He's screaming, I can't do anything about it, I know it's Jimmy, I can't see him, let me see him.
God let me see Jimmy, my heart pounds faster and faster, not enough air getting to my lungs, at the same time too much is. Jimmy, he's so young only eight years old, he's to young to die, I'm to young to die.
I hear the snap of the first bone, Jimmy has stopped crying, he probably passed out, my eyes are teared up, I lost vision in one of them and I'll never get it back.
Glass is shattered all over the left side of my face, the car tipped so only half my face was exposed.
Wake up, I beg internally, this isn't real, wake up, wake up wake up!
I open my eyes, my arms flailing frantically, I look around my room before realizing it was just a dream, a reoccurring nightmare. I wish I could forget it but I can't, I never can, and never will.
I stay lying on the bed, not moving, I can't move, I'm still paralyzed in fear. I slowly start moving my toes like my therapist said to do when this happens. After I gain control of my toes I move to my fingers, slowly I begin to move every muscle in my body.
And then I stop, I raise my hand and touch the left side of my face, I feel the scars and the marks. The person you see is different on each side, one side is a normal girl, the other side is a monster, ripped apart, destroyed. My hair grew back, but I will never look normal again, I have scars running along the left side of my head, preventing hair to grow in certain places.
Finally I turn over to look at my clock, the numbers are all blurred, but after squinting enough I can finally make out, 3:37 AM, I don't expect to go back to sleep, I never do, instead I stare up at the ceiling.
Jimmy, poor, helpless, young, Jimmy, why did he have to be the one paralyzed, but I don't want to trade places, I don't want him to suffer what I do, nobody deserves it.
But Jimmy, he used to be so happy, he used to run and play, now he can't, if only we saw the car, if only the driver in the other car wasn't drunk.
I stare at the ceiling, drawing pictures with my finger, I'm trapped, trapped inside my head, trapped inside the world.
I don't know how long I sat there in silence before I heard a knock on my door.
"Jimmy?" I whisper, before the accident Jimmy would knock on my door when he has nightmares, now he sends a robot to my room, I got it for him last year for Christmas.
I hear the whirring of the gears, I slowly sit up and turn to the edge of my bed.
I place both feet on the floor, and stand, as I walk towards my bedroom door I glance at the mirror, I look normal, but that's one perspective, if I turned my head a zombie would appear.
I creep towards the door and place my hand on the knob, I slowly open up the door and the robot appears.
I pick it up and hold the legs together, it makes the robot harder for Jimmy to control, it's how he knows I have it.
I walk down the hall to Jimmy's room and when I arrive I knock on the door, I don't get a response so I slowly opened the door, there is Jimmy laying in his bed, hes legs are completely paralyzed but his upper half is normal.
"Jimmy, are you okay?" I ask looking at him, "did you have a nightmare?"
He nods his head, I walk over and sit down on his queen bed, the blankets are all at the end of the bed so I pull them up over him.
"Do you want me to stay?" I ask him, he nods hid head, I stay sitting next to him, it's not like I have anything better to do, I probably won't be able to fall back asleep anyways so it doesn't matter.
I sit next to him for a few minutes before he falls back asleep, I don't get up and move after words, instead I sit and watch him breathing peacefully.
I wish this was what life was, but it isn't, tucking my little brother in after he had a nightmare is sadly the highlight of my day normally.
Nightmares are common in my family, when the accident happened we were driving to the hospital, my mom was already there, I was supposed to have a little sister.
My little sister, Sarah, died a week later, we buried her with my father, my family has never recovered from all the tragedies, to many, I lost my grandmother to cancer three years ago, and my best friend to suicide.
I have never lived a perfect life, not even a normal one, I'm far from normal, but my family and I are fine with it, sometimes it takes being abnormal to be normal.
Some days I run downstairs waiting for my father to get home, I pretend that this is all a twisted dream, that he's still alive, holding the football for him and Jimmy to play with, while I watch.
But I know that this is reality, and nothing can bring him back. Nothing at all can, in a way I'm fine with that, I can accept that he is gone, that I will never have him back. In another sense it is a terrible thing, that makes the memories I had of him fade, what's left slowly disappearing until we forever forget him.
Jimmy starts to snore, I put my hand on his chest, the ability to be able to feel him breathe in and out means he's alive, and if I can tell he is alive that means I must be.
I'm trapped, in a world no one understands, it's fine with me, but sometimes my wall had built so high that I can't get out, the wall built to keep people out keeps me in, I'm trapped inside myself.
Sometimes I think back to when Hunter committed, what was he thinking, did he know what this was going to do to me? He knew of all the losses I've suffered through, my father, my grandmother, my grandfather died before I was born in a war, but did he know, did Hunter ever think about how this would effect me.
