Amazing how a nice cool breeze running through your hair can make you feel refreshed and allow you to release any tensed-up muscles. And no breeze gets any more refreshing than that of one experienced by standing at the top of Carter's Peak. The hike up really sets your body on fire, but a good rest and a look out over the amazing view of the rolling countryside cures all that.

My muscles were tense however, because I knew what was going to happen.

Johnny would have tried to stop me, but then Johnny wasn't here. Not of this world now. Dead and burried under about eight or ten feet of earth. I couldn't deal with the guilt anymore, the endless nights weeping into my tear-drenched hands asking 'why?'. Why did God allow something so horrible and out of the blue to occur to two young men in the beginning of something so wonderful? We had our whole lives ahead of us and we had dreams; we wanted to travel, to see the world and experience all the miracles that a new day could bring.

Music was our passion and with it as a guide we were going to let it take us everywhere. Meeting new people and making a difference in the world, even if it was a small and subtle one. Johnny can't do that now, and I won't let myself make any more of a difference than that of the burden I placed on too many people. Heaviest of all on myself.

I stepped out a little closer to the edge of the cliff to get a feel for the amount of distance between the rocky ground below and the preciface that I tore my mind upon, more savagely than I ever had before. What kept running through my mind is what my friends and family would have said to me if they knew what I intended. They weren't in the car with us though.

They weren't there to see what was left of Johnny and they didn't have parts of him over their face and stuck in their hair; and they didn't survive the crash when they should have been the ones to die. I should be in his place. If I hadn't taken my eyes off of the road to fumble through the arm rest compartment for that tape, then I could have seen the oncoming vehicle. He even offered to look for it while I drove. I said 'no, don't worry about it, I'll find it'. What an idiot.

People consoling me and telling me it wasn't really my fault and it wasn't like I meant for it to happen just made me more angry. I had no excuse. Worst of all was that I made it away with nothing more than a few stitches and some minor bruises. It wasn't fair!

Enough of the pain and remorse. If Johnny wasn't allowed to continue walking down his path of life, then neither was I. I choose to stop as well. Maybe this was meant to be?

Tears ran down my face, but they didn't tickle my cheeks this time, and I didn't have a desire to wipe them away. The wind came and went. All things must pass, I told myself, it was my time now. I felt like a heavy boulder standing on the edge, and I leaned foreward. After that I felt as light as the feather, a part of the wind even, and a felt a rush of life that I have never felt before, but it was bittersweet and it hurt. I tried to look up and see the sun one more time, it all felt like forever. I told johnny in my mind that I would be where he was soon. I heard him sobbing in my head. Why was he crying?

I never had enough time to find out.