Story I made for health class 🥺🥺

Literally the whole story

    The timer ticked, there was only 10 seconds left. He had to make this shot or else they would lose. He took a deep breath in and threw the basketball. He looked up to see the ball bounce off the rim and fall to the ground without going through the net. And with that, the timer sounded.
    
    They all walked off the court disheartened by the score. If only Andrew hadn't missed his throw, they would have won the game and made the playoffs. The team packed their gym bags and left without saying more than a few words to each other.
   
    Andrew unlocked his car and got in the driver's seat while his teammate James got in the passenger seat. "Sorry you have to take me home again today, my car is almost fixed I swear!" James apologized. "It's fine." Andrew told him.

    The drive had been mostly quiet until James brought up the game. "It sucks that we lost, we could have made the playoffs if you hadn't missed your shot." James complained. "What? Are you saying it's my fault we lost?" Andrew exclaimed as he took his eyes off the road ahead for a second. "I'm just saying we could have won if it wasn't for you!" James yelled. "I wasn't the only one who made a mistake in that game yet I'm the only one you're blaming?!" Andrew fired back.

     The yelling match continued for another couple minutes and by now Andrew was barely paying attention to the road and before he knew it he was drifting into the left lane. Suddenly, they both shut up at the sound of a car horn. Andrew finally looked ahead and noticed he was about to run straight into another car. He quickly swerved off the road and crashed directly into a tree, then everything went dark.

    He woke up to the sound of his mom crying. He opened his eyes to see an iv in his arm and a heart monitor beside him. He looked around and spotted his mother sitting in a chair near his hospital bed. He went to sit up and tell her everything was ok, but when he went to sit up he realized he couldn't. He tried to sit up like he normally would but it wasn't working so instead; he tried to pull himself up by grabbing the bed railing. That's when he realized. He could not move anything on his body besides his head. That's when panic started to take over "MOM! MOM! HELP I CAN'T MOVE!"

Three Months Later:
    After three long months Andrew was finally ready to go back to school. He approached the school door and his caregiver, Suzanne, opened the door and wheeled him into the school. As soon as he arrived everyone immediately stared at him and whispered to their friends.

    Even after five periods had passed, he still remained the only topic of gossip. The former basketball captain, to a guy who now was paralyzed from the neck down. All from a car crash that also killed his teammate James. He hated hearing people's whispers, he didn't care that they talked about him, he knew they would, it was when they talked about James that he got mad. It was something he had blamed himself for it for the past three months and they just brought it up like it was nothing.

    James was already dead before Andrew even woke up at the hospital. He never even got to apologize for the stupid fight or crashing the car. And sure, Andrew hated not being able to walk, play basketball, or pretty much do anything by himself but he was more troubled by James' death than his own issues.

    After being deep in thought for so long he finally snapped back to reality when he bumped into one of his old teammates Justin, "Hey, long time no see." Justin said with a warm smile. "Oh hey, it's nice to see you again." Andrew said. "It's really a shame what happened to you and James," he said as his smile faded, "it's not your fault you know, so don't beat yourself up over it. Ok?" "Ok, thank you by the way, I really needed that. I'll see you around!" Andrew said smiling for the first time in a while, "See you around!" Justin said waving goodbye.

    For the first time since the crash, Andrew felt truly ok with what happened. He knew his life would change, but he was going to make the best of it. He decided to get a therapist and enjoy his life the best he could.

One year later:
    Andrew had finally gotten used to his new life. Sure, he still missed basketball and many of the other small things he had taken for granted, but he was still liking his new life. He got to make new friends in speech and debate, and his new therapist Mary is really nice. She had helped him learn many lessons from the accident like yelling and violence shouldn't be an automatic response to conflict. He still wasn't completely over James' death, but he was getting better and that's what mattered.