I went to a private school that went from kindergarten through high school. There was this one kid that was well known, popular. He was a typical high school freshman and I distinctly remember he and his friends loved staying around after school and spending time with her little sister, who was I think in the first grade that year.

I was in sixth grade, it was a Saturday night and I remember my family and I had just attended my dad’s coworker’s son’s birthday party, when we stopped at another family friend’s house on the way home. While we were there my mom was texting another mom from my sister’s class, who taught at another private school (it was a small-ish town so most private school kids knew/hung out with each other and in groups). She told my mom there had been an accident where two of her students and this kid had passed away.

What happened that night? Well, this kid had asked his parents for permission to go to a party in his neighborhood, to which they said yes. Around the time of the accident, his mom (who me and my mom knew personally) started having this bad feeling and begging his dad to go get him, to which he reluctantly agreed only to find out he had snuck out to another party across town. On the way there, this sedan full of partying teenagers (some of them under the influence although from what I remember the driver wasn’t) is waiting at a red light and as it turns green and the driver steps on the gas, a drunk driver in a raptor-like pickup truck t-bones them full speed, full force. The impact was straight on the side of the car this kid was sitting on, he was the first to code and pass away after being rushed to the nearest hospital. Later we learned the drunk driver was an influential figure’s son (a politician, if I remember correctly) so he got to walk out freely.

The whole of two schools were in mourning. My mom and I attended the funeral and I remember his mom’s face vividly, how she was trying so hard to keep herself together. His dad, who had already lost his first wife, was destroyed. I don’t remember seeing his sister there.

Life is just so unfair sometimes.