She's With the Band

Going Over the Edge

After dinner, the family was sipping tea in their quaint living room. Sitting comfortably in the antique armchair, Valerie noticed a few worn postcards on the side table from the corner of her eye. She picked them up, recognizing her own handwriting, and read them silently as her eyes swept over the lean writing. She read over her postcards from Edinburgh, Belfast, and Cork with an apparition of these distant memories materializing in her mind.

It was a tradition she shared with her parents; she sent them postcards every time she settled somewhere new. The tradition began a few years back—not too far—when Valerie started university in the UK. She sent them postcards, not too glorious in their looks nor expensive in their prices, but rather an unconventional way of saying "I'm all settled." Valerie was anything but conventional, and this much was true. Despite being perfectly able to phone her parents, this silly tradition was something she looked forward to in every new place.

She then remembered the unfinished postcard in Dana's apartment, hidden under the stack of old magazines and unopened mail. It was different this time, she decided; since she didn't feel settled at all. She knew why, though she wanted to deny it. Putting them away, Valerie sipped her tea while eyeing Dana, waiting for her sister to make the final call to go home—and feeling like a teenager at sixteen without a driver's license and no means of getting home.

The conversation had winded down; both her mother and father seemed tired after an eventful day. Suzanne was lazily watching the news, her eyes glazing slowly over the headlines; while her husband was fighting a deep spell of sleep. The grandfather clock was ticking steadily as time passed and Valerie felt the creeping hands of time still in their motion; refusing to give way to her impatient eyes. No matter how much joy seeing her parents brought her, the dinner was emotionally draining for Valerie. The energy that she exerted into avoiding a full-fledged break-down has come to collect its debt from her. She was exhausted, and in dire need of decisive action.

At last, Dana set her tea quietly on the coaster, careful not to make any sudden movements. "It's getting very late, so we'll get going."

*****

In the car, Dana quickly put the ignition to work, wasting no time in heating the car. The car snaked away from the meticulous streets of suburbia and slithered slowly towards the highway. The radio crackled to life, playing an obnoxiously upbeat hit from the pop charts. Valerie, who very much appreciated the silence of the night, turned the radio off at once.

Dana glanced at Valerie from the corner of an eye while focusing on the darkened road, "Why'd you turn it off? It's too quiet."

"I'm not in the mood," Valerie simply stated, although her tone was much harsher than she originally intended. Dana's nostrils flared, her aggravation from earlier returned to rattle their peaceful ride home.

"We could do without this teenage anxiety, Valerie."

"What did I do?!" Valerie's eyes widened in anger as she flailed her arms defensively.

"You can't pretend to be a teenager forever!" Dana returned with just as much anger laced in her every word. 

"You have no damn right to tell me what I can and can't do," Valerie's voice shot flames into Dana's direction in no time. She heard her heartbeat in her ears, loud and throbbing.

"Not when you're not thinking clearly!" Dana shouted venomously, her hands clenching too hard onto the steering wheel.

"You don't know what the hell I'm thinking! You have absolutely no idea—Watch out!" Valerie screamed at the top of her lungs, her fingers pointing in horror at the car that just swerved to her side in a frenzy.

Valerie didn't dare blink or bat an eyelash. Although the clash happened in the split second that followed, she saw every minute detail enhanced by adrenaline. Dana tried to steer away from the drunk driver who swerved into her lane from the right. She wasn't able to control the car, though, as the other car struck Valerie's door, causing a sharp dent that struck her body aggressively. Valerie screamed in pain from the jolting pain, but the intoxicated driver remained adamant in his pursuit. His bumpers clashed into Dana's headlights, cutting off her meagre source of light. Her car was being driven into the barrier, and Dana was unable to swerve away. She was in the leftmost lane with nothing separating her from the highway's dividing barrier. The moment of collision was forceful, as the other car zigzagged around her, momentarily distant until it stalked her car once again.

This time, it came at her with full force; the entire length of his car slamming hers into the dividing barrier, causing her car to slam at an angle and roll uncontrollably. Dana screamed in sheer horror as she saw the world around her merge into a dark mass, all the while her senses at an extremely heightened awareness. The adrenaline and fear overwhelmed her mind, as it spun with the car. The car gained momentum from its slam against the dividing barrier, and quickly swerved out of control into another bus on its right.

As if on a belated cue, airbags exploded into both their faces, protecting their heads from the impact of the clash with the tour bus. However, their car swerved once again, and shifted to the left lane again, hitting the dividing barrier straight in its face. Dana's head, which the airbag was unable to catch as it banged against the the windows on the driver's door, smashed the glass and left a spider web of cracks laced with dark blood. The car sprang upwards, as a result from the head-on plunge into the barrier, and jumped into the still air. It flipped across the highway, landing with an ear-splitting crash across the other side of the highway.

Valerie was barely conscious; she felt like a cog in a churning machine from the violent collapse of the car against the rough asphalt. The noise of shattering glass and crumpling of the car's metal frame from underneath her threatened to send her ears deaf.

The world went promptly still, with the only noises coming from seething smoke that struggled to escape from the battered engine. Valerie blinked her eyes for the first time in these last few moments of the accident, but she wasn't able to open them again. She felt herself straddle the line between consciousness and senselessness, as she thought she heard a quick rapture of knocks surrounding her and a sea of voices washing into the shores of her mind.

A/N: Hope your hearts were beating the same way mine was when I was writing the car crash scene :) Comment/Vote/Do-Anything!

Much Love