What changed me.
I see it all, the big black truck sliding straight into my mom’s little black civic. I was running after the car to give my mother her phone, which she had once again forgotten on the counter. It was cold that day and the ground was very icy. Just as I stepped onto the ice, I slipped and fell. My mom’s car stopped immediately, but the car behind her hadn’t. It slid right into her car sending her flying out the front windshield and onto the ground in front of her. After that everything went black.
The next morning I woke up in the hospital with a minor concussion. My aunt sitting next to me, reading the newspaper. The headline of the paper, Women Found Dead, then there was a picture of the accident. It was the same accident I had seen just yesterday. My mom was dead. That was it. The last family I had besides my Aunt Jennifer. After 2 days of nonstop news on the accident, and people coming in and out of my room, I get to go home. This is the day I have been waiting for, but as I walk outside and see the blazing light of the sun and all the reporters who somehow got word of my release date, all I want to do is turn around and go back to my hospital room. Though something keeps me going on, is it the thought of seeing my room again or maybe the thought of all my friends faces. All I know is I keep walking, ignoring all the questions.
I just make it into my car before I start crying about all that has happened. It is then that I realize that my mom is gone. I will never see her again. My aunt doesn’t say anything, she knows there is nothing to say, nothing to stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks. I think about what might have happened if I hadn’t slipped on the ice. My mom wouldn’t have stopped, the truck wouldn’t have hit her, and she would still be alive. All I can think about it how this is all my fault. I know it isn’t but I just can’t help but think it. I also think about how this is my father’s fault. My mother used to be so well put together until the day my dad decided to leave. I never knew why he left I thought it had something to do with my getting thrown into juviy, even though I didn’t do anything. Every night my mom told me that wasn’t true, but I knew it was. I remember thinking, one day I’ll find him. But now I don’t know anything about him, without my mom I know nothing.
Soon we are at my house. I try not to cry as I walk in the front door, but I just can’t help it. The tears are half way down my face by the time I jump into my small twin sized bed. After about an hour of crying I smell something. Lunch perhaps, did Jennifer actually learn how to cook since the last time we saw her. My hungry stomach over powered my plans of staying in my room for the rest of my life. So, I got up and walk downstairs, hoping that the walk would be worth it.
When I got downstairs, I saw the meal. It looked so tasty; I couldn’t help but ask if it was her cooking. I was right, it wasn’t her cooking, that delicious smell couldn’t have belonged to something Aunt Jennifer had made. My neighbor had apparently brought it over the other night when she slept here since I was in the hospital and my mother was…well you know what she was. Apparently my ex-best friend/neighbor Kelsey brought it over knowing I wouldn’t be home. I was kind of happy she came over. I hadn’t seen much of her since juviy and I was starting to miss her a lot. Anyways, I sat down at the dinner table in my usual spot, and Aunt Jennifer sat in my mothers. This made me mad, but I didn’t say anything cause there was no way she could have known that this would upset me.
I felt bad, ever since I got sent to juviy and Aunt Jennifer, and my mom hadn’t been talking all that much, and now she was dead. I knew why they didn’t talk; it was because of me, because of what I did not even a year ago. It seems like all the problems my family or I have ever had all go back to that one night, that one mistake.
I suppose I should tell you what happened since I keep referring to it. It was a about 5 months ago now, and it was a nice night, and Kelsey and I decided to throw a party at my house since my parents were away. We had no way of knowing the party would get out of hand and eventually involve alcohol, and even drugs. But I guess once the alcohol and drugs did arrive we should have stopped the party. And that is exactly what Kelsey wanted to do, but I yelled at her for not having fun, not taking risks. She had left after that, and then the noise came, the noise that ruined my life. The police sirens and I was here in the middle of it, in the middle of and under-age drinking party with no one to protect or defend me. I shouldn’t blame the cops for taking me in, I was drunk and I did put up a fight, but I guess that what alcohol does to you, it changes you. You can’t control it. No one can. That same night, the cops called my parents, ending there anniversary a little earlier then they had expected, all because of me. I had to spend the night there, because my parents had driven all the way to Texas, where they had met, so it would take 15 hours to drive back to our home in Rockford Illinois. I tried to make myself comfy and fall asleep, but I couldn’t, it felt like the room was getting smaller and smaller with every breath I took. I stayed up all night until my parents came to get me. By that time I was puking up all of what I had eaten the