The Accident

I haven’t gotten a chance to write in a few days. I can only hope that this will help things get better…

I was coming home from work. I left school right on time, which means the traffic was not bad. Turns out that earlier in the day I had left my purse at home. When I realized this, it was too late to go home and get it. My first thought was….I better drive the speed limit, my second thought was I better not have an accident, and my third thought was…how am I going to eat lunch? Luckily I had six dollars in my desk, which I used to buy my meal.

Back to my accident…

So I was on my way home, and almost there when it happened… About a block away from my house I stopped behind a black SUV at a red light. When the light turned green, and I saw him start to move, I started to move, then I looked down for a brief moment. That’s all that it took. A second. In a flash I had hit him. The collision wasn’t even that bad. I thought we would move to the side and exchange phone numbers or something. Reminder: This was my first accident. But instead, he got off his SUV and started to inspect the damage. I got off and quickly called 911. [Now I thought that the 911 operators were supposed to calm and soothe a person in trouble. This shows how little I know about accidents. First, I couldn’t hear him, and when I could hear him, he yelled at me. Not very nice] I looked at his car first. Unbelievably, his vehicle was fine. Not even a dent. That’s when I noticed the steam coming from my car. I turned around and it was all I could do to keep the tears from streaming down my face. My beautiful Land Rover was caved in so that it looked like a broken smile with braces hanging down. The man I hit suggested we move off the street before we cause another accident. It was a miracle that my car was drivable. The police came and made a report. Turns out the guy I hit had his wife and kids in the car with him. This made me feel even worse. I managed to keep control and call my dad as soon as possible. I needed him to go to my house and pick up my license that the cop needed. He came and picked up my remote control, and as soon as I saw him, he asked if I was ok. I was ok, …until he asked me. I wanted to break down so bad, but he raised his eyebrows and said to stop. I don’t think my dad likes to see us cry. So, I held it in. My dads’ friend really helped us out a lot. He came and picked up my car and is going to help me fix it. He owns his own car lot. With my dads help I got into a rental car before six o’clock. As soon as we were on our way to pick up the car, I asked if I could “fall apart” now. I did. I cried finally. But not totally….I was still with my dad. He was worried that I would not be able to drive home, so I had to control myself even longer. I got home and in the comfort of my pillows, I let it out. I cried so hard that I had to gasp for air. I was so scared. There were children in the car. Someone could have been hurt. Seriously hurt. My mind was somewhere else when I was driving.

I was actually thinking of how much I was going to allow myself to spend on Christmas presents. I was thinking about money. I was thinking how I was going to pay off my credit card. BAM! Another expense.

I know it has nothing to do with the accident but after I got home, I noticed I wasn’t wearing my cross. I’m not sure why I didn’t have it, but it was another reason why I didn’t go to sleep feeling ok.

My parents called an hour later, and explained that they were on their way with dinner. I know it was because they didn’t want me to be alone. We talked about accidents in general and about different topics. It made me feel a little better, but I still took a Tylenol to relieve the headache I had from crying. They left and I sat on the couch and talked to Marty about the evening. As I was talking to Marty, my back started to cramp up. I couldn’t walk or move or bend. I took a muscle relax-er. It was probably not the best idea. It relaxed my back, but I had trouble sleeping. I felt dizzy and nauseated. When I finally did get to sleep, I woke up an hour later crying from the most awful dream.

I know this is getting to be a novel…but if you are reading this you can totally stop and get back to doing whatever you were doing. I just need to get this out of my head. I can’t take another sleepless night.

The Dream…….

It was actually a continuation from my accident. After my accident, my dad drove me to enterprise to rent a car. This is where it started to change. They gave me a very fast sports car. Stick shift. I have driven a stick shift before but even in my dream, I was shaky. I actually avoided several other accidents. We were on our way to my grandmas house (I was following my dad) and as I started to get in the turning lane, a car cut me off and ran the red. I came to a stop. Just then a news reporter drove up beside me and asked me to pull over. They wanted to interview me and ask why I was driving so fast. I tried to explain that it wasn’t my car, and that it wasn’t me that was driving so fast, but they didn’t believe me. They tried to get my story straight but when they couldn’t understand me, they started yelling at me. After they let me leave, I wanted to take back roads so that I wouldn’t call attention to myself. It got suddenly very dark, and I started passing a lot of gangs. People saw the car and tried to chase me for it. The car somehow turned into a futuristic silver hover glider thingy. I could run on foot or be pulled by the car. I kept turning and taking different pathways trying my hardest to get to my grandma’s house. A girl up ahead saw me and cut me off. It was then that the stupid car wouldn’t work. She caught me and tried to beat me up. I tried to defend myself and in doing so I ended up killing her. A headline flashed in my dream “you take the dead with you” and suddenly I became her. I was chasing myself. I was haunting myself. I could still feel the panic that someone was chasing me…but I was watching myself run. I hovered over and into the house before my human self could. I hid on top of a dresser that was located in my grandmother’s room (where I knew my human self would go). As I heard myself come inside panting and running ….I prepared to pounce. I saw the top of my head run inside and I started to float down. Just when my human self looked up and screamed, I screamed and woke myself up. I felt as though someone did take over my body. I was sweating and my chest was heaving. I cried yet again. I sat up and sobbed and sobbed. I didn’t know why. Don’t ask me why. I still don’t know. What I did know is that I couldn’t go back to sleep. I couldn’t because I know from experience that sometimes we just go back to the same dream over and over. I couldn’t. I woke up from my dream at four in the morning. I stayed up. In the dark. Eyes open, because if I closed them I was afraid. Afraid from the day. Afraid that I might fall back asleep.

Needless to say, I am dragging today. I still feel uneasy, but at least I don’t have people asking if I am “okay”. No one knows here at school. It’s better that way. I considered taking half the day off to go home and sleep, but decided against it. I’m still scared to sleep.