The only thing left of Hunter is his old baseball cap, he left it at my house one day, I never gave it back, sometimes I think of going out to his grave and placing the cap on his headstone, but I don't, because then I'd have nothing to remember him by.
I start to hum the tune to Hunter's favorite song, he would always hum when he was sad, it's a habit I picked up from him, back when he was alive.
Jimmy lays quietly, he stopped snoring, the room is quiet, not a sound, not a worry, it's peaceful. I know he's dreaming, I hope he is dreaming happily, I hope he dreams that he can walk, play outside with his friends, the ones who are real, not the ones who turned against him after the accident.
...
"Jonas, can you wake up Jimmy," my mom yells up the stairs, I yell down a quick reply and nudge Jimmy, I didn't sleep after I walked into Jimmy's room. I stayed quiet and listened to the sounds.
"Is it morning already?" Jimmy says tiredly, I nod and help him get up, I lift him into his wheelchair, and find some clothing for the day.
"I can dress myself," Jimmy says, that's the one thing I have always loved about Jimmy, so adamant about doing things for himself, not letting the accident change him at all mentally.
"Okay," I should tell him that I'd do it and be a good big sister, but for him being a good big sister was letting him do things for himself.
I open up the door and stand outside Jimmy's room trusting him to call me if he needs anything, I can tell he is done getting dressed by the thump hitting the door, I open up the door to find he ran into it on his wheelchair again.
The hardest part about Jimmy's wheelchair is getting him down the stairs, since we live on just my moms income we can't afford to move, therefore we make this work with stairs.
I lift Jimmy up out of his wheelchair and carry him down the stairs, the doctor said that with proper surgery Jimmy might be able to walk again, but out family can't afford surgery, we are all pitching in, mom puts some of her money from working in, I mow lawns around the neighborhood, and Jimmy well he sells lemonade at the curb.
I place Jimmy down in the chair by the stairs and walk back up to get his wheelchair, when I finally finish bringing it all down I walk back up to get changed.
I open the door to my room, and go look through my closet for something that's semi-decent, of course all of my clothing is from goodwill, we aren't poor we just need to save a lot of money for Jimmy's surgery so we cut expensive clothing from our budget.
I finally find a pair of skinny jeans, they have a hole in the knee but it will do, and a T-shirt, it's a plain black shirt with nothing on it, it's a little big but it works for me.
I change into the clothing and walk out of my room, when I get downstairs for the third time today I see Jimmy eating a waffle.
"Mom made waffles," Jimmy says excited, he loves it when Mom makes her waffles, she used to be a chef at a breakfast place but when they went out of business she got a desk job. I still hope that maybe one day she will be able to get a job at a resteraunt again.
I sit down in front of my plate, I'm not really hungry but Mom has a rule that if you don't eat, you don't get TV, and you can't leave the house, I pick up my knife and start cutting the waffle.
I am halfway through when Jimmy finishes, he talked the whole time about his friends and how they are going to see some movie. I wasn't really paying attention.
"So Jonas, how are your friends?" My mom asks, I don't remember if she knows Hunter committed suicide last month or not, I don't want to tell her if she doesn't, other than him I never really had any friends, after the accident the whole school started treating me like a freak show.
"Good," I say with a mumble not wanting to discuss this topic any further.
Of course she doesn't know Hunter is dead, that he slit his own throat with a kitchen knife at midnight last month, of course she doesn't know that Hunter had his funeral and I was never invited, of course she doesn't know that I sneak out of the house to visit his grave still.
Hunter always wanted to be cremated, he wanted his ashes spread amongst the flowers in my front yard, he had always loved them, I still remember when he was alive, when he told me what he wanted to happen if he died.
"What happens after you die?" I asked him, it was a cold winter day but our flowers still bloomed and were still beautiful.
"Jonas why would you ask that?" Hunter responds, I shrugged my shoulders and he proceeds to answer my question, "in all honesty I don't know, it depends on what you believe in."
"What do you believe in?" I asked him.
"I believe that things happen for a reason, and if someone was out there watching us maybe the world would be one people would rather live in than visit the creator," he responds.
"What do you want to happen after you die?" I asked.
"I want to be cremated, my ashes spread out in front of my house, and yours so no one will ever forget me. I want to live with plants, help them grow, they've kept me alive this long." He responded.
I never thought much of his answer, I never thought that he would rather meet whoever was out there than stay here, stay here with me, I never thought much of how easily he answered the question of what he wanted to happen after he died, some days I want to dig up his ashes and fulfill his wish, let him rest with the plants.
"Jonas, help Jimmy get his jacket on," my mom yells, I look past her shoulder and see Jimmy struggling to put on his jacket, I rush over and help him, finally once it's zipped up we race to the bus stop.
