My Two Best Friends

This is going out to all those teens who think that they're invincible. My two best friends thought they were too, but they weren't and they paid with their lives. Jeremy was 22, and Joe was 18 graduating from high school in one month. The last time I saw them, they were leaving my house to a party. They promised me they wouldn't drink and drive, they said they would call me to come and get them. But that didn't happen. When Joe's parents called me that night at 4am in the morning looking for Joe, I knew something was wrong. So I offered to go and look for them. I told my parents where I was going and left. I got in my car and went to the guy’s house where the party was. He told me Joe and Jeremy had left earlier that night with another friend of mine, Kevin. I panicked. I left and went through the back roads. I first stopped at Kevin’s house, then Jeremy’s house and there was no sign of any of them. I started to get scared after that. I had one more place I had to look and that was Joe’s. I had to see if they had made it there. But I guess I knew deep in my heart that I would find no one when I got there. I was heading back toward my house when I first saw a glimpse of taillights in a ditch, I knew who it was I just didn’t want to believe it. I stopped and turned my truck so the lights were shining on the black ford truck with a rebel flag on the tailgate. I started to cry when I saw the truck. I knew in my heart that they were all dead. I climbed down to the truck and looked in. There they were. My three friends. Jeremy was driving, he died instantly. Joe was in the passenger seat, and was covered in blood, I could tell by the way he looked that he had survived the crash, but died later of blood loss. Last, but not least was poor Kevin. He was in the middle of the truck gasping for air, I ran back up to the truck and used my cell phone to call for help. I went back down and talked calmly to Kevin, as I cried softly waiting for the police and ambulance to come. I prayed that when they got there they would tell me that they were all alive. Time seemed to sit still while I laid there in the dirt next to that huge pine tree. I knew that the hard part had yet to come. I stood helplessly on the sidelines and watched them lift the truck and pull my friends from the rubble. Joe and Jeremy were dead just as I had feared. Kevin was in critical condition and was rushed to the hospital. One of the deputies immediatly left to tell Kevin’s parents about his condition so they could be at the hospital. I stayed there and waited with the other rescue workers and Joe and Jeremy’s bodies. I knew that the deputy was going to go tell the families of the horrible news. He told me to come with him because he knew I was too upset to drive. We went to Jeremy’s first, his parents had died when he and his sister were still young, so they lived with their grandparents. When she opened the door, she hugged me and asked me to come in, then she saw the cop behind me and went to get them from the kitchen. His grandmother let out a horrible scream and turned to her husband and sobbed into is shoulder, as he wiped the tears off his cheeks. Chastity let out a blood curdling scream and fell to the floor I crouched beside her and hugged her tight, she gripped me so hard that I couldn’t breathe and kept saying not Jeremy, not Jeremy. I wanted to stay but I knew I needed to get home, and we had one more stop to make. I hugged them goodbye tears falling from all our eyes, and left them to grieve. When we pulled into Joe’s yard his father was waiting on the porch steps and saw us coming. He met the car and invited us in, I knew in his mind he thought Joe had been arrested. When the deputy told him why we were there, I’ll never forget that look on his face. His mother and sister just sat and cried. Cassey was just a year younger than me, the point in her life when she needed her big brother around. That was one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do in my life. To this day I still go to their graves, I sit and talk to them, as if they were right beside me. They lost their lives so young, their lives not yet lived. Kevin was released from the hospital a week later, but the first time I walked into that hospital room and saw him with the tube sticking out of his chest from his collapsed lung I cried like I had lost him, too.

Drunk driving is a terrible thing, something no one should do. Not only can it kill you but it can kill others. More teens from where I live have been killed by drunk driving than any other cause. That’s why I beg all of you who have or are thinking of drinking and driving to think again and not do it. Even if you have had one lucky time of not being hurt. You will, you are not superman, you are not invincible. Don’t play games with your life because if not this time, you will lose one turn, and that turn will be your life. I know you say that it will never happen to you but it can and if you drink and drive it will. I know all to well the pain that comes with losing someone from a drunk driving accident. It's not fun, it's painful, and to see the looks on those families faces will be something that you will never forget. Finding three of your friends in an overturned vehicle two of them dead will also open your eyes. So I am asking all of you if you drink don’t drive give the keys to someone who hasn’t had a drop to drink. Even though they may have only had one or two doesn’t make a difference they have still been drinking. Even though your parents might be mad, call them, it is better to be grounded for a few weeks or month than to be grounded for life.