1 Stuck (Jayda)

"I'm not the most perfect, nor do I wanna be. I'm perfectly happy with the majority of mistakes that I have made and wouldn't change them for the world." -Bad_Karma

Clinton, Mississippi (Jayda Rose) Age:15

"Oh my god how long is this going to take," I ask Ben who was taking his sweet time fixing his car, "I don't wanna be stuck out here all night." Ben was looking up a youtube video on how to fix car engines on his phone.

"Hold on," He muttered as he stared into the souls of his phone, "I think I found the right video."

"I tHiNk I FoUnD tHe rIgHt ViDEo," I mocked, "Yeah, you said that two hours ago." We were stranded. Ben had us in the middle of the road that leads off the freeway. The road we were on had no street lights meaning the only light that we did have were the spare flashlights that Ben had in his truck. The lights within the insides of his car didn't work because... well because he didn't have any. Ben had an old-as-hell, beaten down, pile of trash truck that no one would buy if their life depended on it.

Oop, sorry, HAD is the wrong word because it was never HIS to begin with. Ben was driving his brother's truck. His brother Kaleb, before he went off to join the marines, taught him how to drive at the age of 13 which for some odd reason a lot of parents do around here. Ben and I lived in Clinton, Mississippi, a literal small town that you could be in and out of if you drive straight for 20 minutes. Ben had been my bestfriend since 3rd grade. I remember walking into my first class, a small, big headed girl with WAY too much nappy hair on her head (I mean there was a lot of it. I looked like I belonged in an episode of Dragon Ball Z). I was making friends here and there. I was shy, at first, like most people. But like most people, eventually I opened up, and I started to make friends. After a while, I was pretty sure mostly everyone in the school knew me. No, I wasn't popular by any means (at least from my perspective).The school was small and I was just a girl who did her. I could be loud and obnoxious, or I could be quiet and keep to myself (It really depends on my mood that day). However, there was always that one person that got on my nerves the most and he was a tall, blue-eyed imp named Benjamin Killian Verde Jr.. When I tell you he was annoying, I mean just hearing his voice when he walked into a room made me want to smash my head against a desk. But then again, the people you tend to dislike in the beginning can turn into your best friends right?

"Alright," said Ben with a new look of determination on his face, "I think this might be it, kid." I looked up from my phone to see him head first engaged in fixing the engine. "About time,"I said. I was ready to go home. It was way too dark and I was getting way too tired to be sitting in a car for this long. "I was starting to freeze my ass off sitting in this car waiting for your dumb-ass," I muttered under my breath but loudly enough for him to hear. He looked up from the engine that he was "fixing" and gave me a stank face. "Ya know," he exclaimed, "I'm really debating on leaving your ass here."

"That is if you can get the damn car to start," I said snarkily, "and good luck trying getting rid of me." Even though I knew he was joking, obviously there was no way in hell that he was gonna leave me here in the middle of nowhere. "Why are you being so combative," he said as he glanced from the car engine in my direction, smirking, "You'd probably be right at home with the wild animals out here....ya know because you're a wild animal yourself."

"Woooow," apparently he wants to play games, "would you like this wild animal to claw off your face cuz I got the claws to do it." He glances up from the engine and I showed him my nails that I just got done. They were black and sharp as all shit. I've tried to be VERY careful not to stab myself.....of course I stabbed myself.

He chuckled and went back to work on his engine, "Naw, you keep them deadly weapons away from me." All of a sudden a loud sound exploded from the engine which was followed by a screech that sounded like a wounded puppy. I manually rolled down the window half way and peeked my head out to see what had happened. Ben was swearing up and down while jogging down the street. The long sleeve shirt that he had been wearing was now lying on the cold concrete ground producing, to my best guess was, smoke. "You good, dawg," I yelled from the car down the road. He was now pacing back and forth in the middle of the road with only the light from my flashlight illuminated by his skinny silhouette. It was getting colder. I was starting to be able to see the white fog that was vaping from his mouth. The wind was starting to pick. A vibrant cold breeze cut across my face as I stared off into the distance. "Ben?" I said. He appeared fine... but I've been wrong about how people appeared before. Despite the cold, I started to try to open the door to the car but he stopped me. "I'm fine," He muttered loudly, "It just scared me that's all." I eyed him from the car door window. He was starting to walk back to the hood of the engine. His shirt, which was still on the ground, was beginning to flutter in the wind. He walked up to it, picked it up, and then examined it. He shook his head in disgust and dropped it back on the ground. I continued to stare from the confines of the car that I was sitting in, door still slightly ajar from earlier. I open the door completely to step out but he reassures me, "I'm good." He laughed.... forcefully and walked uneasily back to the engine. When he got to it he stopped and stared at it for what seemed like eternity. The crisp cold air was beginning to stiffen. My nose was losing its ability to breath indicating that I was beginning to get sick. I closed the door to preserve the heat and rolled down the window all the way so I could watch Ben. "You sittin' behind the wheel?" he asked, still staring at the engine. "Yea," I answered back, "what do you need me to do?"

