My Purgatory Hell

Chapter 6

"Sometimes in life, a sudden situation, a moment in time, alters your whole life, forever changes the road ahead."

- Ahmad Ardalan

Somehow I managed to find a calm in the midst of the storm that were my thoughts. I quickly wiped away the tears that I had seemed to continue to shed but have temporarily ceased. An eerie numbness settled into my body, which must have helped with this odd calm. 

I needed to prioritize myself from here on out, I realized. It seemed that I also needed to cut Corwin and Hayley out of my life. What happened tonight was in no way healthy for me. Part of me had brought up instances where they both have hurt me over the years--over the same thing. It was best for my emotional and, in the long run, physical health.

This task was easier said than done, I will admit. Considering Hayley to be the one person in the world I hashed things out with? Who I went to over every fight with my brother? Every crush I've ever had? Yeah, this was definitely going to be easier said than done. And Corwin? He would likely drop by the store from time to time, but it wasn't like I saw him every day. He could be a childhood dream that would never be. Somehow I wanted to preserve that. My childhood crush that would never happen. That tonight never happened. That he was still oblivious to how I felt.

I laughed out loud at that thought. How pathetic is that? To still be swooning over someone who would never look at you in that way? To never dream of you in the way you dream of him? Instead, I was just the little annoying sister-like figure always in the oblivion. 

Ugh--I needed to get out of my head and stay out. Hopefully soon, especially if I was ever going to stay calm and face my parents--I needed to settle my overactive mind. I didn't want to risk coming back early and relive the tear fest, because my parents would ask too man questions. It was also early enough that I'd bet they'd both be up. Just breathe, I mentally instructed myself. You aren't home yet. They don't know what happened.

The song that started playing on the radio didn't seem to suit my taste or mood, so I changed the station to something that had a hard metal song playing. The music was overly loud, so I turned the blaring speakers down to a more suitable volume. Taking a deep breath, I focused on the words that flowed with the music. Oddly, the heavy metal was more calming than I'd realized. The hype that I managed to work myself up to had dimmed immensely, and soon I was back to the eerie calm I had experienced moments ago. Breathe in, breathe out, I instructed myself, similar to a physical trainer. I kept this rhythm up and focused only on the music and my breathing, avoiding my overwhelming thoughts. The song had changed to another heavy metal song--just like the previous one, I focused on the meaning of the words--the words and my breathing.

In focusing on the meaning of the song, my thought pattern had slowly changed. In the course of a couple of songs, it was like I had a new prospective. Instead of worrying about Corwin, Hayley, Aaron, and my choices moving forward, I was wondering what the song writers must have felt when creating the masterpiece that flowed through the radio. What inspired them to write this particular song? Were they experiencing heart ache alone at the time, or did they have someone they could share their needs and desires with? Were they desperate for attention, or seeking clarity? Did they ever experience betrayal?

That last question made my thought process stop in my tracks. No, I certainly didn't need my negative thoughts to creep back into my overreacting mind and cycle back to what really was bothering me. I've already been down that road and wish not to re-hash these thoughts. Music, I mentally herded myself. Listen to the music. Focus on the music. My mental herding seemed to have helped, because the rising anxiety began to decrease.

I was coming up on an intersection, and my instinct told me to turn right.  I slowed down my teal steed at the same time I put my blinker on to go right. Just then my phone started vibrating to denote I had a phone call. Sighing, I picked it up and checked to see who was calling. I didn't need to look, but the habit pushed me to do so anyways. Hayley's name was flashing on my phone in black letters. Disappointment and anger shook their heads. No, I didn't want to speak with her. She already had spoken all the words she needed to say to me. There was nothing more she could say to make this any easier or better. I hit the ignore button, and then I threw the phone back on the passenger seat and made my turn.

I resumed focusing on the music from the radio. The call had made the little progress to calm down crumble to pieces. I needed to let the music take over my thoughts once again--as I let the music back in, I even began to nod my head along with the beat.

After a couple of minutes of listening to the heavy metal ring through my speakers, my phone buzzed on my passenger seat again. Before even grabbing my phone, I knew Hayley must have texted me, because I refused to answer her phone call. I picked up my phone and saw Hayley had indeed sent me a text message. I glanced up at the dark road ahead of me. I didn't see anything in the distance, so I quickly opened the message to read it.

Look, Bellie. I'm sorry. I no I shuldn't've done tht. Their's no excuse. Plz forgive me?

Hayley had texted me a weak apology, which made me laugh. Not just at her apology game, but of her spelling game as well. She wasn't the strongest speller, and she knew how I felt about receiving these type of abbreviated text messages. Especially if she's trying to apologize. But of course she would send something like this--it's just part of her routine, and this isn't the first time this had happened. I've had this happen to me multiple times. I'd ignore her phone call, and then she'd send me a text message with sorry and bad spelling littered throughout the message. I've had enough of her games. I shook my head in frustration and began to text her back with fury fueling me. Only I was interrupted by a honking noise, which made me look up.

This next moment happened in a blur--a lot of things happened in such a little time. I saw the red stop sign speed up to me and my car. I saw a pair of headlights heading in my direction from the left side. I heard the squeal of tires as the driver of the truck tried to slow their vehicle, but not in time, because I also heard the impact of metal on metal as the oncoming vehicle collided with my little cavalier. The seat I was sitting on was no longer beneath me. Instead, I could feel my body flying. I felt brief moments of pain as my body shattered the window. And then? I felt nothing.

It's the weirdest feeling in the world. The adrenaline, the panic, the pain, and then the nothingness. Somehow this scene kept replaying in my head, over and over. The anxiety and stress over the situation had me in their hands as well. It was like I was reliving it repeatedly. And the accident had just happened. I was dreaming, wasn't I? I was certainly having an out-of-body experience, right?

I could feel the pain from the injuries I had sustained, but this was a different experience--I sensed something was wrong. The pain was weaker than it should have been.  I was looking at the bloody scene, and where my body had ejected from my vehicle. My cell had been ejected as well, and had landed a few feet from where my body lay. Walking over to my body and my phone, I desperately called for me to wake up. My face was an odd pale as it rested upon the steering wheel. There were a couple of black and nasty bruises on my neck. My subconscious knew this wasn't a good sign, but I wasn't about to give up. I needed to be alive--I had to be alive. I needed to go home to my family. This was my life I was trying to save.

"Wake up!" I yelled at my pale body. "You have to wake up!!!" My words were desperate and pleading. I made my way to where I lay and knelt down. I grabbed my shoulders in both hands, and I tried to shake my body. But my body didn't budge. Unease and dread flooded me, and my next attempt was to ease myself back into my body. That's how the movies did it--right?

I tried to mimic what they did on television in some of he movies. I sat down facing away from my body, and inched my way back to where my body lay. Slowly, I aligned myself with my body, laying my head against the steering wheel.

The only problem was, I couldn't feel any connection to my body. I tried several times, but these attempts were useless.

I was back to kneeling next to me. "Wake up," I sobbed to my physical body. "Please! You have to wake up!" My voice kept increasing with each word, becoming more desperate.

Only, somehow, I knew I wasn't going to wake up, no matter how hard I pleaded or tried.