All American Girl

Chapter One

Audreyanna

            Sometimes life throws a curveball at you. A lot of times, you can bounce back. But not all the time. Sometimes, you break down like food particles in stomach acid. Tonight is the first time it will happen to me…

            Louisa Anfield’s twelfth birthday sleepover is a blast. She has a Wii, and Louisa, Evelyn Walker, Maria Gonzalez, Catherine Zhou, and I are up until eleven-thirty at night trying to beat the brains out each other in Wii Sports Boxing.

            Overtired, we head up to Louisa’s room, bragging about our victories. We crawl into our sleeping bags, yawning. Louisa joins us on the floor with her own sleeping bag as well.

            Usually, I am not allowed to stay up past ten o’clock at night unless it’s New Years, Christmas, or some party, so I fall asleep quickly.

            Dad and I fly down the road. It is raining. The wipers make a swish, swish sound, but they aren’t helping. I can barely see out the windshield.

            “Dad, are you sure this is safe?” I ask him. “Is it legal?”

            “Of course it is. If it weren’t, a police officer would have pulled us over by now. Besides, the library closes at nine on Fridays, and it’s eight forty-five right now.”

            “But it’s dark. And…I’m scared.” There. I said it.

            Dad acts like he’s hard of hearing. And he’s sort of got a point. What could go wrong? We’re just going to the library.

            “Darn it. A red light.”

            I double check that my seatbelt is secured, and the airbag light is on.

            Green light.

            Dad steps lightly on the gas pedal.

            Immediately, I sense something is wrong. I see car lights coming from the left.

            It happens in slow motion: the jolt of the speeding car crashing into ours, my scream, the airbag expanding, Dad saying, “Audreyanna, hold on!”, glass shattering, metal crunching, tires screeching.

            I am too shocked to speak. I am too shocked to move. I feel like I will pass out. In the distance, sirens sound faintly.

            The next thing I know, my door flies open. A suited-up person yanks me out of the car, through my seatbelt, through my temporary paralysis.

            The man asks me if I’m okay. I look around for Dad.          

            I swallow hard. “I’m fine. It’s just…where’s my dad?”

            The man points. I see Dad, see him being carried into the ambulance on a stretcher. I turn back to the man. “I need my dad.”

            The man explains that Dad was seriously injured. Then he asks for Mom’s number. I tell him, and stare into oblivion. He calls my mom.

            Mom arrives, and rushes over to me. “Audreyanna, are you all right?”

            All I can say is, “Dad.”

            Dad…

            Dad…

            Dad…

            I jolt upright, screaming. “Dad! Dad!”

            Evelyn, my best friend, wakes up. “Audreyanna, are you all right?” The exact words Mom had said.

            I start to cry.

            By now, the others are awake. “¿Qué pasa? What’s wrong?” Maria asks.

            I can’t answer her. I’m crying too hard.

            Immediately, everyone is around me. I finally find my voice, and say, “I dreamt about the car crash. It was so clear, like I was there—” I refrain from adding, ‘All over again.’

            Everyone already knows that my dad died in the car crash. “But you weren’t there, so how could you have dreamt about it?” Catherine asks. “Maybe it was your understanding of how things went.”

            This makes no sense to me, and if I act confused, they will find out. Either way, they will find out. So I decide to tell the truth. “But that’s the thing.”

            I look at all of them.

            “I was there.”