When Everything Changed

Chapter:1

It's amazing to think that one day can change your life forever. I mean, I always knew that it would happen someday, but not now, not while I was still a kid.

Parents always talk about how you should enjoy your childhood, and I did... until the accident.

Last year I was sitting at home by myself when I heard a knock on the door. When I answered it, there was a Sheriff standing there with his head down. "Are you Skyler?" he said. "yes, is there something wrong?" "I am going to need you to come down to my office with me" "Okay, just let me call my parents to..." "That won't be nessasary, that's why I need you to come to the station. Skyler, your parents were in a car accident." My heart dropped. "Well, where are they, can I go see them!" "I'm afraid you can't." "What do you mean!" "Your parents... they're... are dead."

At first I just stood there in silence. "There must be a mistake, my mom and dad just left, to take my brother back to college." "Your brother is in the hospital, he's in serious condition." "Well... can I go see him?" "Yes, but you've got to understand, he's in a coma. He can still hear you, but he is unresponsive."

When I finally got to the hospital, I rushed to my brother's room. "NOAH!" I screamed, but there was no response. I knew there wouldn't be, but I guess I was kind of hoping there might.

The nurses explained that there was no way of telling how long, or if he would even come out of the coma.

For days, I would just sit on his hospital bed, holding his hand. Every once in a while his hand would grip mine, but the nurses said that it was just his muscles reacting.

The nurses kept telling me to go home and get some rest, and that if he woke up they would call, but I wanted to be there when he did.

Almost three months had went by, and he still hadn't woke up. The doctors kept trying to get me to sign papers so that they could take him off of the iv's. I wouldn't do it, I couldn't, not if there was still a chance that he could wake up.

I knew that staying with my brother was what they would have wanted me to do, but it still felt wrong. Missing my parents funeral, but I needed to stay with Noah.

For the next few days everyone visited. Family and friends, all tried to get me to go home. "NO, NO, NO!" I would tell all of them.

It was hard to fall asleep because every time I did, I would dream about what happened, and just kept living that day over and over again. When I tried to talk to one of the nurses, she thought that I was trying to reach out for help. The next day when I woke up, there was a preacher sitting in the other chair. "Skyler, the nurse sent me in, she said that you might want to talk about what happened." "I'm fine" I told him, but that's what I told everyone. "It's natural for you to be experiencing pain right now, anyone would with what you've been through." "I said, I'm fine!" "Well, if you need anything, I will be just down the hall, in the chapel."