part five

"You bastard," I whispered, unbelieving of the tale I was just told. "You fucking bastard. You killed them and you damn knew it-"

"I know, Jess!" Isaac interrupted me, standing up suddenly from his position on Taylor's bed. The bed of the brother he killed. Who he beat senseless, and then coldly destroyed. God, how I hate him now... "Don't you think I know? Don't you think I hate myself everyday because of this? By God, it should have been me who was killed, I know!" Lord, did he know. "Nothing I do is going to bring them back -"

"Kill yourself," I said. I wasn't into his guilt trip on me. That could have been done fifteen minutes ago, when I thought the Accident was all of an accident, when I thought my brothers died accidentally, when I thought Isaac could have done nothing to stop it. But now, it was out of the question. He wasn't getting any sympathy from me, not anymore. "Maybe that will bring them back. You can try."

Isaac looked down, averting his gaze from mine. He could tell I wasn't taking his shit after what he told me. It wasn't going to work now, and it wasn't going to work ever again. "Well, that's what happened that night, Jess," he changed the subject. I guess he wasn't going to kill himself, after all. Too bad... "I was drunk off my ass, I beat the shit out of Taylor until he was unconscious, and then drove the people I loved most in my life to their death." He looked up at me then, tears streaming silently down his face, his eyes showing his deep pain for what he did. I wouldn't have it any other way. "Are you happy now?"

My blue eyes stared at my brother, the eyes that used to shine in my mother when she looked upon her family, the eyes that had once belonged to my brother, the cold, icy blue eyes that wanted to kill Isaac for what he had done. But then I wouldn't be any better than him, now would I. "Tell me more," I demanded, teeth clenched, hands gripping into tight fists. I wanted to hear it, I wanted to hear all the details, straight from Isaac's mouth, no matter how much they hurt him. I wanted the words to hurt him...

Isaac looked at me, steel brown eyes pleading with my icy blue ones, silently begging me to reconsider. Which I had no intention of doing at any point. I don't reconsider; Jessica Hanson is not a girl to reconsider much. "Please," he whispered, fresh tears forming in his eyes, following the worn trails left behind by so many others. "Jess, you don't know what you're asking for..."

"Well then, why don't you tell me what I'm asking for?" I wasn't backing down from this. I was loving it; it felt so good to watch Isaac cry, to see him suffer and pain from his existence as I knew he should. It felt wonderful to break down his defenses; God knows he deserved it.

"Jess..." he quietly plead one last time. But I wasn't taking it. I wanted to hear the rest, both for the satisfaction of seeing this murderer cry in front of me and to really know what happened to my brothers. Call me a sick fuck, but I truly wanted to know. I wanted to hear someone say the exact details of how by two brothers were murderously killed that rainy night. And I wouldn't have wanted it from anybody more than Ike.

I folded my arms around my chest, firmly standing my ground. Did he think he was going to change my mind with a pathetic little "Jess"? Yeah, right. Then he really didn't know me that much.

Isaac sighed heavily, visibly giving up his battle against me. He should have known he was never going to win, and that I was going to get that information from him any way I could. I had already broken down my mother that day, and Isaac wasn't all that far behind. I think I could have taken him any day of the week. "Well, as you know, it was raining pretty hard that night," he began vaguely, trying to dart around the real issue.

"I know," I said, wanting him to continue on. I wasn't going to let him get away with simply telling me the weather.

"Well, it was raining, and it was pretty dark, and I wasn't as good of a driver wasted as I thought I would be." He sighed again, looking down at the hardwood floors of the room. This had to be the most difficult thing for him to do in his life. It was surely more difficult than killing his own family, now wasn't it?

"Taylor was in the passenger seat, still unconscious." He paused for a moment there, covering his swollen red eyes with his right hand, trying to block out the images of that night from his mind. I hoped they plagued him forever. "He never woke up, you know."

I knew about that. I had read it in one of the many police reports left aimlessly on the kitchen table so many years ago. "Unconscious state," they called it. "Still unconscious at time of impact." They believed that he was sleeping when it happened. That's what they all told me when I asked. But now I knew. Now I knew the truth. He had never even seen what was going to happen to him. He hadn't known what was going on at any time. And he was the lucky one.

