leave me! Please, Drew, don’t leave me!” I immediately turned back.

  I slid down and crawled over to where he was. It was worse than I thought it would be. There was blood, a lot of blood. I think I even saw some bone. I wanted to run and get help, but I stayed there with him. I braced my self against the hill and set his head in my lap. He had a grass stain on his forehead and some blood-soaked dirt in the corners of his mouth. As I listened to him wheeze for air, I caressed his hair, the same haircut he had had since third grade. His broken ribs shifted with pain to the slow and inconsistent rhythm of every breath. I was crying as I held him. I felt like a first-grader who had been punched in the stomach by the school bully. An angry, sad, ashamed pit of emotions raged inside of me, like a pot of boiling oil. I wanted to scream, but I was crying too hard. I tried to apologize for doing this to him, but I was crying too hard. Then I noticed Donny’s breaths were getting fewer and farther between. With one final sigh and quickening tightness of pain, they stopped.

  I set his head down and started running. I didn’t stop until I had reached the campsite. I am not sure why I went there first. That is just where my legs took me. Rick and John were asleep by the fire. I splashed them with water, explained what happened and started running towards Cook City. John and Rick just laid there stunned into half-soberness and scared into solemn remorse.

  I made it to Cook City in about thirty minutes. I went straight to the twenty-four-hour convenience store where Rick and John had bought the beer. I asked the clerk to call 911.

  I led the police to the accident. Donny’s body was still lying there limp and cold, like an old doll nobody wants, tossed into the closet. The police questioned me all night, and then there were more questions the next day. “How did this happen? What did you do then? Why did you do this instead of this?” I was sick of all the questions.

  I hate that night. I wish I could forget it ever happened. I don’t think I ever talked to Rick or John again. I saw them in the halls at school, but none of us made eye contact.

  When Donny died, so did a part of myself. I was a junior in high school, and I nearly didn’t finish
that year. I could feel the other kids staring. I could hear them in the halls. I cried myself to sleep every night asking Donny to forgive me. The guilt was overwhelming. I dropped out of school my senior year. I just couldn’t concentrate, and I couldn’t take all the kids asking me if I was all right all the time.

  It has taken me a long time, but I have progressed. I don’t cry myself to sleep anymore, although sometimes I wake up, in the middle of the night, in a cold sweat crying out for Donny. My fiancée, Jennifer, has gotten used to it. At first, it scared her even more than it did me, but now she calms my nerves and sings me back to sleep. Tomorrow is our big day. I am going to marry her and begin a new chapter of my life. I only wish Donny was going to be my best man.

  Garrett Drew

  [EDITORS’ NOTE: This story is not entirely factual. Some aspects have been fictionalized.]

  Turn It Upside Down

  I spent a little over a year working with Kris at the Creamery, an ice-cream shop in our city. He was a year younger than me, about sixteen. We didn’t attend the same high school and didn’t have a lot in common—we simply worked together for an entire summer and school year. Outside of work I didn’t know a lot about Kris. He was close to his family, talked about his friends and his girlfriend a lot and was active in his church. But at work, I knew him well.

  Kris was probably one of the most uplifting people whom I have known. He loved to joke around, often blockading one of us into the huge walk-in freezer where all the ice cream was kept. He was a tall guy with smiling brown eyes and sideburns that he grew really long. He had so much energy and was always the first to do the jobs the rest of us hated, such as cleaning out the bathrooms or taking out the huge bags of sticky trash. I loved nights that I got to work with him. They went by fast and were fun. Plus, he was the only boy working at the Creamery, so I felt safe when I walked out the door, sometimes around midnight, to go home.

  I remember one night in particular. I came in at 5:00 P.M. that night to work the closing shift with Kris and Melanie. It was a hot summer day, and I was in a terrible mood, not at all looking forward to the night ahead. Kris could tell right away I was in a bad mood and tried to cheer me up, but it was pretty much to no avail. I had decided that it was just going to be a rotten day, and there was nothing anyone could do to change that. We finished up early, took out the trash and were walking to our cars after saying goodnight. Suddenly, I heard someone chasing after me. Before I could turn around to see who it was, Kris had picked me up and successfully turned me over so that he was holding me in the air upside down. I screamed until he finally let go, and I yelled at him, asking what in the heck he was doing. His reply was that he had to get me to smile at least once that night.