My Secret Family

Sugar Crash (2)

Mia

43 kg

I did not know I had died. My mind rippled in and out of reality, moving outwards from the moment when Luke's car hit us to when the bright flash of light and pain froze in my memory, the shattered glass of my thoughts still glinting at me, threatening to cut me if I lost my train of thought. Every time I tried to look directly at them they spun away, always out of reach, I got the sense that if I did catch hold of one of those shards of memory it would slice me open and a secret would come pouring out, candy in a bloody piñata.

In one shard I saw the scene of us shouting when we got in Sophie's car, me and Ana arguing about how Sue's head was lilting too far back against the back seat. I wanted her head propped up to stop her choking on her own vomit, Ana wanted her head down so that Sue could get blood back into her head. Sophie was trying to drive us to the emergency entrance at Colma Mercy. I was yelling at her where it was but poor, stupid, Sophie took the wrong turn up Quarry Lane. "Left! Left!"

"Sue, Sue, wake up." Ana slapped Sue lightly on the face, her hand wrapped in the cuff of her sweater to wipe away the dribble around Sue's mouth, Sue's head cradled in her lap. We didn't know at that point if Sue was alive or dead, but I remembered Ana looking like she wanted to crawl backwards up against the back seat.

Sophie swerved out the way of an oncoming car, struggling to stay in her lane on the winding road.

"Where are we? Fuck!" She shouted from the front seat.

Ana shouted back, "You idiot! We're going the wrong way. " She was trying not to touch Sue with her bare hands. Sue hated being touched.

"Turn around, " I shouted at Sophie, massaging Sue's skinny arms through her sleeves, "Colma Mercy is near Lucky's. " It wasn't exactly a lie, the dead end at Lucky's was only one wall away from the hospital.

Sophie stopped and did a u-turn, doing it in 5 moves because she steered the wrong way in reverse the first time and almost drove us into the barrier and over the edge. Sophie drove us fast down Quarry hill, the car jerking as she tried to control our speed. I remember thinking, exactly how long have you had your license, you dumb bitch? When we went through the intersection of Carbide and Quarry I remember it was green when Luke ran the red light and killed me. I knew it was him, in the same way a deer knows a predator's eyes, even in the dark.

*

Being dead isn't as fun as it sounds. I am floating above the ground, trying to get my feet down to where things make sense, but they can't reach down far enough. It's like being alive in every respect except I can't feel anything. Anything.

I can see everyone, but no one knows I'm around. I sense others, vague shapes that move through the world with me, but I can't talk to them. I suspect they are also ghosts like me, but they move like strange animals. I am a disconnected spirit wandering through a world I can't feel. In some respects being dead is exactly like being alive in Colma.

I moved, pushing through the air above the twisted metal of Sophie's car and seeing her slumped over the steering wheel, blood seeping from her nose, gasping for breath. Sue lay ahead of the car in the road, impossibly far from us. I thought at first that she must have climbed out of the wreckage and run there, but when I saw the broken wind-shield and the trail of broken glass like pebbles on the beach, the truth seeped in.

Ana lay behind my body, both of us twisted up in our seats like a couple of pretzels, but unlike me she was moving. My body lay twisted next to hers, covered in blood and pieces of plastic, debris broken off where Luke's car hit the passenger door. I looked over to Luke fighting with the buckled door, trying to get out of his car. I sensed something trickling out from underneath the engine. It was not a smell, but some other sense, an awareness of the reality that played out around me. I did not know if it was gasoline or blood.

I can remember the lilting, siren sound of Ana moving her arms around and moaning, not realizing that I was dead yet, pushing against me to wake me up. I remember it now but I'm also there at that in the past, like time itself is broken. Ana had not seen my face, my glassy expression, or my arm, broken and bent entirely the wrong way just like Dinah Chu's leg. I should have cringed looking at myself like that, but I didn't have emotion any more, I just observed things. Whatever biological experiences I had nurtured throughout my life were dead. Gone forever.

I remember moving over to Sophie's side and listening to her crying in agony, the edge of the air-bag flap shattered against her broken nose, pieces of plastic sticking out of her face in a macabre pin-cushion, her seat-belt pulled taut against her collar-bone. I had not worn my seat-belt because I never did. I had always felt protected by a higher power, now betrayed by first grade physics. I did feel something creep under my skin. I was cold. Very cold.

Muffled sounds wandered through the mist and I looked over at Luke, punching against the door, trying to force it open, not yet noticing the flames flickering underneath his car.

He looked up at me and went pale, punched the door open.

Luke, I said, my voice trailing away into mist. He swirled around, almost falling over his unlaced sneakers and ran away into the night.