"Zac was sitting in the back seat of the car," Isaac continued, neverminding the tiny droplets forming in the corners of my eyes. I couldn't take this; I know I had said before, and on many other occasions, that I hated my brothers, that because of them I never had a real childhood. But I still loved them. I still loved them as brothers, and though I hate myself every day for what I had done, it kills me even more to know how much they suffered and how much their deaths changed all of our lives. No matter how much I say I hated them, I'll always wish they were back.

"...praying." I quickly snapped out of my self-guilt trance, noticing that I wasn't listening to barely a word that Isaac had said. I looked at him, my eyebrows scrunched together in a confused manner. Seeing as I had not heard what he had said, Isaac began to repeat it for me, knowing that I would kill him if he didn't. "Zac was in the backseat," he said again. I had heard that part, at least. "All throughout the drive, he was whispering something back there. I think he was praying."

He looked down again, his hand covering his eyes once more. "I remember...I remember that it was bothering me after a while, and I wanted him to stop," he said, his lips pulled back tight against his clenched teeth, trying desperately not to break down and cry. "So I...I reached back into the back seat," he said, taking his hand off his eyes and pulling his arm back, showing me what he had done. "I was going to...to hit him, or something. I didn't know; I wasn't thinking clearly then. I just wanted him to shut up..." His arm fell from its elevated position, and both hands went up to his face, shielding it from my view, as he cried silently again.

"I said to him, 'Shut the fuck up!'. And then I looked at his face. His face, Jess. He was...he was backed up against the seat, eyes wild, frightened, his hands were up, ready to protect himself. I can't stand it, Jess," he said to me. He shouldn't stand it. If he did, then I would have to hurt him. Badly. "He was frightened to death of me, and I didn't care! Oh, Lord, why didn't I care..."

Oh, maybe because you're a murderous fuck? "Go on," I said unemotionally. I didn't want him to look up right then. I didn't want him to see my eyes watering and glazing over, the tears beginning to form, tears that hadn't flowed for seven years. But I wanted him to go on. I didn't care how much I cried that day, or even if I did cry; I had to hear the rest. I had to hear what really happened.

"Well," he began again, breath shaky and uneven. "I wasn't really paying attention to the road then. I was only trying to shut him up...and, I wasn't paying attention to driving, only on hurting Zac..." Isaac looked straight ahead then, eyes blank, mind remembering every vision and sound heard that night, over and over again. "Then Zac screamed, loudly, and I turned around back to the wheel..." A single, quiet sob escaped his lips. "But it was too late. I closed my eyes, and heard the crunch of the car as it...as it hit the telephone pole..."

He broke down then, his head in his hands, sobbing uncontrollably. Even I was feeling a little bad for him right then. He knew exactly what he did, and at least he was living with it for the rest of his life... A small sniffle came from me, as I unsuccessfully blinked back tears of my own. I clenched and unclenched my fists again and again, wanting this pain to go away. But it wasn't going away. It was never going to go away.

"We hit the pole on the right side of the car," he continued, voice altered by tears and sobs. "we...we were skidding on the road and as we hit it, so we were on an angle when we collided..." He turned away then, not wanting me to see him cry. I don't know why, though. He must have known I liked to see him cry. "It hit right where th..the passenger seat was..." Looking up and straight in front of him, eyes not seeing the cold and barren room in front of him but instead the horror and carnage that rainy midnight on the desolate Oklahoma Interstate. He swallowed, hard, before uttering the next few words: "It smashed through Tay like a knife through butter."

I sobbed then, not being able to hold it in any longer. Isaac looked at me, his own tear-filled eyes locking with mine, desperately trying to find the life in me, trying to find the old Jessica Hanson he used to know. Or at least the bright, fun-loving, happy Jessica Hanson he thought he used to know. I quickly looked away, unhappy to meet his stare, not wanting to look vulnerable in his eyes...and possibly because I didn't want to look vulnerable in my own eyes.

"He...he died instantly. He didn't feel a thing...I guess that was the best for him. At least he didn't feel anything when he..." he stopped again, tears overflowing and running down his face. Regaining his composure, he continued, remembering every minute detail from that night. "I remember...I looked over at him, a few minutes after the crash, and he just...he wasn't there anymore, Jess." He looked in my direction, but I averted my gaze. I couldn't look at him. I couldn't let him look at me. "All that was there was a splintered, bloody pole, and a couple of strands of blond hair..." The tears started forming again, in both Isaac's and my eyes.