By we race to the bus stop of course I meant, I ran next to his wheelchair while he went as fast as he could.
...
"Jonas can you stay behind for a moment please?" My teacher Mrs. Proper, yeah that is seriously her last name, she's my language teacher, we used to joke about it all the time.
"Yes ma'am," I respond mildly sad that I couldn't sneak out of the classroom as fast as I wanted to.
"I've noticed that you don't have a lot of friends, what happened to all of the ones you had earlier this year?" She asks, those friends, she must mean Hunter's, the other boys who would tolerate me because Hunter and I were friends.
"I guess they stopped hanging with me, but that's the way boys work I guess," I reply really wanting to leave this conversation.
"Your grades have been slipping, is something wrong at home?" She asks, of course something in wrong at home, my father is dead, my brother is paralyzed waist down, and my best friend committed suicide.
"It's been tough but we've been working through," I respond desperate at this point to leave the conversation.
"How about this, I know you are still heartbroken with Hunter, and your father and all, I know that's why your grades are slipping, if you can do a writing assignment for me, it doesn't matter what it is I will improve your grade," Mrs Proper says. I nod in agreement relived that it was a writing assignment rather than something else, I start to turn away but she isn't done speaking yet, "Also, the school psychologist wants to see you today during lunch." And with that she shoos me away.
I have to see the school shrink, again of course I do, it is going to be the same thing, it always is everytime, all I can think about is what Hunter would say.
"Do you enjoy talking to the shrink," I ask him after he returns from his weekly meeting with the shrink.
"Yes, I like having someone to talk to," Hunter responds.
"You can talk to me, you know that right?" I say.
"I know Jonas, and I always will, it's just sometimes you need to talk to a professional, it's always good to have someone other than your friends who will listen to what you have to say," Hunter responds, he then pulls something out of his pocket, it's a cigarette.
"Where'd you get that?" I asked in amazement.
"Stole 'em from my dad, you want one?" He asks once we leave the school building.
I never knew the things he wanted to talk about were things that led to his death, or the reason he stole the cigarettes from his dad was to forget the pain, he used them as a distraction. To this day I still smoke, thanks to Hunter I got addicted, I've broken my habit and only have one once a week or so, a whole pack lasts me a while, and stealing them from my mom isn't the hardest thing in the world.
I walk to my next class and prepare myself every way possible to dodge the questions that are bound to be asked at lunch.
...
I enter the shrinks office, inside are two chairs, her door is closed so I sit in the chair furthest from the door and start waiting. After minutes that practically droned on my hours the door creaks open.
I stand up and head to the door, but instead of entering the office I bump into someone.
"S-sorry, about that," I say with a stutter looking up to the person I walked into, standing in front of me I see a girl around my height with slate grey eyes and platinum blonde hair.
"Hey I'm Max, what's your name?" She asks holding out her hand for me to shake.
"I'm Jonas, are you new I've never seen you around here before?" I ask, it's true I tend not to forget a face.
"Yeah, I just got here, I actually was at a mental hospital for a while, my father died a few months ago, I had a hard time getting over his death." She responded.
Something was familiar about this girl, the way she talked, the way she acted, she was able to climb past my wall, in a way she reminded me of Hunter.
"I'm sorry about that, my father has been dead for a year to this day," I respond, I forgot that he died a year ago, but what surprised me more was her lack of concern about my scars, people tend to stare at them, but she looks me straight in the eye the whole time.
"I'm sorry about that, anyways, nice meeting you, maybe we can talk again sometime?" She asks after checking her watch.
"That'd be great, I'll see you around," I say, a wary feeling fell over me, she reminded me of Hunter, to much of Hunter, I just don't want to lose another friend.
"Why do people commit suicide?" I ask Hunter, at the time it didn't seem like a bad question.
"Some people believe that whatever is after this life is better than what this life is." He responds.
"Would you ever commit suicide?" I asked, he shakes his head.
"I've wanted to but I can't leave people, I like life the way it is looking into a happy face everyday when I leave the house, don't ever lose that happy face." Hunter says.
He did die, he did commit, he left me, he destroyed my happy face, he left me depressed.
"Jonas, are you coming" the school shrink calls.
"Yeah," I say, I make a mental note to look for Max later, I proceed to enter the shrinks office, hoping for this to end as soon as possible.
I am just going to end it there at 3000, so this is an idea. More like a sneak peek, comment if you like it please so I know if I should write another part, also to my friends (irl) one of you please make a cover and by one of you I mean the only one who knows my password. Please make me a cover, anyways feedback is always nice, I probably will take this down soon.
Anyways peace
(Also Hunter is amazing, and Max where did she come from, I just wanna say. Max is not all she seems)