Wrong Actions

2. Realising

Three days after the accident, I was laid in my room curled in a vulnerable foetal position. I was separate from the world and protecting myself from it. Every noise within my house I was oblivious to, even when my parents, close family and friends would enter the room to try and sooth me or coax me from my position, I would wield no response. Doors would creak and then slam, footsteps would tread getting louder and quieter as they went by and coughs would echo from the different rooms in my home. My mind had closed off the background so I was just with my own thoughts.

Long, striped Pyjamas clung to my wet body from the sleepless, nightmare filled, hours before. Nightmares replaying the horrific memories of what had happened and the emotions I had felt. I would wake sweating and terrified and drift in and out of an unwanted dormancy.

The curtains were drawn to block out the piercing sunlight but a light draft rippled through them swirling fresh air into the humid room. Refreshing smells drifted through as well, cut grass of the summer season and smoke from the endless barbeques.

A chair sat beside my bed from the hours my mother had sat softly talking to me trying to get a response.

I still couldn’t get the image of my friend’s battered corpse out of my head and I didn’t want to relive it by telling her what had happened. I hadn’t spoken a thing since I stepped into the house that day…

I swung the door wide, banging it behind me and sliding down the weak wood to land on the floor with my head in my hands. “May?” a gentle voice spoke and I lifted my head.

I peered into my mother's confused and worried eyes and the realisation of what I’d just seen enveloped me worse than the moment the image was captured in my head.

I choked softly, unable to catch my breath and not even trying to gulp hard for more. There was no desperation to help my body to survive. Tears streamed down my face and the salty taste filled my mouth as they reached my parted lips. No air passed into my system and I soon began to feel lightheaded from it. My body began trembling and sobs escaped me, my chest rising up and down quickly. I could see my mother’s panicked face growing as she dived down in front of me, kneeling, her lips moved quickly but I couldn’t hear what left them. I didn’t want to try now as the air was strangled from within me.

I closed my eyes and my throat kept getting tighter and tighter.

That wasn’t the worst hurt I felt though. It felt as if my heart had torn in half. Too many emotions swirled around my head at once. The loss I experienced was the greatest ever in my life. Everything beneath my skin seemed to be ripping outwards. My head was thumping, not because of the run I had just made but because of the emotional and mental torture I had endured in the space of 5 minutes.

I had been friends with Cassey for all my life, since the day we were both born. Born 19th October 1995, prematurely, I was in the incubator beside her. We motioned weakly to each other, silently keeping each other company. When we had been released from the hospital fate brought us back together, that day my mother had dropped a credit card in the shadow of the neighbouring baby cot and her parents had investigated from the hospital’s records to personally return it back to it’s owner. My mother always recalled her great surprise of discovering these fortunate guests at our door. Cassey and I had been attached right from the start and grown from there.

Dark spots began to form in front of my eyes as the memories of so many years of a perfect friendship, now ended, skimmed through my thoughts. Every second me and Cassey had spent together seem to compress into a mere moment inside my mind. My head hurtled towards the hard laminate floor I sat upon and landed with a muffled thud, out of my control. Feet rushed about blurring in front of me, vibrating the floor beneath me as I lay with a weak body, the world becoming gradually darker. I fell into unconsciousness and everything seized to exist to me.