Chapter Two

I wake up in a sterile room, with a blue curtain around my bed and my mom awkwardly sleeping in a cushioned chair. I lick my chapped lips and reach for a cup of water. Then, I notice the bulky cast on my arm, all the way up to my shoulder. That is not the only thing damaged. My whole right leg has a white cast on it and I am bandaged on my left knee and head. I am in an ugly hospital gown that I make fun of other people for having to wear and now I know why it feels so horrible. Stupid drunk driver. My mother has a bandage on her head and a splint on her arm. How did she not get hurt as bad? Wasn’t she in the same car as me? Where is my dad? He should be here by now. I use my left arm to grab a small cup of water and refresh my tongue. I see that I have the remote operated bed, so I sit myself up farther and it hurts a little. I decide to let my mom sleep, because it is now dark outside.

I spot the TV remote on the bedside table, but it is on the right side and I can’t reach it, so now I am sure that I am going to be terribly bored. I lay my head back with a sigh and look up at the ceiling. I shouldn’t be here right now, I suddenly realize. I had “seen the light” as people have said.
“Thanks for sending me back,” I whisper to God.

The doctor walks in with a clipboard and is flipping papers. He looks up, sees that I am awake, and smiles.
“Hello, Annika,” he says, stopping at my bedside.
“Hi,” I say with a raspy voice.
“How do you feel?”
“I feel okay, considering,” I say, gesturing to all my casts.
“Okay, I will check back in a little bit,” he says with a smile and walks away. Well, that was short.

The doctor closes the door loudly and it wakes up my mom. She sits up slowly and blinks several times. She pushes the hair off her face and when she sees that I am awake, she smiles. I have never seen her so disheveled.

“Hey, sweetie,” she says softly while walking over to my bed.
“Hi, mom. You okay?”
“Yeah, you?”
“I guess,” I say with a crooked smile. We were both lying.
“What happened while I was unconscious?” I ask suddenly.
“Well,” she begins with a sigh, “we slid off into a ditch and the car flipped. You went through the windshield because your seatbelt broke. I stayed in and got caught by the airbags. When I realized that you were gone, I got out of the car as fast as I could, but it took a while because the door was jammed. I thought I was going to loose you,” my mom says with a tear sliding down her cheek. “I finally wretched the door open and half ran, half hobbled up the ditch. I stood at the top and looked for you. You were about twenty feet from the car and I ran down to you. You were unconscious and bleeding, but I could feel a heartbeat. You looked horrible and I probably did too. About five minutes later, the ambulance got there.” she finishes.

I lay there speechless, imagining how she must have felt. That would’ve been horrible.
“Did they catch the drunk driver?” I ask her.
“No,” my mom replies with regret and rage in her voice.

Then, my dad comes in. Why did it take him so long? My mom runs over and they embrace strongly, like they never want to let go. Then, still arm in arm, he walks over to my bed and a sad look comes over his face.
“Oh, Annika,” he says with his eyes tearing up.
“Hi Dad.”
He reaches down gently and gives me a hug. He smells funny, but maybe that was because he got here in a hurry from work and didn’t have time to freshen up even though I didn’t know that he had to work today.

I spend five more days in the hospital and my parents took turns going home and staying with me. They would go home to shower and eat something better then hospital food. Some nights I would have nightmares of the accident and my parents would wake me up with worried expressions on their faces from seeing me squirm. I was in pain, but by the fifth day, it wasn’t too bad. When they told us we could go home, you don’t know how happy I was.

Chapter Three

The next week and a half was spent lying around on the couch and friends visiting. I was really bored. All I had was food, TV, and books. I didn’t like people coming over that much because I don’t like people sitting around feeling sorry for me when they surely have something better to do. I’m sure I gained a few pounds, but lost it from the medication. I was so happy when my parents told me that I was going back to school, even though I knew that it was going to be a struggle.

I worked out a deal with my friend Gabriella that she was going to push me to my classes since we have every class together. And by the way, being in seventh grade was hard enough, but now it was going to be so much more difficult.

I wake up on Monday and wait for my mom to come in to help me up. I hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep because the casts makes me lay at an awkward angle. She comes in about ten minutes later and helps me up and undresses me. She gets me dressed and helps me down the stairs, which is about a five-minute ordeal. My mom sits me down at the table and brings me my bowl of Special K cereal. I eat slowly and then have my mom help me into my dreaded wheelchair. Then, we leave to go to… middle school.

