13. CHAPTER 13
Eugene, Oregon
Empty. Hollow. Silent. Blackness.
There’s nothing…
Then there’s pain. In my head… In my hands… My chest… My legs…
Sound is next, like a spiralling relentless whir. The horn. The rain. Everything is buzzing like the wrong frequency on an old TV.
I taste blood.
Gasoline and scorched rubber burn my nose.
I cough. My body fights. But the pain in my ribs is like a dozen knives stabbing my lungs.
I tell myself to open my eyes, to prove this is all a dream by waking up in our bed. But as I blink, I don’t see the blue walls or the blankets pulled high around my chin, I see a pulsing red light, a deployed airbag in my face, and blood clouding my vision.
I don’t remember the impact. I remember the sound, though; as loud as a thunderclap going off inside my ear drums.
My arms move. At least I think they do. They’re slow and rubbery, like I’m forcing my way through thick mud.
I claw at the air bag with one hand, moving it away enough to see the dash board has caved in and I can’t see my legs.
My knees are jammed somewhere beneath the glove box and there’s so much pressure on them it feels like I’m being split in two.
The windshield’s gone and the streetlight is reflecting off all the shards stabbed into the dashboard and seat.
I try to reach for the door but my right hand won’t listen. I grab it with my left and bring it into view. There’s a blade of broken plastic speared straight through my palm, and I’m bleeding in long syrupy ropes.
What happened? What went wrong?
She had one hand on the wheel, the other on my thigh, tracing circles on my knee while she sang along to the radio; off-key, loud, and full of life.
Then something breaks through the static.
A voice, screaming my name.
Her name.
Over and over and over.
“Tek! Tek! Tek! Oh fuck, oh fuck fuck!”
I try to answer but all I can manage is a grunt that sounds more like a death rattle. My teeth scrape together. I swallow, and the taste of metal gets thicker.
“Tek!” My seat back jars.
“Anaise?” It’s a whisper, but she hears me.
“Tek!” she screams again from behind me. I feel her pawing at my shoulder, weak and trembling. “Tek! She’s not moving… She’s not—”
My brain finally sparks to life.
I lean forward, teeth bared against the searing pain in my chest, and I shout her name too. "Miri!"
The wind rips through what’s left of the windscreen, slapping against my face.
I twist, forcing my body to do what I need it to do, even though every cell in me is screaming bloody murder.
There’s a faint gurgling, and for a split second all I see is her crooked smile.
I jerk my arm out, sweeping at the empty space to my left, searching for her.
That’s when I realize the car has flipped.
It’s on its side. Anaise and I are in the air and the driver's seat is mangled. The whole left side is folded like a pretzel and it’s so dark I can’t tell what is body, and what is car.
Still, I reach for her, calling out her name, again, and again, louder each time, my voice scraping up through my shredded throat.
My hand slaps against something, and I flinch. It’s her arm.
I move along her wrist to her fingers.
They’re cold. So fucking cold.
I grab her hand and squeeze, but there’s nothing coming back to me.
I hear Anaise cursing and sobbing at the same time, the sound so raw it slices straight through me.
Again I try to move, this time pushing harder, trying to wedge my body towards the center console, but my legs are too trapped by the dash.
Letting go of her, I reach beneath it, as far as I can in the space between my legs.
There’s denim and jagged plastic… and then there’s skin—the denim torn away.
It’s wet and sticky, then hard and sharp.
Without eyes on it I can’t decipher if my bone has broken through or something is stabbing me.
Anaise’s voice is getting thinner, like it’s being pulled away by the wind. “She’s not moving, Tek. She’s not moving…”
I grapple with my seatbelt but my hand is too slick with blood to get a grip.
With everything I have, I scream and pull at my legs until my vision goes black at the edges. The pain is white-hot, and I start to fade, but then I hear the sirens.
They're faint, so small I might be imagining them.
