Evo Love – An appropriate last name. A perfect last name. If you are in Evo’s heart, you are in her heart forever. Jill Slaughter
When I was a sophomore in high school, I was asked to senior prom. The guy I went with was a Rock and Roll dude. He played in bands, was smart & nerdy. He could name every song the band Rush had ever done, every album the Rolling Stones had ever made. He wasn’t the most popular guy or even good looking, but I didn’t care, he was cool so I went with him.
The night of the prom was Traditional… Corsage, Limo, Dinner, Dance and home by 11. Which at my age were all pretty big deals. That night on the way to dinner, I met this girl Caroline. We spoke for a few minutes in the limo, sat across each other at dinner, and then I lost sight of her when all the couples split up towards the end of the night. School went on and I would see her in passing in a hallway and we would wave or say hi. But we never became close friends.
A couple of months went by and there was a flyer going around school about a party in the woods. Everyone from school was going. I ended up going with all my close friends. There was a keg there and we were all drinking beer and playing beer games, having a great time. Then it began to rain. We all made a plan to go to the closest persons house & continue partying there. So we all hopped into different cars. I ended up in a car with my surfer friends and two girlfriends of mine. One in which, owned the house we were going to.
All I can remember that night was looking over at my friend and seeing her make out with her crush and me looking back in front of me and seeing the rain and the head lights of the car light up a dark dirt road. I also remember sitting on school books and falling asleep to the sound of the rain. When I woke up, I woke up leaning forward, with both my hands on the top of the front seat, and seeing fire coming out of the hood of the car. The windshield was totally shattered and I could see a fire truck and hear a helicopter, then everything blackened out again. It felt like a dream. I woke up again, this time, I was outside of the car walking, it was like I woke up while I was standing and I could see some of my friends who were in the car with me.
The guy who was making out with my girlfriend had blood all over his clothes and his hands in his pockets and when the wind blew, half his scalp blew up with it. I tried to speak and I couldn’t. I was in shock and totally catatonic. There were red and white lights, flashing all around, two fire trucks, firemen and police officers and medics walking all over and around us.
That night the roads were wet and the car we were in lost control and hit on oncoming car. In that car, there were three people, two women and one man. The woman who was driving was pregnant and lost the baby due to the steering wheel breaking and stabbing her in the belly. The girl who was the passenger was killed on impact and her body flew out of the windshield four feet away from the car. Her name was Caroline. It was the girl I had met at Prom Dinner in the limo. She was on her way to a midnight show at the local planetarium to see PINK FLOYD OFF THE WALL, she had done the art work for the banner to the event.
Caroline was an artist who had just graduated and was just excepted to SCAGG, an art college in Georgia. This devastated me and changed my life forever. I couldn’t believe I had just had dinner with this girl and now she was dead, all her dreams were gone. I thought of her family and her mom and everything that would come along with it. I quit drinking and partying. I wanted to go to the funeral and was advised not to. We were all still in school, when the school found out, they all gave us a week off.
When we got back to school. All of us were labeled murderers. In our high school, classes were mixed. You had seniors in classes with sophomores and juniors. Every class we went to, her friends were so devastated they would jump out of their seats and start accusing us of killing her. One by one, everyone in my car dropped out of high school. We couldn’t take it anymore, especially me. Even though I wasn’t driving, I felt like we did murder her and the unborn child due to our recklessness.
I’ve never stopped thinking about Caroline. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of her and her family. ( her mom was so devastated by carolines death, it affected her marriage, her husband divorced her.) 15 years later I ended up back in Daytona to visit family and friends and I went on a motorcycle ride with a old school friend and we ended up at this house and all of Carolines friends were there. They started talking to me and I started crying. I asked for their forgiveness. I told them the details of that night and how it affected me and how devastated I was and had been. I hugged her friends and said I was so sorry for their loss. They told me about Carolines mom and said she went crazy when her daughter died. She would cook dinner for her every night and talk to her at the dinner table, even though she was no longer alive.
This is something that has forever, stained my life….
Evo Love –http://evoloveunlimited.com/evo_love_unlimited.html
Mothers Against Drunk Driving – http://www.madd.org/
I will be reading Raw live at Sailboat Bend Artists Lofts on May 19 and June 9 http://www.facebook.com/events/263772817041266/
I’m not sure if it is Jill Slaughter that brings out the courage in us to speak out loud of the darkest areas of our lives, or just her allowing us the forum to do so that makes us so willing, but I am grateful none the less. Thank you for sharing a piece of your heart EVO.
I am sure it’s Jill, she has that strength a powerful piece and a lesson to be read and shared.
An amazing story, told with much courage.