“As the light came shining down upon us
And the rain falling hard all around us.
The blonde streaked thru her wet hair,
Our voices screamed in vein Oh my fucking god this isn’t fair!
So you can take our souls, you can take our lives but you will never take the love deep inside us. Now she’s crying, all her hopes and dreams are dying, the one who’d fix it she is needing, though not appearing. She keeps on bleeding. Her wounds deep, will she forever sleep? As she lays there in misery, her fragile voice she cannot speak. Under the cover of darkness, he’s suddenly there. To hold her in his arms and to save her from harm. As the moon shines in her eyes, he kisses her one last time. He pictures her in his mind, as his bride. The moment before he dies, she stands to her feet and wonders why…
The pain he took for her…”

As she reads this poem she wrote out to her class, trying to be strong and not cry.
She hears people mutter under their breath “fucking emo.” That was it. She just couldn’t take it. Her whole heart and sole she poured out into that poem, and that’s what she gets. She runs out of the class crying, her big blue eyes becoming red and sore. As she is running down the hall she hears her class laughing at her pain and chanting horrible things, the teacher telling them to quite down. Why me? She thinks as she runs down the stairs. She runs into the bathrooms and locks herself into a cubical. Wiping her eyes and trying to fix her bleeding mascara. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, trying to calm herself down, but still crying, all she can picture now is her past coming back and haunting her. She opens her eyes again, crying harder. She notices some writing on the wall of the cubical, it reads…
 

“Who’s that little emo kid in Bec’s class? Maize or something? Yeah Maize, why doesn’t that hoe just put herself and everyone out of misery and why doesn’t she just kill herself already?”

“No one should be there, mom is still at work, Brendon won’t be home tonight because he is staying at a friend’s house and Dad is away on a business trip.” She thinks to herself. She looks in the rear-vision mirror and wipes her bleeding make-up off her face.

She pulls into the drive-way of her house and pulls into the car-port. She takes her cd with her. She unlocks the house and walks up the stairs to her bedroom, walks up to her cd player and slips the Hawthorn Heights cd in, presses random then presses play. ‘We are so last year’ comes on, and she sits on her king size bed, grabs the remote control and turns the song up. She feels that she is going to cry again. She gets that feeling in the back of her throat that you get when you are trying to hold back tears. She falls back onto the bed, and can’t hold it in, she begins to cry again. She shuts her eyes and listens to the song.  She starts thinking about what happened to her 2 years ago, the reason she wrote that poem, the reason she cries every time she listens to Hawthorn Heights. She thinks about what happened that cold winter night.

1 year ago, on a rainy winter’s night, Maize and her boyfriend Quinn were driving back from their prom. The roads were really slippery and it was hard to see thru the windscreen because of the fog. But they didn’t care, because it wasn’t just their prom night. It was their anniversary; they were with each other for 2 years, before that terrible night. They were driving back from the prom with their friends. And Nicky, who was driving at the time thought it would be a cool idea that they would have a drag race with Pete, who was in second car full of friends. When they got to the first set of traffic lights, Nicky pulled up next to Pete and opened his window and started talking to Pete about dragging. They had all been drinking and thought it would be a good idea, everyone but Maize, but she didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to be the one who ruined the fun, so she went along with it. Everyone was hanging out the windows of the cars, with the radio turned up so loud that you could hardly hear yourself think. Quinn and Maize sat in the back of Nicky’s black wagon; Maize comfortably snuggled into Quinn’s arms.

Then “We are so last year” comes on the radio. Everyone starts wooing and singing it the top of their lungs, again, everyone but Quinn and Maize, Quinn is just quietly singing it to Maize, then he stops and whispers to her “This is my song to you, Maize Lee  Murray, I love you” He says looking at her, his big eyes sparkling in the street lights. Maize is speechless; she just looks at him, tears of joy rolling down her face, and kisses him. That was the first time he has ever said that to her, those three words that he said he was going to save for the perfect moment, for the perfect person. She looks up at him, and smiles, “Quinn Scott Allman, I love you too.” She was the happiest she had ever been in her whole life. She knew Quinn was the one. They smiled at each other, kissed again then started to laugh and sing with their friends. The night couldn’t be any more perfect. Maize thought to herself. Then the rain became to pour down harder. Then there was the second set of traffic lights. Nicky looked at Pete with a big grin, Pete nodded. Everyone looked at the red lights… “3, 2, 1…”  Everyone chanted, and then the lights turned green. Both cars did massive burn outs and they were off, racing thru the main street of their home town, everyone was wooing out of the windows, the rain falling hard against the cars. Then Nicky started driving faster, and faster, Maize became a little scared and sat up from her boyfriend’s warm, safe arms. Both Quinn and Maize put on their seat belts, Nicky going faster and faster. Nicky hated loosing, and there was no was in all hell that he was going to loose to his twin brother Pete. Maize was really becoming scared, they were going faster and faster and the rain was falling harder and harder…
“Nicky Stop the car, okay just stop! I’m scared who cares if Pete gets past you!”
She screams out, Nicky doesn’t stop; he just turns up the music and goes faster.
“Nicky! I’m really scared! Please Stop”

 She says, no crying because she is so afraid, Quinn holds her tight and tells her to hold him tight and to not let go. Quinn was becoming scared too. Then the rain got even harder and lightning became to light up the sky. Maize is so scared that she can’t move, she just stays in her boyfriend’s arms, holding him tight. A crack of lightning fills up the sky and hits a tree. The crack from a branch falling is so deafening and scary that even Quinn is holding back tears. A branch falls onto the road and Nicky tries to dodge it but looses control and begins to spin, then both cars collide, Nicky’s car flips 3 times and rolls onto the roof. All that is running thru Maize’s head is Quinn saying I love you and when he first asked her to be his girlfriend.

[Hours Later]

Maize wakes up to find herself lying on the wet road with all these Paramedics and Policemen surrounding her. She tries to say something but she can’t. She can barely even open her eyes; she is in so much pain that she can’t move an inch. After several minutes she can sit up. She looks around to see 3 of her friends being taken to hospital and Nicky still wedged inside the car. She asks one of the Paramedics where Quinn is. He steps back and points to Quinn sitting in the back of one of the Ambulances. She tries to stand up and walk over to her boyfriend. She stands up and he see’s her, his eyes have hope in them. Maize tries to take a step but collapses to the ground, she cries out in pain and 3 Paramedics put her in a bed and wheel her into Quinn’s Ambulance.

“She needs blood or she is going to die” She hears one of them say.
“Maize and I have the same blood type, use my blood; I will risk dying to save her.”  Quinn says weakly. Maize tries to say no but they ignore her. She tries to speak but can’t. Tears roll down her face onto the pillow. Quinn holds her hand, tears falling from his eyes. He kisses her for the last time and tells them he is ready. He lays back into the bed, still holding her hand. They start taking blood from him veins. Maize can’t watch, she just holds her boyfriends hand, cries and looks at his face as he is giving what little blood he has to save her. He starts to flat line but the Paramedics don’t stop taking the blood, Maize looks up at one of them as if to say, “Why are you just letting him die?”

The Paramedic looks back at Maize and says to her.“He said to us he doesn’t care if he dies, as long as you are okay. I’m sorry love. But we can only save one person out of you two.” She looks at Quinn, still holding his hand as he dies.
When the Paramedics are finished, she stands up and sits next to Quinn and wonders why,

The pain he took for her...