forgiveness (book one)

shattered glass

i.

shattered glass

It happened over two years ago, but I haven't been able to forget a single detail.

I remember the way my hands had tingled as I spun the wheel to the right. I remember the sound of blaring horns, hot in my ringing ears, as cars swerved around my own vehicle. Alcohol had clouded my vision, and I remember the approaching tractor trailer swimming in front of me.

Ana was in the seat next to me. We had been at a party with some old friends from high school, and we'd both taken too many shots of whiskey. She was drunk, too, but it didn't matter that she'd had too much to drink. She wasn't the one driving.

I was the one who had swerved onto the wrong side of the road. Not Ana.

I could still taste the whiskey, bitter and sticky at the back of my throat. The terrible flavor rose up stronger in my mouth when I screamed Ana's name. She was shrieking something, a horrible note of terror in her voice that was so filled with fear that it sounded scratched and warped.

Then there was a crunch as the tractor trailer collided with the front of my car, and I suddenly couldn't hear anything at all.

It wasn't like it was in the movies. The screen didn't fade to white as soon as the vehicles collided. I was awake for every moment afterward, and I could see everything in slow motion. I saw the way the hood of my car crumpled like tin foil under the impact, and I felt the seatbelt tug harshly on my skin as I was thrown forward in the seat.

I saw that Ana wasn't wearing her seatbelt. I saw the way her body flew forward, over the dashboard and into the windshield. Glass shattered everywhere, over the damaged hood and into my face.

My chin was bleeding, the skin split where it had hit the top rim of the steering wheel. A heavy weight seemed to be pressing against the back of my head, keeping my neck bent forward and my forehead pressed against the center of the wheel. Smoke, blood, and glass shards were everywhere around me.

My mouth was open, and I was screaming. I could hear nothing but a loud, sharp ringing in my ears. I screamed until my lungs ran out of air, and my vocal chords lost their sound. And then I kept screaming.

Ana. Ana.

We had been best friends since elementary school. Ana had lived down the street from me my entire life. We had gone to different colleges, but we were inseparable during every holiday break. She was like a sister to me.

I could see half her body outside on the pavement, her legs slouched beside the tires of the tractor trailer. One of the cream-colored stilettos she had been wearing was lying on the damaged hood of my car.

Ana had died in the same instant she hit the windshield. She wouldn't have felt any pain, the paramedics told me. She had died instantly, painlessly.

But she had died, and it was my fault.

It was my fault, all my fault.

I would never let myself forget that.