Riley’s eyes closed. His heart slowed, and he knew he was making the right decision. Concentrating once again on the road, he understood what he had to do. He had to kill himself. That was the only way to make this right.
There was no particular reason for his death, only that he had never really been alive, and this being so, was indifferent to his continued existence.
Riley had grown up as the oldest of four brothers, never really wanting for anything his parents couldn’t supply. His home was a good, supportive environment. He had never been abused or molested in any way. He had also never felt a single emotion more strongly than to register that he should feel it. His mother and father had long since given up worrying about their son, and had accepted that he just didn’t mind the world the way most people did.
He had never lacked for friends, either. This unsought popularity was owed mostly to his good looks, which made him a shoe-in for the best crowds. His straight nose and strong cheekbones highlighted his otherwise dark face; the sunken eyes that always looked over tired were a deep shade of brown that looked almost black. His short black hair was usually a mess, but a mess more casually attained than the guys’ hair at school, which needed all kinds of products to create the desired disorder.
So Riley, with his good looks and absent heart, unbuckled his seatbelt, and let go of the wheel.
His mother’s van, carrying him home from his last day of high school, didn’t waver or drift to one side, even at the astonishing speeds created by the little downhill straightaway.
Riley sighed. That meant he would have to help it, then. He grasped the wheel again, and turned it sharply right, the tires screeching in protest to the sudden change. The van tilted to one side, but rather than rolling down the road, it regained balance, and flew forward into the guardrail at the side of the highway. The front bumper stuttered over the rail, and the van flipped down onto its top and continued to slide, occasionally flipping again, down the rocky drop-off.
There was pain, and Riley screamed in response, but the lack of fear wasn’t unexpected. He had planned this, and, he supposed, even if he had not, it wouldn’t have frightened him anyway. Total and complete apathy.
Of course, he had had to fake it sometimes, to keep him out of real trouble. He preferred to be overlooked, and to continue being so, he had to go out with friends, laugh at things that were meant to be funny, and be disappointed at the things that would disappoint people. Once he had passed the age of four, it hadn’t become difficult at all to copy others’ responses to emotional stimuli.
The van had rolled most of the way down the cliffside by the time Riley had realized that he was, in fact, seeing his life flash before his eyes.
How cliché. He thought in mild surprise, before his neck snapped against the stick shift.