"I'm gonna need you to turn the key when I tell you," he said, beginning to mutter under his breath. He dove in and started to tinker around with the engine. A few seconds later, Ben told me to crank it. I turned the key, but the truck was stubborn. It wouldn't even make a sound. "Make sure your foot is on the break," said Ben who remembered that I still don't know how to drive. I press my foot onto the brake pad and turn the key. The engine was stuttering, but not starting. "Come on ya stubborn piece of shit," I gritted my teeth. After a slew of cursing from me, and Ben kicking and beating the engine to near death, I turned the key for the final time and the car sputtered to life.

"Fuck yea!" we both shouted in unison. The headlights (though very dull) illuminated the dark narrow streets. The old dial radio that the car had had came to life filling our once ambient silent car with static noise. The heat from the car cascaded from the vents warming up my shivering light-brown skin. Greediy, I turned all the vents in my direction to get maximum warmth.

I hear a loud thud and look up to see that Ben had dropped the top to the truck. Despite the cold, he had somehow managed to put up a sweat. He turned around and walked to his shirt that still lay on the ground. He stopped. He looked up, put his hands on his hips, and stared at the sky. I chuckled to myself. "What was he doing?" I thought. Hopefully, he hadn't forgotten that I had to be somewhere. I watched as he knelt down and picked up his shirt from off the ground. He examined it again before he seemingly painfully put it back on. I (getting tired of waiting on him) decided it was time to give my driver a piece of my mind. I turned around in my seat to look in the back seat for a jacket to wear.

It was filthy back there. There was junk tossed around everywhere. I always wondered why over the months of him driving me places that the smell in this car dramatically worsened. I guess I never took the time to look back here. There were dirty clothes, bottles of beer (both empty, half empty, and full), used tissues (I don't even wanna know), multiple used CONDOMS, some girl's nasty ass dirty underwear, and an assortment of different bags from multiple fast food restaurants (the bags more than likely making up a majority of the smell.). "No wonder it smells like boy in here," I said, "He practically lives in this car." For some strange reason, I still shifted through the trash hoping to find SOMETHING to protect me from the cold. At this point, my nose was running and I was starting to use the collar of my shirt to wipe the snot that was free-falling from my face. "Disgusting," I thought to myself as I both wiped my nose for the 10th time and accidently shifted my hand over a used tissue.

Eventually, after gagging and rubbing my nose red, I reached the floor of the truck. At the base of the truck lay a big, white box with my name in cursive on it. "Yes," I exclaimed in victory. A while back, Ben had bought me a purple windbreaker that he got at the mall. I kept it in his car as a backup just in case I went somewhere with him and I put in this box. Admiring my brilliant thinking and perfect planning, I picked up the box and turned back around in my seat. I rested the box in my lap and yanked the lid off of the box. "Woah," I said silently. A brief chill ran over my body as I stared at the contents inside. In it was a pistol. It was a chrome m1911. "Weird," I thought to myself. Ben was nowhere near old enough to be licensed for a gun. It was sleek. Simple. Small. Compact. Beautiful. I picked it up and was surprised that it was shockingly lightweight. I looked back into the box to examine the rest of the contents. In it was an unsealed but undrunken bottle of Absinthe Hamlet Hardcore Black liquor. I widened my eyes in surprise yet again, because when it comes to drinking Ben was a complete lightweight. Anything stronger than beer would lay him flat in an instance. So, I was a bit shocked when I found a bottle of 80% pure bitter alcohol that was just casually sitting in my box that I Ieft in his car. Underneath the bottle was, lo and behold, my windbreaker; however, I could care less about the jacket at this point. My attention was more drawn into the beauty of the pistol in my hands.

After making sure that the safety was still on, I examined the gun with care. I adored the sleek, simple design of it. I caressed my fingers along the smooth and sharp edges of the gun. After making sure the safety was on (yet again), I ejected the clip from the gun and was confused. There was only one bullet in the clip. "Odd," I said aloud. Why was there only one bullet in the clip. I pushed the clip back in the pistol and examined it some more. On the side of the barrel was an engraving. "Love Doesn't Die," I read aloud. This was Kaleb's, Ben's old brother's gun. This was Kaleb's stuff.

I put the gun back into the box and carefully placed the box back in the same position that I found it in. I brushed all the disgusting trash that was originally over it as well. If Ben ever found out that I had touched his brother's stuff, he would have my ass in a coffin.

I glanced up to see that Ben, like an idiot, was still looking up at the sky except this time he had his black long sleeve shirt on. I look at my phone to see that I had 5 new messages. I didn't even bother to read them. I knew who they were from. I snorted and wiped my nose of snot with my arm. By this time I had become a full on mouth breather, and was gasping for air like a fish out of water. I opened the driver seat door and was harshly greeted by the outside. Saying "It was cold" would have been an understatement because bitch it was freezing. The air outside had become a stagnant wall of frozen energy.