My father wasn’t a bad guy. Never hit me, always took me out and bought me what I wanted. He just wasn’t good to be around when his life was in shambles and he was drunk.
Dad. Pull over. I gripped my seat belt, not feeling safe in the passenger seat with a drunk driver.
Don’ you tell me what to fucking do. I’m the adult here! The car accelerated even more and my father’s anger radiated off of him in waves.
I panicked. Dad! Slow down!!
I told you to stop fucking telling me what to do! I get enough of that from your mother! God, you’re just like her!
The car jerked as he forced the accelerator down again, and the scenery melted into a big blur.
Dad! I yelled
What? You don’t trust your ole man?
I started crying. You’re drunk! Just pull over! Please, Dad! I want to get out!
Of course you don’ trust me! Just like your mother! I’m perfectly able to drive, see?
The car lurched to the left suddenly as he jerked the steering wheel in that direction, and my body moved with the sudden movement. Then just as quickly, the car swung back to its proper lane with another jerk, causing me to hit my head on the window from the harsh, sudden movements.
See? I know what I’m doing!
We were still traveling at lightning speed. Tears rolled down my cheeks from being so frightened, and now my head was pounding from hitting the window so hard.
Pull over! I screeched. Let me out! Right now!
Instead of listening, he just repeated his actions, his “proof” that he knew what he was doing. He swung into the oncoming lane, then jerked back into ours. He did it again, only that time we were about to go through a dark intersection. There was a loud crunching noise as the back of the driver’s side of our SUV hit the traffic-light pole. Time stopped. Noise was cut off and replaced with white static. The car spun a few times through the intersection before we were blinded by a pair of headlights.
It was like that collision pressed play again. Time seemed to speed up as the white static was replaced with deafening noises: glass breaking, metal scraping, and a girl’s terrified screams.
Thinking back, that was probably me.
I was airborne as the car flipped over and over and over, but it all happened so quickly I didn’t even know how many times, or how long it lasted. When the car finally stopped moving, the intersection wasn’t even in sig
ht. We landed on the tires—right side up.
I was disoriented, confused. My head pounded and I felt so incredibly dizzy. There was a shooting pain in my arm, my whole body felt sore, and there was a lot of blood. My dad wasn’t in his seat; he wasn’t even in the car.
The police told me later that he hadn’t been wearing his seat belt and flew through the windshield after the collision with the other car. They said he was dead, though, even before he flew through, his neck having snapped when his head hit the steering wheel on impact.
His body had landed half a block away. When the paramedics rolled me through the street strapped on the gurney, I turned my head in time to see them covering his battered body.
I wish I hadn’t. That image will haunt me until the day I die. So will the other image I saw before I passed out: beside an upside-down, butchered car, the paramedics were placing a sheet over the now lifeless body of a six-year-old girl.
“Amelia? Are you okay?” Aiden’s soft tone brings me back to the present.
He puts his hand on my shoulder, and I can feel his heat practically burning through my thin T-shirt. I bring my hand up to my face and wipe away the traitorous tears that have escaped.
How long was I zoned out for? Aiden doesn’t seem annoyed; he looks genuinely concerned. I nod mutely, answering his question, and wipe the last few tears that stream down my cheek. I feel his thumb on my shoulder move slowly back and forth, comforting me in a way I never imagined such a small action could.
“Were you—were you hurt?”
I look back at him and nod again. “Broken arm, broken ribs, sprained wrist, concussion, some cuts and bruises. I was really lucky though. My dad—” I choke up again and look away.
It’s been so long since I actually thought about my dad—about the trauma of what I went through that night. It was always overshadowed by everything else that happened after that day. I never actually thought about the fact that I was there when my dad died. I could’ve done something, done anything differently to have prevented that. He could still be here. I could still be at home instead of constantly moving. And Sabrina . . .
“My dad.” I try again, staring at the wall. “He went through the windshield before the car rolled. They told me he died quickly, and that he was probably too drunk to feel anything.” I chuckle humorlessly. “As if that’s supposed to make me feel better.”