Soooo Not Normal

T E S S A

Trigger Warning: Death by the car accident.

My whole body hurts. The smell of chemicals is overwhelming, and I feel like I'm going to throw up. I shift in my bed, but it doesn't feel like my bed. The mattress was too hard.

Wait, where am I? Then everything rushes back to me. The car crash! Emma! Cicily! I sit up quickly, eyes wide, causing a wave of nausea to wash over me.

"Woah, easy there. You should lay back down."

"Emma! You're okay!" I wince as I try to hug her. Ow!

"Yeah, I'm fine, but you got pretty beat up." I look at her and see that she has a bandage around her head.

"Wait, where's Cicily? Is she here?" I ask. I watch as a flicker of emotion passes over Emma's face. Regret, hurt, anger? What happened?

"What? What's wrong?" Silence.

"Emma, what happened?" I ask. She looks as if she was breaking, falling apart right there in front of me. Tears form in her eyes.

"I didn't mean to! I can't, Tessa, I can't! Not again!" She's crying now, sobbing. I pull her into a hug, ignoring the pain. It was my turn to be the strong one.

"Cic− Cicily, she− she got hurt an− and she didn't make it." Emma chokes out. Oh no. I can feel tears prick my eyes. We just sit there, hugging and crying together. 

Emma was right when she said she couldn't go through this again. Her dad died when she was 13. He worked for NASA, and one day there was an explosion when they were testing something, and he didn't make it. She was devastated. She tries to hide it by acting fun and outgoing and hiding her emotions. When he died she had to be strong for her mom, and she didn't have anyone to cry to. It broke her. I knew she couldn't go through something like that again. If she did, she might not be able to come back. But now it's happened, and I'm not sure. I pull back and look her straight in the eye.

"I don't know what to do, Tessa. I don't know." She cries.

"Hey, it's okay. You know why? Because I'll be here for you. You won't be alone." She nods, not saying a word.

All of a sudden, a couple runs in.

"Where is she!?" The man yells.

"Right this way." Says a nurse hurriedly.

"Is she alright?" The woman cries, but the nurse doesn't answer.

"IS SHE!?" The man yells, grabbing the nurse's arm. The nurse was trembling as she answers.

"I'd rather have Doctor Figueroa tell you." She says weakly, quickly turning and leading them back.

"Tes, Doctor Figueroa is the doctor that said Cicily was dead!" Emma says, jumping up and rushing out of the room. I quickly slip off of the bed and hurry after her.

"I want to find the people responsible for this!" The man's voice says from a nearby room. I stop and start to shake. It wasn't our fault. What if he gets mad and tries to hurt us? What if he hurts Emma? She was the one driving... It's the thought of someone hurting Emma that keeps me moving.

I follow Emma into the room that we saw the couple go into. They can't hurt us, right? We're surrounded by witnesses. Even if they did, this is, like, the safest place ever to get hurt.

The couple looks up as we walk in. The man has light blond hair and icy blue eyes. The woman has dark tanned skin and thick curly black hair like Cicily.

The guy looks kinda like me, but hey. Blond hair and blue eyes are pretty common, right?

"Who are you?" The man asks angrily.