Soon they swell, swallowing the sounds of the horn and the wind, and for a second I feel lighter than air. Like everything is going to be alright. They’ll pull us out, staple us back together, and we can be just as happy as we were an hour ago.
Now the siren's howl is so loud, so oppressive that it feels like they’re shaking the car.
Brightness floods in, the ambulance’s headlights drowning us. That’s when the world tilts and everything dissolves into a single, high-pitched wailing note…
I can see her now.
A mangled mess.
The air bag never went off.
Her neck is twisted unnaturally and her hair is thick with blood that’s streaking down into her open eyes.
She’s staring straight ahead.
Her mouth is open like she’s screaming, but no sound is coming out.
Her teeth are stained red and her bottom lip is split down the middle, but she still looks beautiful.
Between her body and the steering wheel crushing her abdomen, I see her other hand curled over her stomach.
I try to pull her out, but she won’t budge. Not even an inch.
I think about all the times she would curl up next to me like a cat and rest her head in my lap.
I’m meant to protect her.
It’s my job to keep her safe.
I shouldn’t have drank tonight.
I should have been the one to drive.
My voice doesn’t work anymore so I bang on the crumpled dashboard, glass cutting up my one good hand. Once, twice, three times I pound my fist, harder each time. Then I reach out and smack her arm, anything I can do to get a response.
But she remains silent.
She doesn’t move.
I need to get to her.
I need to hold her face in my hands and tell her all the things I never said.
If I can do that, if I can promise to stop letting my mom get in my head, then we can be happy.
We’ll finish school, get married, and start a family on our own.
Just the two of us. No influences. Only us and what we want.
If I can tell her that, then she’ll open her eyes and smile her crooked smile and everything will be alright.
I find her hand and squeeze it.
I feel for a pulse, pressing at the hollow of her wrist. I think I feel something, but it’s my own faint heartbeat, inadequately doing its job. I keep my hand there anyway so I can pretend for one more second that it’s not as bad as it is.
But there’s no life in her.
No amount of wishing or promises will bring her back.
I put my hand on her cheek and brush the matted hair from her face.
I shut my eyes and try to think of anything else, but the only thing left in my head is how her eye lashes tickled my cheek the first time we kissed…
I hold my breath, refusing to give my lungs what they need.
If she’s going, I’m going, too.
The sirens fade.
The pain wanes.
And blackness swallows me whole.
Icome back, but it’s only my brain that works.
I hear the distant bellow of a loudspeaker, and then a voice telling us to stay still; that help is coming.
There are hands on me and a gaping hole where the passenger’s side door used to be.
Flashes of yellow and black uniforms come into view as they pull me out, but every time I’m turned away my head shoots straight back to her until she is gone from my sight completely.
I hear Anaise howling.
Shifting my eyes I see her face lit up by the hard lights as she’s loaded onto a stretcher. She’s so tiny in the arms of those men who are so much more capable than me. So much more worthy. Her cheek is slick from a gash on her forehead, and mascara paints the rest of her face with black streaks.
“She’s not moving. She’s not moving,” she keeps saying.
I want to tell her to shut up, that she’s just knocked out and she’ll come to any minute once the firefighters get to her. But it’s a lie I can’t even fake.
The rain is relentless and it pounds down on me as I’m carried through the air.
I see my legs, mangled—the right nearly snapped in two. It was bone sticking out.
I think about all those drunk-driving PSA’s we were forced to watch in high school, where the driver is sitting on the curb crying, sobbing about how it’s their fault.
Except she hadn’t been drinking.
This wasn’t her fault.
It was my idea to leave the party early. I didn’t want to stay. I wanted her all to myself.
I’m laid on a flat board then strapped down.
I’ve lost so much blood.
Countless voices tell me to relax, that I’m safe now, that I’m going to be alright, but I don’t believe them.
I feel like I’m dying, and I’m happy.
I’ll get my wish.
I can be with her, because I can’t have a life without her.