Bailey Amundson
















September 7, 2012

Everything was a blur. Lights flashed past my face and I saw glass flying all around me. I heard Michael scream and I felt a sinking in my stomach like that moment you drop on a roller coaster ride. Everything was happening so fast, I didn’t even get the time to scream, none the less react to the car rolling straight towards the water below the road. In that instant I was positive I was going to die. I thought of my mom, my dad and my big sister at home. I wondered what they would do when they heard that I had died in the wreck. Just as fast as the whole thing happened, it ended and the world was still and worst of all, quiet. For a minute I was positive I was dead. I looked around me waiting for the light that people always talked about, there wasn’t one. Now that I looked there were just trees and marsh. Was I alive? I tried to get up but that’s when the pain in my legs jolted my body. I knew it was unlikely they weren’t broken but I tried to get out of the wreckage anyway. I grabbed hold of the oh- s*** handles and pulled myself through the shattered window. You never realize how much you would miss the ground on your skin but at that moment I was never happier to smell the musk of just rained on dirt.

“Michael?” I tried to project my voice as far as I could manage but it caught in my throat coming out as a distorted mumble. I laid down on the soil and looked up; the stars were shinning brighter than they usually do. I found that ironic giving the circumstance. Tears started spilling down my cheeks, some for me and the pain that was going through my legs, but mostly for the fact that Michael had not answered my call. He would have answered if were okay. Maybe he hadn’t heard me. I couldn’t help but let the worst come to my mind. Maybe as I was lying here looking at the stars he was staring right back at me. That’s when the tears exploded into gut wrenching sobs. Not only was he not answering, but I couldn’t hear anything but the hum of crickets chirping and some frogs. Which only meant no one saw us crash, which meant no one was coming to help them.

It felt like it had been hours since they had crashed and I had been lying here on the ground, but finally after a long agonizing wait I heard them. Loud sirens going off in the distance, I knew that it was a good thing they had finally come, while I still had enough blood to stay conscience but I couldn’t bear the thought of them helping me, it was already too late. They came too late. Just as the paramedics came to pull my body all the way out of the vehicle I had enough time to take a look at the crushed Volkswagen beside me. The doors were bent in and there was no sign of a windshield anywhere. It didn’t look like Michaels mom’s car they had took to the movies it looked like something that was taken to the dump and smashed to pieces and thrown into the marsh. I managed one look towards Michael who was on the ground, a paramedic beating at his chest trying to perform CPR. He wasn’t breathing. That was the last thing I remember before I blacked out. My best friend in the entire world wasn’t breathing and it was all my fault.


The morning I woke up the sun was shining through my window, letting a deep warm feeling spread through my body. Before I could bring myself to open my eyes I started to remember. There was rain and loud music playing in the car. Michael and I were just heading home from the movie theater were we spent some time with ours friends laughing and smiling, it seemed so long ago. Then there was the man, someone standing in the middle of the road. Michael tried to stop but the heavy rain made the Volkswagen hydroplane. I closed my eyes and waited Michael grabbed my hand, we waited together to hear the man get hit, but nothing was there, just the curve that sent us straight down the hill into the marshy area. That was the last time I saw Michael I don’t know if he is okay where he is whether he is breathing or not.

Opening my eyes I saw the hospital ceiling it looked just like most, white and sterile. I tried to get my head to move to the side so I could see around the room. Pain was sent coursing through my body as I tried this, it was exhausting. I finally got my body to work with me and I was able to see my family passed out on the overnight couches they have. Mom sleeping on dads shoulder, dad snoring just slightly like he always does when he falls asleep watching golf on Sundays. The scene looked so normal but it could not be any more different then how we all spent our Sunday mornings. Or at least what I thought was a Sunday morning, I couldn’t really tell since I didn’t know yet how long I had been out.

“Where is Michael?” I tried to talk to them but my voice only came out as a pathetic whisper. Mom woke up, I knew she would she was trained to listen for me. Even when I was little and hospitalized for having a severe case of Phenomena she heard me when I could almost only make clicking noises.

“Oh baby. You’re awake!” she ran over to the side of the bed and hugged me she was crying , “The doctors didn’t know if you would resurface from your comma they said it was so unlikely.” She was sobbing on my bed her head shaking in disbelief. She started to stroke my hair like when I was little and she was calming me down from a nightmare. “I knew you would wake up, me and your father just knew you would. They said you wouldn’t and we should consider letting you go but they don’t know how incredibly strong you are. Oh angel I’m so glad you are awake.” She stood up, “Let me wake up your father, he will want to see you we have been waiting for some time in the hospital.”

