Sad, scared, and abused.

Chapter 14

These next four months of Alice's life were a mess. They traveled on the road for days, sometimes not even stopping to sleep. Because what if they stopped to sleep and someone found them? Alice and Kid began to get less cautious as the days went on. It actually seemed as if they were going to be alright as long as they had each other. 
But then something happened, and it was nobody's fault except for their own. 
It was cloudy that day, and Alice's gut told her not to drive into the storm, but she did. The entire world around them was dark and lonely. Everything about it screamed to turn back, but she kept driving. Kid was sleeping in the passenger seat of the small blue Volvo as the rain started to beat down on the car. He didn't wake up even as thunder crashed around them. He didn't wake up even as the car started to sway more to the left of the road. Alice was frantically trying to align the car between the lines but the wind was strong, and the cars around her were almost as out of control as her vehicle was. Kid didn't wake up through the sobs that came out of Alice's mouth. He didn't wake up until the car crashed into the car in front of them. He woke up to Alice screaming, and then another big impact as the car behind slammed right into them. He was awake when he was ejected out of the front window. He was awake until he hit the ground. 
The paramedics came and got Alice out of the car. The cops talked to her but she spoke of nothing. She just watched as they put Kid into a black bag that zipped up. She knew what this meant. 
Kid was gone. 

        Alice had spoke no words since the accident, and after receiving medical care she was placed inside of a mental hospital. The bland white room was small and had little things inside of it. They were afraid that she would hurt herself, but knew nothing more about her.  Alice had therapy sessions every day, although they still could not get a word out of her. The woman had given her a book to write down all of her thoughts inside, but Alice rarely wrote. When she did she described the accident, she described losing Kid and how she felt as she saw his body being thrown from the car. She described how she screamed until she couldn't scream anymore. She didn't even feel the physical pain of the accident, she felt the pain of knowing Kid was gone. Alice had scars on her face, and had been at risk of a concussion from the accident, but aside from that she was completely fine. Kid hadn't been wearing a seat belt because he wanted to sleep more comfortably and she blamed herself for letting him do that. 
Alice did eat though, she had supervised meals 3 times a day, and it was the same meal more than twice a week. While she eats, she writes in her journal just to pass more time. 

 October 12th

I still cannot wrap my mind around losing him. It doesn't seem as if he's actually gone. It was so sudden, so out of nowhere.  I close my eyes and I see the storm. I see his eyes reflected in the lightening that nearly blinded me. I hear his screams echoing in the thunder. I can't even escape him in my dreams. The car crashes and I see him die over and over again. This is killing me. It should be me.

Alice closes the journal and the nurse gathers the tray of food and leaves. As soon as she is gone and out of the hallway, Alice leans against her cold bed frame and tries to close her eyes to sleep. Insomnia has swept over her entire mind, and the thought of seeing Kid in her dreams was too heartbreaking to sleep with. 
She needed to feel something besides this numbing pain of missing him, besides this guilt. So she put her pillow over her face, the one with the memory foam. They told her it would help her feel like she was more at home, like it was her own. But so far it just felt cold. She held her breath for as long as she could, until the stars and colors popped in her eyesight. She had fainted before, but this was different, this was her whole chest being strangled as she cut off her air supply, this was drowning in a lake that has air in every corner. She felt the pillow being pulled away from her grasp, and the last thing she saw before her world went black was faces surrounding her. Alice still looked to see if any of the faces were Kid's. 

Two days passed before she was placed in her old room again. They had evaluated her health, and decided that she was no longer a threat to herself but she still had to be under extreme supervision. They spoke to her during that time, and asked her about her life besides Kid. She talked vaguely about her father, and about how much she missed her mother. This was the first time she had ever gave them complete sentences.