Winning Skylinn

24

The car behind us slammed into the back of my vehicle, causing the air bags to pop out. My seatbelt strained to hold me in, but my head hit the steering wheel anyway.

I heard Jonny scream as he was thrown out the windshield. I didn't see it happen, but I heard everything. The gasp as he crashed through the glass, the smack of his head against the hood of my car. His cries of pain.

My head was pounding but I used every last bit of strength to look up. Jonny was sprawled across the hood of my car, lying in a pool of blood.

My own blood smeared against the steering wheel, but I hardly noticed. I put pressure on my forehead while I whipped out my phone to call an ambulance.

The other driver was long gone.

"Hello, 911?" I said into the phone.

"911, what's your emergency?" I heard.

"Um, I was just in a car accident." I tried to speak and breathe clearly. "It's me and my best friend."

"Can you tell me your name, sweetie?"

"Sk-Skylinn. Skylinn Porter."

"Okay. Where are you?"

"Highway 55, north."

I heard her typing something on a computer. "Help is on the way. Hang in there, Skylinn." Then she hung up.

I tried to move, but couldn't. Pain shot up my leg, and I cried out in anguish, just hoping it wasn't broken.

I checked for other injuries to my body, but it seemed there was only my scratched-up forehead and the left leg. I was lucky to have been wearing my seatbelt. Jonny was a different story.

Jonny...

One look at his limp body shriveled up on the hood of my car was enough to make me cry. It didn't help my headache, but who cared in the moment? I sobbed into my hands, to the point of shaking.

It felt like hours passed before the ambulance showed up, but it could only have been a couple minutes.

Two people carrying a stretcher slid Jonny off my car and onto the cot. Before I could see what else they did, an EMT approached me.

"We're gonna get you out, okay?" he said.

I nodded.

"Can you move your legs?"

I tried, but felt instant pain. "No."

He called to one of the other EMT's. "Weston, over here!"

Another man came jogging up. They proceeded to try and pry me out of the vehicle. I tried not to cry, but it was tough, considering I had just been crying only moments ago. I'd been told it was best to stay calm under pressure.

Soon, they had me out. A woman gathered up my keys, purse, and cell phone and put them in the ambulance, where they placed me on a cot. A nurse began to assess the damage to my head, and another nurse cleaned the blood off my hands and dress.

Finally, I was able to ask the question that'd been on my mind since they arrived. "Where's Jonny?"

"He's in the other ambulance. On his way to the hospital, just like you," a nurse named Colette told me.

I tried to process that. "Is he okay?"

"We don't know yet," said Colette.

I wanted to cry all over again. He had to be okay; he just had to! There was no way I was losing my best friend.