buckle your seatbelts kids i'm so sorry about this

• • •

Listening to music that's just a little too loud as the shitty car speakers rattle, windows rolled all the way down because we can't contain our joy, this night couldn't get any better. I'm overwhelmed with happiness and I couldn't care less about the fact that I haven't listened to Fall Out Boy in a while and fucked up on the lyrics to Sugar, We're Goin Down.

It's not just about the fact that we'll be arriving in Jersey very soon (were about to leave New York state), that I'll get to see my dad, my girlfriend, all these people I've been missing for months, so much so that it feels like I left a piece of me behind when I left. It's not just that I'm going to get to meet my baby sister, Bandit, for the first time. Hold her in my arms and tell her she's a perfect little angel I can't wait to watch grow up.

It's that my voice will be raw by the time the sun comes up from screaming lyrics at the top of my lungs. I haven't felt this alive, my heart hasn't swelled like this with excitement, pure glee, even contentment, since the night Emerald crashed her lips against mine after we'd counted down to, "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" all those months ago.

And it's that I dug myself into a hole after that. Spiralled into a pit of self destruction and lies I vowed never to return to and felt like I'd never be able to crawl out of, but now I feel like I finally have. I feel like I've learned to breathe again after months of being stuck under water.

"Oh my God, I love this song!" Ryder yells over the intro to American Idiot.

"Everyone loves this song!" Krash yells back.

"DON'T WANNA BE AN AMERICAN IDIOT," we all shout in unison as we zoom across the George Washington Bridge, leaving Manhattan and entering New Jersey. "DON'T WANT A NATION UNDER THE NEW MANIA!"

"Are you crying, Way!?" Raven asks, peering at my face under the passing street lights and headlights from other vehicles, leaning over and basically shouting in my ear so I can hear.

I put a hand up to my face and wipe the tears off my cheeks I didn't even notice were falling. "Happy tears!" I tell them. "I'm so happy right now!"

If we weren't on our way to my home, I wouldn't want this journey to end. We have hours worth of music and stamina, fuelled by the night air and the bass thumping in our chests.

But every journey has to come to an end.

Ryder mutes the music. "What the fuck are they doing?" he asks no one in particular, squinting through the windshield.

My eyes widen. "Krash, step on the brakes."

"Shit, shit, shit," he says under his breath as we approach the car stalled in the road up ahead.

"Krash step on the brakes!" I shriek.

But we're going too fast. We'll hit them dead on, so he panics and swerves.

You know how they say your life flashes before your eyes? Well it's true. Every moment of it— every smile and laugh, every tear shed, every memory you thought you'd forgotten— compressed into just a few chaotic seconds before it all fades to black.

• • •

Mikey and I weren't planning on spending the night sitting on the couch, but we've been here for the last few hours after we discovered a Star Wars marathon was playing. We sat down just as The Empire Strikes Back was starting.

It's nearing 1am, Lindsey is asleep upstairs and so is Bandit. I asked if they wanted to stay down here, but Linds suggested we wait a few years to introduce the baby to the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire.

"What time's everyone coming tomorrow?" Mikey asks out of the blue, after neither of us have said anything in a while.

"Around lunchtime," I reply without taking my eyes off the screen. "Why?"

"Trying to figure out how many hours of sleep we get if we finish this marathon."

"I'd tell you, but I can't do math. Especially not at one in the morning."

Mikey snickers. "Same here," he says. "All I need is a couple hours and time to take a shower before everyone gets here."

"Man, we spent weeks crammed in a bus without a shower, and you wanna sacrifice valuable sleep time to shower tomorrow? I think you'll survive without it."

Mikey thinks for a couple seconds. "You know what? You're right," he says decidedly, propping his feet up on the coffee table and refocusing his eyes on the TV screen.

Just then, a line of text shows up at the bottom of the screen. The words run quickly, but I still manage to read them, suddenly forgetting about the movie. I turn to Mikey to check that he read the same words as I did. The way his eyes are widened tells me he did.

"Holy shit," he says quietly. "Did you see that?"

"Yeah," I say under my breath, "yeah, I did."

The words read, written in bold capital letters to make sure no one could miss them: FATAL TWO VEHICLE COLLISION ON GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE.

Mikey grabs the TV remote and flips it to a news channel to see if they're talking about the crash. Sure enough, they are. Images of flashing lights meet our eyes, and the sound of the news anchor's voice is being drowned out by sirens and other vehicles, but I manage to hang on to what she's saying.

"I'm at the scene where two vehicles collided tonight on the George Washington Bridge. The victims are yet to be identified, though we have confirmation that four teenagers have been air-lifted to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Their conditions are unknown."

"Fuck," I say, covering my face in my hands, "they were only kids."

"That's horrible," Mikey says, and I nod lightly in agreement. He flicks off the TV and we're plunged into silence. A tense, heavy silence filled only by our own thoughts rolling around in our heads, then— the sudden ringing sound makes me flinch— the sound of my phone going off.

I lean and grab it from the table, seeing unknown number show up on the screen. It's odd, but I pick it up anyway.

I shake my head, snapping myself out of my stupor, and say, "Hello?"

"Hello, are you Evelyn Way's father?" A pleasant but unfamiliar voice asks.