I cut her off right there, “How long have I been sleeping?” she said I had been in a comma but I couldn’t really bring myself to say the words.

She looked at me almost cautiously, “Sweetie it’s been two weeks”

I have been out for two weeks? That couldn’t be right. I didn’t feel that way at all. I felt like It had just been yesterday when the paramedics carried me away. That made me panic, “Where is Michael. Mom where is he? He was on the ground and they were doing CPR, where is he?”

Tears started forming at the corners of her eyes, “Micheal's gone sweetie. When you got into your crash he was knocked out from the impact his ribs punctured his lungs and he chocked they tried to get him breathing again so they could operate at the hospital, but it was too late. I’m so sorry Kailee.”

Micheal couldn’t be gone. I felt like I was going to puke. I saw him lying on the ground motionless. He was dead. Micheal was dead.

Tears erupted from my eyes. I couldn’t breathe I was positive that I was suffocating. As if someone was strangling me I felt my throat tighten not allowing any oxygen into my body. My best friend was gone. I would never see his bright blue eyes or his friendly smile; we would never sit in his basement drinking chocolate milk watching house ever again.

Mom came over and hugged me close to her, “I’m so sorry Kailee. He was in so much pain baby, he is in a better place now.” She stroked my head while I wept on her shoulder.

I didn’t want him in a better place I wanted him with me. I wanted to be able to run over to his house in the middle of the night and be able to talk to him if I needed to. I wanted to hug him, feel him, and see his eyes again. I had to see his eyes again. He couldn’t be dead it just wasn’t possible.
After my sobs had toned down to just silent tears my mom let me go. Dad came in and we talked and he hugged me. I couldn’t hear what he said. All I could hear was Michael’s scream as we both flew off the road. His hand in mine, together we were going to die, but I left him, and he left me. We were supposed to be best friends till the day we BOTH died. Why hadn’t I died instead of him? Why not both of us? All the thoughts ran through my head as if it was a never ending marathon.
I felt nothing I was numb, I saw people come and go, say things to me. I couldn’t hear them though; I just could hear the screaming over and over and over in my head. It was like a terrible broken record that was just never ending.

After three days in the hospital of going through the motions, I started to feel more. Not necessarily good more, but more. I felt my legs, which had cuts all up and down them, stinging all over my body. I felt my head which also had a huge cut on it. Doctors said I was a lucky lucky little girl to live through that. I lost a lot of blood and passed out which was all equaling factors for me to die in my sleep. I tried to be appreciative that I was alive, but I couldn’t do it. Michael didn’t want to go the movies that night. I wanted to though and he would have followed me to the end of the earth and back if I asked him. So he went, and now, now he was dead. Mom said not to feel guilty about it, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t even sleep without hearing the crash in my dreams. Constant torment always playing over and over.
Finally after many nights of the crash playing over in my head I got a moments peace from the screeching of brakes and the shattering of glass. I lied my head on the pillow mentally exhausted from not sleeping. It felt good just to lay here. I took a deep breath in letting fresh air pierce my lungs. My cheeks were a little hot and sore from the tears that I had cried earlier that day. I closed my eyes and saw Michael smiling at me. His brown hair in a cute mess as it always was, those brown eyes beaming, happy to see me. I opened my eyes and tears slid down my cheeks. I missed him so much.
At that moment I questioned what happened to me next. It was so late and I don't know if it was real or not. I looked at the door to the hall way and I saw him. Michael was in the hall smiling at me through the glass of my hospital door. This I knew had to be the drugs I had been taking, or the lack of sleep I haven't had. Yet there he was, sitting right out side my door.
We stared at each other for a while before he walked through the door and started towards the hospital bed. I couldn't believe I was seeing what I was seeing. Michael was here, right next to my bed. I gaped at him and started to cry a little bit harder. He looked so real, but I know he isn't.
Michael finally reached my bed and set his hand on mine. Of course I couldn't feel his hand on mine at all but just seeing it there made my heart tighten in my chest. He smiled and looked into my eyes, and in the lowest whisper, almost like that light whistle you hear on the wind he said to me, “ Don't cry Kailee. I'm here and I love you.” A tiny sob escaped my lips as he lowered his face to kiss my forehead. I felt warm real lips for the briefest of seconds and my insanity and almost been cured. Backing away from my head the brushed my hair back from my face and smiled. And just like that my Michael was gone. That night was the best night sleep I had had since I came here.