I can’t form a single coherent idea or calculate an answer to any of those questions.
Steering through the fog clouding my thoughts, I blink past the film covering my eyes, and the second I look up, my breath catches when my eyes land on a familiar pair of blue. It’s a shock to my system. A deeply rooted bomb to the core. I shake my head, certain I’m imagining things, but immediately stop when pain rips down my spinal column from the movement.
This can’t be right.
This can’t be happening.
I never thought I’d see this person again. Hell, I never thought I’d see them both again, but I was wrong. So very wrong.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a brace running from my ankle to my hip. Metal bars run up both sides. I wiggle my fingers on my left hand and feel one there, too. My stomach churns. I’m wrapped from head to toe in metal and casts, but I don’t have the capacity to grasp that information, not right now. Not when my parents are standing a few feet away from me with pain in their eyes.
It’s been nine years since I’ve last seen them, and in that time, they’ve changed immensely; yet, as I stare up at them, not at all. Monica Wright looks like a mirrored image of the woman from my childhood, only now, she wears her pain on her sleeve. It’s written, like beautiful scripted cursive across her skin. It is in the pallor of her skin, the frail way she holds herself, and the dark circles beneath her eyes. When I shift my gaze to Michael Wright, it’s like stepping into a time machine with the man. As I look up at him, I still feel the same disconnect from my father as I felt as a child. He looks down at me with such blatant disappointment, I don’t know whether I should be surprised or overjoyed that they haven’t changed all that drastically over the last nine years.
With his hair a salt-and-pepper gray and the lines set on his face a little deeper than I recall, for the most part, Michael has aged well since the death of his two daughters. I say that because that’s technically what happened. The night Madison died, I died, too. Instead of losing one child, my parents mourned as though they lost us both. Caught up in their own grief, they forgot they had another child who needed them.
A heaviness settles in my chest. It wraps its way around my lungs, squeezing the organs in a vise and making it nearly impossible to breathe as I try to process. It’s the same sensation I’ve always had when I’ve been near my parents. It’s why I ran.
It’s why I cut them out of my life.
Because I couldn’t breathe in that house.
I was dying in there, and they never even cared.
Forcing my gaze elsewhere, I take in the rest of my surroundings. Four stark white walls, a window covered with bland, hospital-grade curtains, a looming door that presumably leads to the restroom, and another door that is the only means of my exit. It’s the only thing in the stuffy, ammonia-smelling room that I can seem to focus on.
An escape.
As if he heard my thoughts, an older man dressed in a lab coat pushes through my exit, eyeing me closely. My mouth goes dry, and my stomach drops when two uniformed men walk in behind him, wearing hard expressions. With a clipboard in hand and skin that is far too tan to be natural, the doctor walks straight over to my parents to shake their hands. His nurses flank him, whispering in hushed tones, to which he just nods and glances at me. I feel the officers’ gazes incinerating my flesh, but I force my gaze to look anywhere else, too afraid looking at them will be cause for them to haul me away.
“This is for the best. I plan to lead and ask the questions, so she doesn’t get too frightened,” I hear the doctor tell my parents in a low, reassuring tone.
My gaze narrows into thin slits, and I press my lips together in a firm, grim line, not liking the idea of them discussing anything about me without my knowledge.
I eye the doctor dubiously as he closes in on me. He offers a small smile that’s meant to be comforting. It’s anything but.
“Glad to have you back with us, Ms. Wright. How are you feeling?”
“I-I…” My throat closes, refusing to let me speak. My esophagus feels dry and scratchy, as though I haven’t spoken in days or weeks. I close my mouth, giving up, still taken aback by the fact that my parents are really here in the flesh. Then I sneak a glance at the officers who are standing back, waiting for something.
“What’s your pain level?” The doctor prompts at my silence.
“High,” I rasp. It isn’t a lie. I feel like every bone in my body is broken. Even breathing is a nuisance.
“That’s to be expected. You’ve sustained quite the list of injuries. You’re lucky to be alive.” He starts digging in his coat for a pen as he steps closer to my bedside. “I’m going to have you follow the light as best as you can for me. Think you can do that?”
I grimace, still trying to process what’s happening. Part of me wants to snap at him and tell him to hell with his damn light test, just give me something to take away the pain. Maybe then, I’d be able to escape this reality for an alternate one. One where it’s dark and quiet, and there’s no pain or ghosts from my past to haunt me like there is in this room.
I know he wants me to follow the light attached to the pen, but I’m not quite sure I have the strength to even do that. Everything hurts. I can’t do it. My head drops back onto the pillow, with not an ounce of strength to hold it up any longer. Flashes sprint through my mind, like photos on a pinwheel. The trees. A tumble in the dirt. The winding road. There was yelling. So much yelling.
I slam my eyes shut, trying to put the puzzle pieces together and figure out what I was remembering. It felt like the cogs churning in my brain were stuck and needed a spray of WD-40 to start working properly again. I couldn’t formulate a single coherent thought. There was a car, someone’s hands tightening on the wheel, a foot pressing down on the gas pedal, swerving. Then a kaleidoscope of colors, then pain. So much pain.
It was a wreck.
I was in a car wreck.
I knew it, felt it within my bones, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember why or where I was going. Who was yelling? And why did it all hurt so much?
Pain radiates from my abdomen that, even now, I can’t quite shake. It travels through my body in torturous waves, threatening to pull me back under.
“Ms. Wright, I know you’re tired and in a lot of pain, but I need you to stay with me. Can you do that?”
At the sound of the doctor’s voice, I heave a deep sigh and force myself to give him a semblance of a nod. Doing as instructed, I open my eyes and shift my head just enough, so I can follow the light attached to his pen as best as I can, considering my condition.
“Good, very good,” he praises, pocketing the tool in his coat. “I have some officers here on behalf of the Humboldt County Sheriff. I know this isn’t ideal, but they need a statement from you about the night of the accident. You’ve been in a medically induced coma for the past five days to relieve the swelling in your brain. It’s okay if you can’t remember what happened; the brain is complex, and yours has been through quite a bit. But can you try to tell us what you remember about the accident?”
I lick my dry, cracked lips and open my mouth, but no words come. Because truth be told, I don’t remember what happened. I remember yelling, and the car going off the rails, but I don’t remember why. The only thing I’m remotely sure of is Madison. She saved my life.