Swish

.13

"Virginia, would you quiet down back there?  Your mother and I are trying to have a conversation."

I pouted and went back to singing under my breath, until my favorite part of the song came up and I shouted the lyrics at full blast.

"Virginia!"

"Okay okay, I'll shut up, I'm sorry!"

"That's not the point!  You don't listen!"

"Mike, that's enough, she's just singing."

"Thank you mom."

At least she understood me.  Most almost thirteen year olds didn't respond well to yelling.

"You're wasting your time.  You should focus on your studying more, you're not going to be the next American Idol, so why bother?"

"Mike!"

"What?  It's the truth.  She's already got her entire future planned out for her.  Business school at UCM and then she'll join my marketing team.  She'll have a solid and secure future."

"What?  Dad, I don't want to go to-"

"I don't care what you think you want, you're still juss a-" he cut himself off, swallowing a burp and a hiccup at the same time after slurring his words.  "Just a child.  You will listen to me, young lady."

I crossed my arms over my chest in protest, but just as I began to speak up, my mother did it for me. 

"We both know that is not happening, Mike.  You won't have control over where she goes to college and she can do what she wants that makes her happy.  Now pull over."

"What?  No I'm fine, I only had a few at the-"

"I said pull over now!  Or you're going to get arrested if you get pulled over, and you know how bad that will look."

"Okay, okay, juss lemme get through this stop light.  See?  It's green, green means go-"

Except the light wasn't green.  He was looking at the light across from us that had been letting the other line of cars go, and they'd been traveling fast, at least fifty miles per hour, because there hadn't been a yellow light yet. 

My dad ran that red, sped right through the intersection and put us right in the middle of oncoming traffic.  

Blinding headlights and screeching horns, nothing was louder than the crunch of metal and the ringing in my ears after it was all over. 

I was punched in the side of my jaw with an airbag, seatbelt ripping into my skin and I get distinctly aware of something warm and sticky dripping down the side of my head.  I didn't have the mind to put it together that it was blood until a little while later, when I saw that same substance stuck on my mother's body, gushing out of her in a river. 

"Mom?  Mom!"

There was another car inside of ours.  And then there was another collision in the front, someone ramming directly into us, smashing the windshield as rain started landing upon us, except this rain wasn't cold or wet, but sharp and cut into my skin. 

"Dad?"

No response, from either of them.  

I choked back the tears and leaned forward, one of the biggest mistakes of my life thus far. 

My dad's legs were trapped underneath him, the smoke and blood blocking most of my vision, but I couldn't mistake his unconscious head bobbing back and forth on the seat behind him.