Glass. Everywhere. In my hair, on the ground. What happened? I looked to my left and I see a lifeless body on the ground. It’s a girl, her hair is a strawberry red, it’s long. Then I see this wave of blue, and red lights. All of a sudden I heard the high pitched sirens from the police cars and ambulances. Next thing I knew everything went dark.

Clean. The room I am in now is a hospital room, the smells like hand sanitizer and cleaning products. I go to rub my face and feel a tube feeding oxygen to my lungs. I am so scared. I am alone and I don’t know where I am or where my mom is. We were just driving to pick up Henry from basketball practice. There is a sea of white lab coats that pile into my room. One of the doctors tells me that I was in an accident and I was badly injured. Three broken ribs, a fractured arm, a broken leg, and a severe concussion. I noticed behind the wall I saw her. The lady with strawberry hair. My mom. I asked the doctor if she was okay, she was driving the car and we were just listening to music and the next thing I remember I was covered in glass. The doctor said, “She is in critical condition and is being monitored closely. Don’t worry I Promise she will be okay.”

“Doctors can’t promise anything. Just give it to me straight, will she live or is she too far gone?”

“It’s too early to tell. But just hope for the best.”

I can’t lose her. I can’t talk care of Henry alone. She needs to pull through she’s a fighter. If she dies me and Henry will be put in the system, my dad abandoned us when I was seven and Henry was almost one. What is me and Henry got separated? What if she actually dies? I can’t lose her she is my best friend. We talk about everything together: boys, Henry being a ten-year-old nuisance and everything in between. I have to stop thinking or else I think I might just flat line myself so I fall asleep.

I wake up in a cold sweat. The accident, the glass, the strawberry hair, and the sirens, they won’t go away. Alarms, lots of loud alarms, they are coming from my mother’s room. Dear god, please keep her with us I need my mother. I can’t live without her. The nurses and doctors go in the room to save her but twenty minutes later they just leave her lifeless body unplugged and limp on the bed. I try to run out to see her but my broken legs only get me to the door. I sit there and just cry because now I am a fifteen-year-old girl who has a nine-year-old sibling who has to go into foster care. The doctors come into the room but I continue to cry even harder because I hit my leg on the ground when I fell. The doctor who Promised she would be okay came in. I got to my feet and yelled at him. “You Promised. You liar, your liar. You….li…liar!” The next thing I knew he grabbed me and was holding me tight. I tried to get away but he was pulling me closer. I got away, slammed my door, went to my bed and cried myself to sleep.

Henry came to the hospital with our grandma. She was a nice lady but couldn’t raise a child, she was eighty-three and a lot rusty for taking care of kids. He came to the hospital but hadn’t come since mom died. I know he was holding a brave face up for us but he had a look in his eyes like with a nudge he would start to cry. We just sat and played board games while grandma went to her bingo games. When I would sleep I could hear him whimpering, but I just let him get it out.

The days went by slowly when Henry was with grandma. I felt lonely but I made friends with my nurse who would check in on me every three hours. She was a really nice lady probably in her mid-twenties and pregnant. I would joke with her about her water breaking when she would do the physical exam on me. It never happened but that would have been a story and a half.

I was being discharged today. I was happy but was scared of what was to come. I went home and packed all my things, the important things, like mom’s jewelry and my mom’s clothes that I liked. I got to grandma’s and I fell asleep after I unpacked. I would dream about mom and how I missed her. I looked at photo albums and cry. It was a crazy month, I was in a car accident, broke some bones and my mother died. That was the worst part of this all.

car giphy ▸https://gph.is/1UUIKW0