Reminders of Him

It was dark, and I realized we might be trapped, so I reached over and touched your arm to follow you out. I knew you’d find a way out. I relied on you for everything, and your presence was the only reason I was still calm. I wasn’t even worried about your car anymore because I knew you’d be more worried about me than your car.

And it’s not like I was speeding too much, or driving too recklessly. I was only a little bit drunk and a little bit high, but so very stupid to believe even a little bit wasn’t too much.

We only flipped over because we hit a deep ditch, and since the top wasn’t even up, I thought surely it would be minimal damage. Maybe a week or two in the shop, and then the car I loved so much, the car that felt like home, would be fine. Like you. Like me.

“Scotty.” I shook your arm when I said your name that time. I wanted you to know I was okay. I thought maybe you were in shock, and that’s why you were so quiet.

When you didn’t move, and I realized your arm was just dangling against the road that had somehow become our ceiling, my first thought was that you might have passed out. But when I pulled my hand back to figure out a way to right myself up, it was covered in blood.

Blood that was supposed to be running through your veins.

I couldn’t grasp that. I couldn’t fathom that a silly wreck on the side of a county road that landed us in a ditch could actually hurt us. But that was your blood.

I immediately scooted closer to you, and because you were upside down and still in your seat belt, I couldn’t pull you to me. I tried, but you wouldn’t budge. I turned your face to mine, but you looked like you were sleeping. Your lips were slightly parted and your eyes were closed, and you looked so much like you looked all the times I spent the night with you and woke up to find you asleep next to me.

I tried pulling you, but you still wouldn’t budge because the car was on top of part of you. Your shoulder and your arm were trapped, and I couldn’t pull you out or get to your seat belt and even though it was dark, I realized moonlight reflects off of blood the same way it reflects off the ocean.

Your blood was everywhere. The entire car being upside down made everything even more confusing. Where were your pockets? Where was your phone? I needed a phone, so I scrambled and felt around with my hands, looking for a phone for what felt like an eternity, but all I could find were rocks and glass.

The whole time, I was muttering your name through chattering teeth. “Scotty. Scotty, Scotty, Scotty.” It was a prayer, but I didn’t know how to pray. No one had ever taught me. I just remember the prayer you had given over family dinner at your parents’ house, and the prayers I used to hear my foster mother, Mona, pray. But all I’d ever heard people do was bless food, and I just wanted you to wake up, so I said your name over and over and hoped God would hear me, even though I wasn’t sure if I was getting his attention.

It certainly felt like no one was paying us attention that night.

What I experienced in those moments was indescribable. You think you know how you’ll react in a terrifying situation, but that’s the thing. You can’t think in a terrifying situation. There’s probably a reason for how disconnected we become to our own thoughts in moments of sheer horror. But that’s exactly how I felt. Disconnected. Parts of me were moving without my brain even knowing what was happening. My hands were searching around for things I wasn’t even sure I was looking for.

I was growing hysterical, because with each passing second, I became more aware of how different my life would be going forward. How that one second had altered whatever course we were on, and things would never be the same, and all the parts of me that had become disconnected in that wreck would never fully reconnect.

I crawled out of the car through the space between the ground and my door, and once I was outside and standing right-side-up, I puked.

The headlights were shining on a row of trees, but none of that light was helping us, and then I ran around to the passenger side of the car to free you, but I couldn’t. There was your arm, sticking out from under the car. The moonlight glimmering in your blood. I grabbed your hand and squeezed it, but it was cold. I was still muttering your name. “Scotty, Scotty, Scotty, no, no, no.” I went around to the windshield and tried kicking it to break it, but even though it was already cracked, I couldn’t break it enough to fit through it, or pull you out.