AUBURNDALE - The bleeding had begun inside his chest.

``Brian!''

The lady called his name. She heard it from his father, pinned in the wreckage and helpless to comfort a dying son.

Brian E. Riley Jr., 13-year-old running back for the Auburndale Eagles, was slumped forward against his shoulder harness.

``Brian!'' the lady repeated.

	Laurie Robertson, left, and Jodi McClanahan embrace at the grave of Robertson's son, Brian E. Riley. Brian, 13, was killed by a hit-and-run driver Dec. 14, 1997. McClanahan stopped at the crash scene and held Brian during his final moments. Both women visit the grave. GREG FIGHT/Tribune photo.

A sigh escaped his pale mouth.

Traffic halted. Moments earlier, the two Rileys had set out to Christmas shop at Lakeland Square Mall. Brian lived with his mother but was spending the day with his dad.

Brian wanted a No. 28 Warrick Dunn jersey, Buccaneer red with pewter and white trim. His cleats were at home, stuffed with smelly socks.

The Buick came out of nowhere.

Jodi McClanahan, waiting at a stop sign, saw the hood-to-hood explosion on County Road 546.

She raced to the cars, a daughter at her heels.

``I ran to the driver's side and couldn't open the door, so I ran to the passenger side and opened the door, and Brian was there.

``I put him in my arms.''

Brian knew all about bad car crashes. His mom, Laurie Robertson, was a 911 operator for the Auburndale Police Department. Some days, he brought her plates of food.

But he didn't know the fingers that stroked his hair and face, the arms that held him or the lips that kissed him, calling him back.

Behind McClanahan, a crowd grew.

Someone handed her a cell phone. Come quickly, she told Brian's grandmother.

Sirens wailed in the distance, racing, but they could not catch up to Brian.

``She actually picked Brian up and held him,'' Robertson says. ``She covered him with her jacket and was holding him in her arms.

``She said he could hear what she was saying. When he took his last breath, she kissed him on the cheek. She told him, ``That's from everybody that loves you.' ``

By then, the Buick driver was gone.

He'd walked away.

Deputies charged Lakeland laborer Raymond Allen Brown, then 21, with leaving the scene of a fatal crash.

``Only reason he left the scene was he didn't have a driver's license,'' says his friend, Sherika Green, who owned the car.

Green led deputies to Brown that night, telling them he wanted to turn himself in. He hasn't yet been tried.

Now, a metal bar holds Brian Sr.'s right leg together.

He can't bring himself to talk about the crash.

Robertson fills her days and nights with work.

	Brian E. Riley Jr.

``Hard is an understatement,'' she says. ``Any overtime that can be signed up for, I sign up for. I try to stay busy.

``His dad still hasn't gone back to work and he sleeps a lot.

``When I'm not working, I'm sleeping, usually. Anything to try to not think about it.''

Not a day goes by that McClanahan doesn't think of Brian.

Even a year later, she sees his face and feels the touch of his hair.

``I feel such a grief for his mother,'' she says, ``and I feel real close to her.''

Both women visit Brian's grave.

There's a football over the tombstone.

Under it, the Auburndale Eagles buried their jerseys.

Brian lies there, surrounded by the love of family and the warmth of a stranger's heart