I get to school and my mom helps me out of the car into my wheelchair. I looked helpless, but that was all I could do. She pushes me into the front hallway and Gabriella meets us there. She takes the chair from my mom and I feel like a baby in a stroller.
“Good morning, Annika,” Gabriella says to me with a smile.
“Yeah,” is all I say in reply.

As we go down the hallway, all I get are stares and whispering. I keep my head down and will us to get to my locker soon. We get there and I put in my combination. I don’t need to tell Gabby what books to get, because, as I said before, we have all the same classes together. Then, all my other friends gather around.
“Hi Annika,” they all say at once.
“Hi guys,” I tell them with a smile.
“So, how do you feel?” one friend, Bailey asks.
“Fine, I guess.”
“Well, we need to get to class. Have a good day,” Bailey says as they all walk away.

Gabby gets all my books into my backpack and hangs it on the back of my wheelchair. Then we stop by her locker and she takes about one more minute. I sit there and impatiently tap my fingers against the rail of the chair. I wonder if we are going to get to class in time because I hate being tardy, even though they probably won’t hold it against us.

We get into the classroom seconds before the bell rings. Our first class is math, one of by best subjects even though I get straight A’s in every subject. Gabby wheels me up to my desk and I realize that I won’t be able to fit under the desk.
I sigh and say to Gabby, “Take me up to the teacher please.”
She wheels me up and I say, “Excuse me, Mrs. Smith?”
Mrs. Smith turns around from the chalkboard and looks down at me with a smile on her face. She is about thirty and is a very fun, but bossy teacher.
“Yes, Annika?”
“I can’t fit under my desk,” I say sheepishly.
“Oh, well, you can… sit at the end of my desk and use the corner. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I reply quietly.

Gabby wheels me to the corner and leaves me to go to her seat. I put my head down and wonder how this is going to work. I am up in the front where everybody can see me. Mrs. Smith starts the lesson and says that I can work on homework since everything that I missed would help with the assignment. I sit in the front and look very uncoordinated because I have to write with my left hand and I suck at that. I got about two pages done in the hour when I usually get about five or six done. Ugh.

Gabby walks over to get me when the bell rings and I let out a loud sigh when we go out the door.
“I have so much homework,” I say with a whine.
“Yeah, sorry,” she says while pushing me down the hall towards social studies.

The morning is spent doing the same routine, but the teachers all put in me in different places like the table in the back, or me being in the isle and having to reach sideways. When we get to the lunchroom I am so exhausted and hungry, I start eating my tray in the line waiting to pay.
“Gosh, Annika,” Gabby says while looking at me funny. I just shrug my shoulders.

I eat my lunch in record time and wait for Gabby to take me up to the front. I am sitting at my usual table in the front, but this time I am at the end of the table, in everybody’s way. I spend the rest of the day doing the same routine again. I dealt with some teachers that didn’t understand wouldn’t give me any slack for the days I missed or the “situation” I have. I was also teased for being disabled and I can tell you that I was about to punch somebody.

I wait in the front hallway, students rushing to get out of here and go anywhere else. I see my mom pull up in her old station wagon rental. She rushes up the walk quickly and walks in the door, grabs me, and rolls me out.
“How was your day?” she asks.
“Good.”

I ride home in discomfort and am glad to get out of the stuffy car. My mother helps me out of the car and wheels me up the front walkway, past all the brightly colored flowers and dying green grass. I am wheeled into the house and am taken to my usual spot on the couch. I turn on the TV right when my dad comes in.
“I am going to go pick up Jim to come over, okay?” he asks me hurriedly.
“Why do you have to pick him up? Doesn’t he have his own car?” I ask, confused.
“Yeah, well he got in an accident,” my dad says slowly.
“How?”
“Annika, I don’t have time for this,” he says, gesturing towards the door.
“Dad, tell me how,” I say, my suspicion rising.
“Okay,” he says with an exasperated sigh, “he was the one who hit you and your mother that night and I was with him. We had just come from the bar and weren’t thinking straight, so we got in the car drunk. Annika I am so sorry.”
What?!