My fingers tapped the old wooden desk, tap tap tap. Creating a slow rhythm, like those slow rap songs your boyfriend would play. Finally in my ear I hear that shrill, piercing noise go off. The doors bolt open and highschoolers stampede out like a heard heading for the watering hole.
I headed to my car were my friends, Sarah, and Sarah’s boyfriend Mike were waiting. We got in the car and I could feel the happiness in the air. Summer is the time of year we all anticipate. The long warm summer nights where we would be out partying or laying under the stars till the morning, just talking and thinking. This was the time where we dreamed of our future, thought about our options our loves, our choices. But this summer, would change everything.
“I’m pumped what you guys thinking for tonight? A party, some alcohol, dancing?” Sarah had asked from the backseat as she swayed her body from side to side and snapped her fingers.
“If you guys go to a party, I’ll drive” I offered. Seeing as I didn’t like drinking anyway. My uncle had been an alcoholic and the idea of that ever happening to me scared me.
“Sounds good,” they all agreed.
“Regan is having a pool party at her house and I hear her parents are out of town for a week, let’s all go there.” Mike wasn’t giving us an option, we were going to that party, whether we liked it or not.
Arriving at a party is almost as scary as walking into your first day of high school. People glare holes into you. Their judgment is pungent and cruel, and the worst part is, half the time these people are your friends. Well maybe, they were my “friends”. The smile to your face, put the knife in your back while you’re not looking type.
That’s why I feel lucky a lot of the time to have a friend like Sarah. She had been there for me through everything. I stood by her as she watched her father’s fist bash into her young, tender skin. We had booth seen each other in pain, which made us even closer. Most people have friends that they party with, get mad at, and then recycle for a new friend.
Looking over at Sarah now, I saw her in the phase she was often in, a little bit drunk, a little bit tired, a little bit over the edge, and of course she was sad. Sitting on that couch with Mike’s arm slung around her shoulder you would think she was just some average dumb teenage girl. But there was something going on in her mind and her heart, that no one would be able to understand not even me.
In fact, I thought about it often. Sarah was so complex, she hid everything inside of her, but yet it seemed as if the entire world knew about her. They saw her beauty, her golden hair and deep sea eyes. But they didn’t see what was inside of her, complete on the outside and lonely on the inside. After years of abuse and violence, Sarah’s mother had had enough. She filed for a divorce and was given full custody of Sarah. Sarah hasn’t see her dad for nearly five years now. He was aloud visits and occasional time with Sarah, but she refused. She was only 12 when the divorce had happened but she still knew what was happening. Her dad has caused her so much pain in her life, that there was no way she would fully recover. Often it made me sad to think that no one would be able to help her, not me, not her mother, not Mike.
In the background, I heard a thump and I quickly slipped out of the fog I was in. I came back down to earth from my thoughts to see that Sarah had fallen off a side table and was now being helped up by Mike who was having quite the hard time helping Sarah to her wobbly feet. I looked at Mike, not realizing how long I had been day dreaming for and said, “What happened?”
“I couldn’t get her to stop, first it was one beer, then two, and three. She was just in one of those moods tonight, I think she just got a call from her dad. I saw her reject the call… I don’t know what he wanted, it seems like he’s been calling a lot lately. She hasn’t answered him once,” Mike explained.
I found it weird that he had been trying to get a hold of her quite a bit lately, maybe it’s because he knew that she was 17 and this would be her last year before stepping into the real world. No longer a child, she would be able to make her own decisions, meaning that choosing to never see her father again, would be one of them.
Mike carried a very sloppy drunken Sarah to the back of my car, and buckled her in. As we pulled out of the driveway, Sarah started to go nuts, laughing and giggling. Turning onto the freeway Sarah started to put her hands over my eyes and rub them all over my face.
“Stop,” I told her. “I’m driving Sarah! Mike, get her under control,” I yelled to the backseat.
Mike tried his best, I turn around to yell, and the next thing I know my car is hitting the divider on the side of the freeway. The car swerves, spinning into the middle of the freeway and a large truck rams straight into the side of my car. Impact, was a word you could use to describe the situation, pure terror was another.
After the cops had arrived, Mike and I had all been taken out okay. Neither of us had been that greatly impacted by the crash, maybe a couple bruises, some blood, mostly pure shock. Sarah however, was rushed to the hospital, we were taken to go be with her. The doctors told us in the waiting room that Sarah had been hit with the most impact. By the looks of it, she would never walk again and would be paralyzed from the waist down, but there were times when this had been cured and people had gained their movement and feeling in their legs. But this, was rare.
Hearing this news, I felt the tears run down my face, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I thought my heart was going to stop, and I kind of wanted it to. Sarah’s mother looked as if the life had been sucked out of her. Sarah was her life, the only thing she had left to remind her of Sarah’s father. I approached her, looked her in the eyes and said, “I’m so sorry, this was all my fault.”
Pulling me in for a hug Sarah’s mom replied, “Don’t ever out this on yourself, Sarah wouldn’t want you to feel like it was. Be strong for her.”
That whole night seemed like a blur, the next 3 days flowed by filled with meetings with the doctors and only being able to see Sarah for brief seconds. I hadn’t been able to see her yet, and when I did I had no idea what to say to her. A million sorry would never make up for the permanent pain I had caused her. She would never be the same, and it was my fault.
Finally on the fourth day, as I was asleep in the waiting room, and nurse came in and put her hand on my shoulder, “Sarah has asked to see you.”
I went into the room, and saw Sarah she had scars on her face and was sitting up. As soon as she saw me she burst into tears and I did the same.
“It’s not your fault,” she told me. “It’s never going to be your fault. This happened for a reason and for whatever reason it happened I… well we are going to make the best of it.”
Sarah had always been my rock, and now it was my turn to be hers.
It took Sarah a while to recover, but with baby steps, she gained some feeling back into her legs. I was in my senior year now and while that summer had been a tough one, I really grew up. I learned the imperfection and unfairness of the world. I stayed everyday with Sarah in that hospital and when school ended I would sit there and do my homework as she did therapy, taking baby steps.
One day, a letter came from her father. She decided to read it, tears started pouring out of her eyes, and then she did the impossible. She picked up the phone, and made the call.