Sitting in her ample dorm room, Arabella is doing homework for her Public Speaking class. She graduated at the top of her class last year and is currently going to the University of Connecticut on a full scholarship. Bella has a really big game coming up for basketball, it’s the national championship to be exact. And to say that she is excited is an understatement.  She may just be a freshman in college, but is a starter on this team too, and plays at the post position. 

The national championship is coming a lot sooner than it seems. she has one more week to keep practicing and work on everything that she needs to get better at. Bella wishes that her parents would go to one game. But they won’t be making it to national championships, they say it’s a waste of time, and that Liam’s sports are more important. She just wants her parents to be proud of her for once.  

After she finished her homework, she got ready for basketball practice. As she steps outside of the dorm building, she notices how the sky that used to be as clear as a crystal, was now filled with angry clouds, looking like there might be a storm in the nearing future.

Growing up her parents would constantly compare her to my older brother Liam. Saying things like “If you were more like Liam you might be good at something,” “Arabella why can’t you just be more like your brother.”  Why would they do this? Liam and Bella have always been super close growing up. He would stick up for her when their parents told her those kinds of things. They practiced together and were there for each other. But once Liam graduated he stopped talking to her completely. Bella never knew why he did, but she wished he didn’t.

Bella is currently driving home from her practice. It is dark and raining like she expected,  she has a strong gut feeling to pull over but for some reason, she doesn’t. Her car is starting to move side to side on the slippery road, and soon after a sudden crack of lightning appeared from the sky. Finally, she makes the decision to pull over on the side of a street that is not too far from the dorms. She then takes out her phone to text her roommate Riley, who also happens to be her best friend, that she would be out late tonight because she had to pull over due to the bad weather. 

     ‘At this point, I should just wait out the rain’. Bella thinks to herself. Sitting in the car, getting bored of her phone, she falls asleep.

At this time it was 2022, Arabella went to Elk Creek High School, played basketball she got accepted to UConn on a full scholarship. She wanted to go to college for law, and to top it all off she was the middle child with problems that no one could see. But it’s not like she could tell anyone, she would hate having people to see her vulnerable. Her dad Arron had dreams that one or all of his children could get into college with a sports scholarship. Her mom Oliva just cares about her reputation and having the best of everything. Which yes, means that she takes it out on her children and husband. Bella has one older brother Liam who is 19 years old, and one younger brother Jake that is 16 years old, then there’s Bella, 17 years old turning 18 on June 14th. Guess you could say her problems all started when she was born. Her mom wanted her kids to be perfect so she would put them on diets, and with her dad, he would make them work out constantly. 

She didn’t exactly get to choose that she wanted to play basketball. Her parents chose it for her. But then again, is it surprising? She also tried out all the things, dance, karate, ballet, gymnastics, softball, and soccer. But she was only ever truly good at basketball, and she knew this too. So her parents made Bella stick with it. Now that she is a senior Bella has to be on varsity because she had no choice. 

Throughout high school, she was a starter on varsity.  Her physique made it easy for her to be on the basketball team, standing 5’11 with a muscular build. This year all the pressure is on her,  having scouts coming for almost all of her games because people would say she is pretty good at basketball. That year she almost hit 1,000 points and if she archives that milestone, that would be her second year achieving it. Having that happening her parents are going crazy, putting Bella on even harder diets and making her workout even more than she did before, which means that she is burning more calories than consuming them. Having that kind of mindset that she can only eat a certain amount of calories her whole life isn’t as easy as it seems. She missed just being able to eat whatever she wanted without guilt that her parents would put on her not soon after. Bella had an eating disorder in her sophomore year of high school and her parents? Yeah, didn’t seem to care.  After she got out of the hospital from fainting they put her right back to work. Her mother told everyone that Bella just bumped her head during basketball workouts. Because lord knows if her sweet little reputation gets ruined by people knowing her and her husband gave their daughter an eating disorder, people would not be so fond of them anymore. 

‘You’re not trying hard enough,’ ‘your parents aren’t proud of you,’ ‘if you don’t win this game, no eating for a week.’ Those are just some of the thoughts she had in her head. She does admit it’s not the best thing to do, but because of her lovely parents, it’s just something she grew up thinking and worrying about. And of course, that leads to amazing body dysphoria. Turns out not so amazing. 

    Bella jolts out of her sleep, her face covered in sweat and her heart pounding. ‘It was just a nightmare.’ she repeated to herself. She looks out the front car window and notices the rain has started to calm down. She inserts her key into the ignition switch. She is about to leave the side of the road when out of what seems of nowhere Bella sees a semi-truck not far off in the distance in her rearview mirror. Like every other smart driver, she waits for the semi-truck to pass. Something is wrong, the semi is swerving at an increasing rate and it’s only getting closer. Bella is trying to get the car into drive, quickly shifting the automatic stick shift, her body trembling as the is semi is getting closer every second. At this point, all Bella can have is hope. Hope that if she survives she will be ok and hope that if she doesn’t, well she really does not want to think about that right now. She sits back in her seat, taking her keys out of the ignition and waiting, ‘I don’t have anything to lose.’ That was what she thought to herself before all the bad things that could have happened, happened. ‘SCREEEEECH’.  

All she can hear at that moment is the horrible sound of metal against metal. Her head hits the window of the driver’s seat door with a loud thud. With the taste of bitter blood in her mouth, her vision starts to get fuzzy as her consciousness slowly fades. 

            Then, everything went black…