For You

Chapter 2

THERE WAS A MOMENT when everything went silent and still.

That chilling silence that happens in horror movies right before something terrifying occurs was the only way I could describe it. It was not the sound of glass shattering or the screech of the rubber tires, like the sound of nails on a chalkboard screaming in my ears, that struck a bell of complete fear through me. It was the eerie quiet that shook every cell in my body. Sometimes silence can be the scariest thing in a time like that.

Not even my head slamming into the window or the pain exploding in my skull compared to that stillness in the air seconds before the actual crash. I was frozen in place, the images of my parents holding hands and the rain dripping like consistent tears splattering on the window. The picture would not escape my eyes when everything else went dark.

There was enough time to wish for the loud chaos that usually filled the car. I wanted for the frog that Finn named Edwin to be let loose in the car for the thousandth time, hopping around while Mom and I screamed and Max giggled in his car seat. I wanted to hear Dad yelling at Sam to stop throwing gold fish at him so he could catch the frog already, with Landon chanting for Edwin to be free.

The desires for the past disappeared when my nails dug harshly into the seat cushion and my body was jerked into the driver's seat and then into the door. I felt a warm liquid run down my forehead and I squeezed my eyes closed until they ached. The scent of smoke made my nose scrunch up as the bitter stench hit me.

At that point, I didn't think about praying for our lives. A thought of death quickly skipped around in my head, but only for a moment or two before I dismissed it. I had it set in my mind that it was only a small car accident, so death couldn't be an option, even though I knew it wasn't my decision.

What I really thought of was the scene of the trees looking down at me as I plummeted to the ground. The sun light peeking through their branches. The bird's song that repeated. And for those seconds of only drifting through the air, everything was at peace. Until it wasn't. Hitting the ground is always the hardest part.

So there I was. My mind and body was pulled deeper into the arms of heaven, further and further until all control slipped away. My life was then in the hands of God, like it always was and by then so much more real. Numbness settled over the excruciating pain and then replaced it with feelings of hollow emptiness.

Maybe that was death. Maybe that was the starting point of me deteriorating from the inside out, or maybe it wasn't just a minor accident like I had thought. If only I had known that all of those what ifs were about to be a slap from reality when I awoke the next morning.

I suppose you really don't know what will happen until it is too late, like the moment where there is no more falling and the ground hits you because the peace is over. The peace was over when Mom stormed into my room, minutes before.

...

Waking up was like coming back from a coma, or as close to what I imagined coming back to earth would be like. My arms felt heavy like bricks, my head hurt like hell decided to pay a visit, and my eyes might as well been glued shut with the clear glue that Landon used for his science fair project. It especially hurt to breathe. Each inhale was a struggle to get through and every exhale was just as strenuous.

I knew that morning before the accident with clear awareness of what the next day held and being in a stiff hospital bed was not part of my knowledge. I would have woken up to probably some kind of yelling or shouting in my face and little pairs of feet dancing around on my bed, not the steady beep...beep...beep of a heart monitor.