"Yeah," I reply cautiously, "who's this?"

"This is nurse Walsh from NewYork-Presbyterian hospital. Evelyn had saved your contact in her phone as 'dad' so we called as soon as possible." Immediately, I feel sick because I know what's coming. "How soon can you get here?"

"On my way." Instead of hanging up the phone, I throw it across the room. It hits the wall and shatters.

Mikey jumps back. "What the fuck was that, Gee?"

"Evie," I choke out.

Mikey starts, "What—"

"Hospital."

"Gee, don't tell me you mean..."

"Crash," I say without fully believing I'm not asleep, stuck in some nightmare that I'll wake up from with sweat beading down my forehead.

Next come Lindsey's hurried footsteps down the stairs. "What the fuck was that sound?" she asks, standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"Go get in the car, Gee," Mikey tells me shakily, standing up from the couch. All the blood has drawn from his face. "I'll drive."

"What's going on?" Lindsey asks, stepping forward with concern written all over her face.

I wish I could tell her everything is okay, but I can't. I can't say anything. I can only bite my lip until it bleeds to keep the tears from spilling as I blindly move towards the front door. Behind me, I hear Mikey explain briefly to her where we're going, tell her to stay here with Bandit and we'll call her as soon as we get there. Then I feel him grab my arm and drag me out to the car.

We're speeding down the road less than thirty seconds later, and to keep myself sane, I think out loud. There are too many thoughts to contain and they spill like lava from a volcano, hot and angry and uncontrollable. "What the fuck was she even doing on that fucking bridge?" I ask, slamming my fists on top of the glovebox. "And- and who was she with? At fucking one in the morning!"

"I don't know," Mikey says, "I don't know."

Then he starts chanting relentlessly—desperately— under his breath, she's gonna be okay, she has to be okay, she's gonna be okay, she has to be okay...

"Shut the fuck up!" I exclaim.

"Gee, I'm just—"

"We don't know that," I say through gritted teeth. "We don't know if she's okay or not, she m-might not b—" Finally, I break down crying.

"We- we can't think like that..." he says weakly.

Too late. I've thought of it and my head is spinning and my stomach is turning. I feel like my throat is closing up, I can't breathe, my chest is aching and I know I should be focusing on taking deep breaths before it gets worse, but I can't see how it can get any worse than this. My daughter might be dead. I've thought of it already.

"Should we, uh, call the others?" Mikey asks quietly before we've gotten too far.

"How's that gonna help?" I sniff.

"They should at least know what's going on."

"How are you so fucking calm right now!?"

"I don't know, Gee, maybe I'm keeping it together for you? Because one of us has to drive and if I'm crying and panicking too, we'll never get anywhere!" he shouts, slamming on the breaks as we reach a stop sign. Instead of taking the right turn, he says more quietly, but sternly, "Look at me."

Reluctantly, I look up at him through the curtain of hair I've let fall in front of my eyes. "What?"

"Are we letting the guys know or not?"

"Give me your phone," I tell him finally, suddenly wishing I hadn't broken mine in a fit of emotion and rage, and basically as a result of not knowing what the fuck else to do. What a stupid move. He hands it to me, then makes the turn and keeps driving while I simply stare at Ray and Frank's contacts, biting my lip. "What the fuck do I even say?"

Mikey chooses this moment to be silent, so I decide I'm just going to wing it. I call Ray first. It's obvious by his voice when he picks up that I woke him. "Mikey? Are you aware of the time?" he asks wearily.

"Yeah, uh, it's Gerard on Mikey's phone. We're just... we're on our way to the hospital. NewYork-Presbyterian."

"Wait, what? Why are you going all the way to—"

"It's Eve," I say, ripping off the bandaid. "They just called, she got in a car crash and they air-lifted her there... We don't— we don't know if she's okay." My voice breaks at the end.

I hear Ray gasp. "Oh my God, I'll meet you there," he says, his voice muffled with a hand covering his mouth, then he hangs up.

My thumb hovers over Frank's contact next and the closer I get to pressing it, the closer I think I am to having a nervous breakdown or jumping out of the car.

I hold my breath when I finally do tap on the contact. It barely has time to ring before Frank picks up, a lot more awake than Ray was. "Mikey, listen to this: me and Jamia were just watching Star Wars and then we saw this headline that was like—"

"Frank, wait—"

"There was this crash on the George Washington Bridge, it's horrible. They were just kids—"

"Frank!" I yell into the phone to shut him up.

"What!? Wait— Gerard?"

"Yeah, it's me, um..."

"Hey, are- are you crying? What the fuck is going on, Gee? Where's Mikey? Why are you on his—"

"Eve was in that crash!"

Frank's breath hitches. "What?" he asks shakily.

"We're on our way to the hospital now."

"Is- is she..?"

"We don't know anything."

"Oh." He clears his throat and just before hanging up, says shakily, "I'm leaving now."

I was going to tell him which hospital to go to, but he saw and heard the same news cast as we did. He didn't need directions.

Mikey and I don't feel like talking. There's nothing more to say. He drives in silence, and I settle on staring out the window as tears steadily drip from my eyes, focusing on the hum of the engine to keep my anxiety from bubbling over.