Despite the aching silences continually passing between us, Isaac continued. "Because of th..the force of the car hitting the pole," he said, stuttering ever so slightly. He was visibly shaken by his own retelling of the night, and now I could see why. He swallowed hard again, desperately trying to get through this. "Zac was thrown out of the car, th...through the back door." He covered his face with his hands again, muffling a teary sob.

"How...how bad was it?" I asked, barely above a whisper.

"Bad, Jess," he relied, taking in a shaky breath. "The weight of his body caused the door to just...break off its hinges. He...he rolled down this ditch, far below the road, and...and that was the last I ever saw of him."

I clenched my teeth tightly, trying to not let the tears flow again. I remember what else I had read in those files: "Time of Death: 11:53." That was fifteen minutes after Taylor's time of death: 11:38. I knew what happened, even though no one would tell me a thing. He died in that ditch. Zac died a slow, painful death in the cold, rainy night that April. And it was all Isaac's fault.

"They told me...after the accident, that the window of the car seat shattered on impact, and that was what killed him," he said, visibly having difficulty swallowing down the word killed. The word that he made a reality.

"'Loss of ample amounts of blood'," I whispered, more to myself than to Isaac, quoting from Zac's police report. "He bled to death, Ike."

I heard Isaac sob again, and he hid his face away from me. "I...I know," he managed to choke out. I didn't feel any sympathy.

"What happened to you," I asked in a low voice, not really caring anyway. I didn't care what happened to him, ever.

"I was the lucky one, Jess," he said, a tear falling down his face, one in a million to fall that day. "I got out with a couple of bad cuts and bruises and a broken leg. But I'm still here," he took a long breath, rolling something over in his head. He was wondering if he should say what was really on his mind, or not, depending on whether it would trigger my emotions. It would. "and I shouldn't be."

"At least you admit it." I was furious at him. He knew exactly what he was doing that night, and he still drove. He drove Taylor and Zac to their deaths that night, and after seven years, he's finally beginning to care.

"After the initial shock of the crash," he continued, neverminding my comment. He seemed to be able to block out a lot. Must have been from years of experience. "I got out of the car, which was totally wrecked after, and managed to get myself back to the house, which wasn't that far away. You know the rest of the story after that, Jess," he said, waving a hand at me carelessly, not wanting to say any more that day.

And I remembered. I remembered everything. I knew more about that night than Isaac believed I did...

"Oh God!" my mother screamed. My father nearly fainted inside the vestibule when he saw the shadow of his nineteen-year old son on his doorstep, panting, out of breath. A large gash, open and bleeding, fell down from his rain-soaked hair and into his crying face.

"There's been an accident," he managed to get out, finally falling down into the hallway. My father immediately picked him up, his eyes almost filled with tears, and carried him over to the couch, neverminding the blood stains forming on the carpet. My eyes widened from my hiding space atop the stairs. Something was wrong. Something definitely bad was going on...

My father ran off out of my sight, probably to the medicine cabinet to get some bandages. Who knows how many more cuts and bruises he had. Isaac kept crying, holding his head and stuttering about Tay and Zac, or something like that. What the hell was going on?

"Where are they?" my mother screamed at him, climbing quickly to hysterics. "Where are they, Isaac? Where are they?"

It was the same question I was asking in my head. Where were Taylor and Zac? Were they like Isaac, cut and bruised, or were they better off? Or worse? There was no way to tell anything. I only hoped this didn't mean we all had to go out to find them, I wanted my sleep...

I breathed a sigh of relief, though, knowing that at least one of my brothers was injured. We were leaving to start their new tour in three days, and I didn't want to go. I didn't want to be on the road again, for months and months at a time, on a cramped little bus with my family. At least now we wouldn't be leaving for quite a while. It was a selfish feeling, and I knew that perfectly, but I didn't care. We wouldn't be leaving home right away, and that was the only thing I cared about then.

Looking over at the wall clock, I noticed the time. 12:00. Way after by bedtime, though I never cared about bedtimes. Isaac said they would be home at about three: what happened? And where were Taylor and Zac? What the hell happened that night? I found out soon, though, that that night turned out to be the bloodiest midnight I had ever seen in my life.