April Showers [h. s.]

1

Sirens.

Sirens.

It's all I can hear.

-

Every weekend, I help my dad out at work. Years ago, when it was just him and mum, he decided to buy a little café on a secluded street in Camden, 'Gray's Café'. Very original, I know but I like helping him, it's his pride and joy. I love seeing him work, the way he talks to the customers, when he cleans the counters, getting into the grit of it, the way he knows all our regulars orders off by heart and makes sure to show his customers so he could impress them. Everybody loved him.

My older brother Noah helps when he can too. Most days it's just the three of us. Dad gets stressed at times, and mum does help with the baking, but he doesn't want to let mum know how stressed he is, but I can tell. I spend every weekend with him in that café.

Sunday, 15th October. It was miserable outside. I woke up late to the sound of the rain banging against my window, checked the alarm clock, 6.48.am. I jumped out of bed and got myself ready, grabbed my things and before I knew it, I was being rushed out the door.

We normally walk to the café, it's only ten minutes away and it gives us a quick break to talk to each other before the chaos of the café, but the rain was so heavy, dad decided it would be best that he drive us instead. I didn't mind, I love to listen to his music in the car. The drive to the café is calming, I stare out of the window and watch the trees go by before we hit the main street. He always plays Kings of Leon or Nirvana, his favourite bands, of course. Dad loves music, I think that's where I got it from.

We blared 'Use Somebody' by Kings of Leon on the way. The rain was getting heavier.

'You know that I could use somebody,

Someone like you.'

While that song was playing, he looked at me and smiled. I smiled and glanced back to the road. The rain was getting so bad, it was getting hard for me to see out of the windows. The window wipers couldn't keep up with the sheet of rain that was being spread across the windscreen.

All of a sudden, two bright lights were directly in front of us. The rain was so bad, you couldn't even tell which side of the road we were on. The lights got brighter and bigger by the second. Impact. The car was going so fast the wheels spun out and the car crashed directly into us.

The world went silent. The music was still playing but I couldn't hear it. The road was no longer visible. The car stayed perfectly straight as we were thrown across the road. Before we reached the trees, the car must have hit a pothole because in the same second that I looked at dad, shut my eyes, and we began to roll. With every roll, we hit against different parts of the road, smashing every inch of the car until there was barely anything left. Impact.

Within seconds we were completely wedged between two trees. The smell of smoke made me open my eyes, I glanced out the shattered wind screen and saw that we were upside down. I could see all the rain falling from the trees and into the car. I looked at my dad. He was unconscious. His face with covered in gashes filled with glass and there were branches surrounding him. I tried to move to get us help but we were completely confined in the car. I remember struggling to get one of my arms free to reach my phone on the roof of the car, to no avail. I glanced out of the windscreen one last time before I fell unconscious and saw what looked to be a man stumbling out of his car far off in the distance, still on the road.

I woke up in a hospital bed with my mother sobbing in the corner. I don't know how long I had been here. She let out harrowing wail when she saw me opening my eyes. They took her out of the room and Noah sat with me at the end of the bed and explained what had happened. He knew that I was about to burst into tears, so he asked me to move over and sat with me while I cried into his shoulders, he just let me. I just laid there sobbing until I fell asleep while he rubbed my forehead to calm me down.

For the next few days I listened to his favourite music, in hopes I could feel any connection to him, so he could tell me he was okay, and happy, and that I was going to be okay one day.

The funeral was Wednesday, it was busy, so many people came to share their condolences to us as he was a big part of people's lives in the town. Mum was heartbroken, she couldn't even look up to respond to anyone, leaving Noah and I to do it all.

As we left the graveyard, I noticed a man standing by the gate in a black suit, he had his back to us as he walked away. He was tall with messy hair I recognised him from what I could see, but I could not make out who it was, but I just assumed it was someone visiting their loved one in the same graveyard.

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