The Price of Love

It was almost 1:30 in the morning, and I was sitting on my bed, with my iPod playing in the background and my laptop in front of me, it was a Friday night spent at home. Sleep at this time was out of the question, because there was something else going on that was bothering me. My boyfriend, Nick, and his friends were all hanging out. Him and our friend Stephen had broken into Stephens parent's liquor cabinet in his house. They started drinking as a way to "unwind" after a long week apparently. I didn’t really care before that any of them drank, except for Nick. He had a little history of avarice for liquor, and it always seemed to affect me. It got so out of hand once, he actually ended up walking to my house, while he was intoxicated, at 3 in the morning while some of my friends were over. What made it worse was that he didn’t even remember it the next morning. Though he never physically hurt me, drunk or sober, I couldn't help but think that it could be a possibility one day.

My phone had been going off all night with texts from him and with text from his friend, Stephen. Stephen claimed that he hadn't had an much to drink as the others, and he was telling me of how crazy Nick was acting at that moment. He told me Nick fell down almost every time he tried to stand, and I took notice to all of the typos in his texts. I asked Nick how hammered he was, he claimed that it hadn’t hit him yet, which I knew was completely untrue. Out of the blue my phone rang. Nick said there was something wrong with his phone and he couldn't see the screen on his phone anymore. This was when I started to get mad.

“Hello?” I said, even though I knew it was him.

“Hellooooooooo!” he replied with a bit of insanity to his voice. I just rolled my eyes.

“How much have you had?” I asked him, afraid to hear the answer.

“Hmm….” He thought for a few seconds, “I had one…two…six…ten drinks!” he said with prattle.

"Ten drinks of what?” I asked sternly.

“Everything I could get!”

“Oh God, Nick!” I said with disgust. I totally abhorred him at this moment. I could not believe he would let himself do something like that to himself. But before I could upbraid him for his bad decision, he started to speak again.

“No babe….just listen to me!” He mumbled. I figured that I would listen to him, since that was all I could do to help him. “I’ve been thinking. I love you sooo much, and I just know….” He had managed to say.

“You just know what?” I asked, urging him to continue.

“That I never want to let you go! I want to be with you forever!” he said.

“What!?” I asked with disbelief.

“I mean it, I really do! I never want to left you go…” he repeated. He had kept going, but I tuned him out.

I had a countenance of shock, disgust and annoyance all at the same time. I could not believe what I was hearing! I was so mad at him for ever wanting to drink in the first place, let alone calling me while he was this drunk! I was starting to think that he would do something stupid being this intoxicated, and the last thing I wanted was for something bad to happen to him. While Nick was going on with his drunken “I love you” speech, I sent a text to Stephen.

“makee him go 2 bedd. he needs 2 sleep itt off” I typed to him. I returned the phone to my ear, but Nick had already hung up. I roughly cast my phone onto my bed out of anger after I hung up. As I waited for Stephen's reply, I stopped feeling bad for Nick, and a huge wave of anger came over me.

A whole ten minutes later, I finally got a response from Stephen.

“hes gone. he got in his car saying how he needed to see you and he just left”

My stomach dropped. My parents and my little sister were home, there was no way I was going to let him even come near my house in his inept state! I was not sure what to do. Everything was getting so complicated, and the whole situation was graver than I ever thought it could be. I didn’t know if I should wake up my parents to warn them, if I should lock my door and ignore him, or if I should drive him back to Stephen’s house. My head was rushing with thoughts, almost as if I were running out of time to think of something to do.

But he never came. I waited for a half an hour. I kept looking out my front window, but there was absolutely no one on my street. There was a compunction coming over me, and I just knew something was wrong. To this day, I still don’t know why I had this feeling, but the only thing I do know is that it is not a good feeling to know that someone you could possibly love is in danger. Almost without instinct, I quietly ran out of my house, got in my car, and started driving in the direction to Stephen’s house. I knew I would see Nick somewhere, whether he was walking or driving. I turned my high beams, looking everywhere around me. I was aloof to everything around me; I was looking for him, and only him. As I started to turn off of my street, I saw steam around the corner. My heart stopped beating, I stopped breathing, I felt frozen where I was. But then the next thing I knew, I was out of my car and walking towards the mangled tree.

And there was his car, crushed into total oblivion. Every piece of glass from the car was shattered and laying in pieces on the ground. It crunched and shattered into even more oblivion as I ran to the driver’s seat window. I almost could not bring myself to do it, but I looked inside. And I saw him; this smart, funny, amicable, handsome, young man, slumped over the steering wheel, pinioned in his mangled car. A cut on his head leaked blood down his lifeless face. A rush of emotions ran through me. I started to scream. I yelled at him.

"Get out of the car! Nick common! You need to wake up" I tugged at the door opener, but it was not budging. I reached my hand through the broken window, cutting my hand in the process. I touched his cold face. I grabbed onto his torn and bloody shirt, trying to lift him out of the car. But he was trapped inside, and there was no way I was going to get him out; Dead or alive.

I fell to the ground. banged my fists in the glass-covered pavement. I blamed Stephen for letting him leave, and for serving him the booze. I blamed Nick, for ever turning to the bottle, for getting into the car, and for ever meeting me. I blamed myself the most. If he had never known me, he would not have gotten into that car to come see me, and he would still be alive. The reasons why he was dead were so paltry, it seemed like nothing would ever make the sudden pain I had in me any go away.

But then I saw who the real enemy was, who was truly at fault; the alcohol. I feel so useless because there is really nothing I can ever do to prevent what happened to Nick from happening again. As a matter of fact, others died the same night as Nick from drunk driving related accidents. I only wait, and hope that maybe someday, someone can learn to be smart, to make good decisions, and to look after the ones you love. And all I can do it mourn the one I lost, and hope that this horrible event will cease.