Nowhere to Go But Up✓

Jesus Take the Wheel

The blaring of my alarm clock jolted me awake in a panic. Cursing myself for not shutting my curtains last night as I was blinded by the rising sun, I threw my hand down to shut off the alarm. I blinked away the last remains of sleep and almost fell out of bed when I saw the time, 7:30. "Crap!" I yelled as I jumped out of bed and ran for my closet, grabbing the first blouse and pair of pants I could get my hands on. Tripping and falling into my pants, my bedroom door creaked open revealing my three year old rubbing the sleepy dirt from her eyes with one little fist, the other firmly holding onto her stuffed dog. "Good morning love," I said, planting a kiss on her blonde curls as I walked into my bathroom to finish up my morning routine.

"Mornin'" came the quiet reply from Lucy.

"We're running late this morning so we need to get moving. As soon as Mommy is done brushing her teeth, it's your turn." I informed her, taking a second to spit out the toothpaste and rinse out my mouth. Helping Lucy brush her teeth and get ready went fairly easy, she could sense that this morning was not going as planned.

I rushed around the kitchen, getting her breakfast ready and in front of her and making my coffee to go. We were out the door 20 minutes late, which put us right in the middle of morning rush hour traffic. There was no way either one of us were going to be on time this morning. I put on our Disney playlist to keep Lucy happy and tried to remain calm and focused on the steady stream of brake lights in front of me.

The continual lack of sleep, something that had been hard to come by since Nick died, was starting to take its toll on me, physically. My vision blurred as the beginnings of a migraine started etching into my head. I was checking on Lucy in the rear view mirror when I noticed a car speeding up the exit lane that I was in.

In that next moment, I heard the clash of metal meeting metal as the speeding car crashed into me, sending me into the car in front. The airbags went off with a bang and I heard my nose crunch under the immense pressure. The force pushed me into my steering wheel, pinning me there.

My ears were ringing as I attempted to turn my head to check on Lucy. She was crying, her little face red, but she didn't look like she was hurt. As I tried to focus and quiet the ringing in my ears I became aware of the damage around me. This accident had caused cars to stretch across most of the highway. I think someone had called the cops if those were sirens I was hearing and not just my ears still ringing. "Lucy, are you ok? Are you hurt?" I managed to get out through the pain.

"My tummy hurts Mommy." She answered, tapping her chest as best she could. Before I could respond to her though, my door was pried open, revealing a group of first responders.

"Are you ok Ma'am?" One of them asked.

"I mean I could be better. But you need to get my daughter out. She's saying that her chest hurts," I say, quickly diverting their attention to the back seat. They made quick work of getting her out of her car seat and came back up to me. When it became clear that they weren't going to be able to remove me easily, they got out the jaws of life to remove the steering wheel and pull me from the wreck. As my chest came free of the pressure caused by the wheel, I struggled to catch my breath. I was placed on a gurney and taken into an ambulance for an initial exam.

"Ma'am, my name is Steve Rogers. I'm gonna get you checked out and make sure you and your daughter are ok." One of the EMTs told me as he began to check me over.

I started to respond but blood came up and soon I was choking on it. The last thing I saw was the worry etched on his face before the darkness claimed me.

AN: So here's the first chapter. I wrote this on my phone during a break so if there's any grammar mistakes, that's why. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Also I have absolutely no medical experience so if none of it is accurate. That's why. For the sake of the plot though let's just roll with it.