July 4th, 2008
It was hot. Salty drops of sweat coated our foreheads and rolled down the sides of our face. The ice cold lemonade was of no relief of the heat. I attempted to cool off by pulling my long brown hair into a pony tail, ridding my neck of the mess.
I was startled by a loud, booming sound. The first firework of the show being held at the local fair grounds. I looked up at the sky, just in time to see the rest of the green sparks soaring through the sky. Choruses of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' sounded from around me.
************
After the show of fireworks, I stood up from the ground along with my best friend, Addison. We grabbed our now empty cups, and began to follow her mother to the car.
Addison and I both climbed into the backseat of the Jeep, her mother obviously taking the driver's seat. Addison sits directly behind her mother, me in the middle of the back seat. She tells us to buckle our seatbelts, what with it being a holiday and loads of drunk drivers would be out tonight.
She buckles her own, Addison following. I grab mine, pulling it across my body. I attempt to click it into the buckle, but it won't stay put. Each time I place it into the buckle, it won't click, and just slides right out. I decide to let it slide and not buckle myself in. It's only a ten minute drive to Addison's house, where I'll be staying tonight. What are the odds of something happening in such a short amount of time.
We continue to drive along the dark road, chatting about the fireworks and the nice evening we'd had. We pull to a stop sign, waiting for the fast moving cars to pass before turning onto the other road. As we wait, a familiar tune begins to play on the radio.
"Turn it up!" Addison and I scream simultaneously. Her mother laughs, cranking up the volume. 7 Things by Miley Cyrus now blasts through the car, me and Addison screaming out the lyrics, using our empty cups as microphones.
Her mother turns around, laughing at us before joining in on the fun, singing and holding an invisible mic of her own in her right hand. She looks back at the road, not seeing any car coming. She one handedly steers the Jeep onto the road.
Booming. Crashing. Flying. That is all I feel. Screaming. That is all I hear.
As the car flies off the road and into the ditch, I suddenly feel a heavy weight on top of my small body. I don't move an inch. I can't. Even as the car flips, I don't move.
How? I wonder. I didn't have a seatbelt on. As the now totaled Jeep finally comes to a stop, I am in tears. I take in my surroundings. The car is on it's side in the ditch, the car that hit us with it's rear end in the road, and the crushed front pressed into the front of our car in the ditch. The airbag is blown up to its full extent from the steering wheel, covering a large expanse of the front seat. Addison's mother's head is at an odd angle, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that her neck is broken. Tears stream down my flushed cheeks as I realize that she is dead. Fearfully, I glance over at Addison. Her seatbelt is snapped in two, half of her body hanging out the broken window. There is no way she is alive, and I begin to bawl now. She was my best friend.
I have no idea about the state of the person who crashed into us. From what I can gather, they didn't have their headlights on, and that was the reason we crashed, because none of us saw them coming. I hated the person, for taking my best friend and their mother away from me.
Through the swirling mess that was my mind, one thing stands out very clearly. It is not logical for me to be alive, when I was not buckled, and for Addison and her mother to be dead, when they were buckled. I was even the one to be closest to where the impact was.
I cautiously turn my head to the other side of my body, careful not to hurt myself. I gasp at the sight of a boy beside me, already looking at me. Curly hair. Electrifying green eyes. Pink lips. Flashbacks instantly swarm my mind, but I cannot place any of them.
I glance down at his body, a plain white shirt adorning his torso. A muscular arm extends from his body. My eyes trail from his torso, and down his arm, to see it pressed against my chest: the source of the heavy weight I had grown used to in the short period of time. I look back up at his face, seeing that his intense stare remained. I glance back down at his body, and also notice his legs holding me up and against the seat, when I should be against the side of the car, now pressed into the side of the ditch.
"You've gotta stay alive for me, baby," the boy whispered to me, in a deep, soothing voice that was the slightest bit raspy. With that, he disappeared from me, letting my body painfully collide with the shattered glass. I immediately am soaked with blood, the rusty smell overwhelming my senses.
What eleven year old should have to experience this?
1 Vote for next chapter! Thanks!
