“I don’t think we’re going to be able to get through this, Allie. It’s just too big of a storm,” my mother says as our car drives slowly in the line of traffic.

“What do you mean not being able to make it?” I ask.


“I mean that our car won’t be able to drive up that hill,” she says as she points towards a large hill that looms over us, a couple cars away.

“Well, then how are we going to get home?” I ask.

“Allie honey, I don’t know. Just be patient, okay?” she replies.

I sigh. We’ve been in this car for a couple hours and my legs can’t take this much longer. We were on our way home from the city because we had to visit my grandfather before we left for our yearly Christmas vacation. I remember him warning us not to drive home in this weather, and obviously we should have listened. But back then, the snow didn’t seem too bad. Every time I looked out the window there were just a few flurries and once in a while big flakes started coming down. But the real blizzard hadn’t started until we were on the highway for about ten minutes. I could tell my mom wasn’t ecstatic about driving in the snow because I had heard her curse underneath her breath. For me, I was kind of glad to see the snow especially because it meant there would be no school the next day, letting us out for break early. But that was three hours ago, and now even I’m starting to get a little frustrated at this.

As our car approaches the hill, the cars ahead of us are trying to climb it but are making slow progress. “Why didn’t we just take your father’s car?” she says. Yeah, really bad thinking on our part. My dad has a perfect truck for this weather that we could have used, but no, we had to take my mom’s black Corolla that has barely any snow traction at all. To my surprise though, it hasn’t slid yet. Halfway up the hill we’re still trucking along and a little bit of my hope is coming back.

“Hey mom—“

“Shh, don’t jinx it,” she says as she cuts me off. I turn back to my window and watch the snow fly down. All around us cars are trying to get over this hill. As I watch out my window I see one car slide down from the hill. I wince as it lightly bumps into the car behind it, who was just getting ready to start going up.

“Did you just see that?” I ask with a little shock in my voice.

“See what?” my mother asks.

“That car. The one that just slid down,” I say.

“Allie, please, please, stop talking. I really need to concentrate and I just need one less thing to worry about than a falling car,” she replies with a firm tone.

“It was a sliding car,” I say under my breath. The snow is starting to get heavier, making it hard to see outside. I turn on my phone, hoping that service has miraculously returned because I was waiting for an important message from my best friend Lyndsey. But as the screen came on, the little picture told me exactly what I knew was going to happen. We’re sorry, but service is not available at this time.

My mom groans. I look up to see what’s wrong and I start to groan too. One of those construction signs with some of the worst news ever, ROAD CLOSED. “Um, mom, what does that mean for us?” I ask in a cautious tone not wanting her to blow up on me again.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore. I am just so done with all of this!” she says, her fingers gripping at the steering wheel harder.
“What now?” I ask as I start to pick at my nails.

“Allie, just be patient we’ll get home, okay?”

We sit there in the car, waiting for the traffic to move, but it doesn’t. Soon we see a couple of police officers approaching. “What do you think they want?” I ask.

“I’m not sure,” she replies. They knock on her car window and she rolls the window down, letting the cold air seep in.

“Hello ma’am. We were informed to tell everyone to tune into 82.1 for information on the road closure,” the bigger of the two officers explains.

“Oh, okay. Thank you,” she says. The officers nod then walk to the next car.

My mother turns to the radio and starts tuning it. At first there’s just static then a recorded message starts playing.

“….all persons driving on highway 15, due to heavy snows the highway will be closed. If you are stuck on the freeway please be patient. We ask that all vehicles turn around back towards the city. Please be courteous and cautious to others. Once again we’re sorry about this inconvenience. This is a message from the Department of Road Safety.”

My mother sighs. “What’s wrong mom? All we have to do is turn around,” I say.

“Allie, you don’t understand. We have to wait until the car behind us turns around until we can go. And that car has to wait for the car behind it, and so on and so forth. If everybody just turned around at once, we’d all crash or get stuck. It’s going to be awhile,” she explains.

“Oh.”

An hour goes past and still nothing is happening. Mom is convinced that we’ll move soon, but she has a worrisome look in her eye. The gas meter has been slowly dropping and though she doesn’t say anything, my mother knows we need to refuel soon.

We start to see a couple of cars move out of their lane and drive off onto the side of the road. “They must have run out of gas,” I say. My mother nods, but doesn’t say anything. I remember a couple years ago when we had this huge ice storm and they broadcasted it all over the news. There were tons of footage of people abandoning their cars and hitchhiking with others. I shiver at the thought of going outside of the car. I did have my winter coat with me, but I had chosen it more for style than protection.

In the other lanes, cars have finally started to turn around. I feel a little bit of hope that maybe, just maybe our car will move too. But when I look back to our lane, everything is at a stand still. It’s starting to get really cold in the car. No window or doors are open, but I think it’s because of the temperature dropping further outside. I shiver. I try to think about warmth and comfort, but ice and snow keep seeping back into my head.

Then as if by magic the car behind us starts to move. It starts turning then straightens back out, then turns again. When it no longer faces us, my mother begins to turn us around. She slowly turns the steering wheel, and turns it back again, trying to squeeze us out of the line. Finally, we now face the other direction. But the cars don’t start to drive forward. “Why aren’t we driving back to the city now?” I ask, feeling impatient.

“Probably because—I don’t know. We’ll just move when we move, we’ve waited this long,” my mom replies.

All this waiting was getting to me. I was so bored I could have screamed. But I didn’t. I could tell my mom was stressed out so much, and I really didn’t want her to scream at me. So I screamed in my head.

Eventually the cars began to inch along the road, and when I mean inch, I’m not exaggerating. Mom kept telling me to “be patient” and “we just don’t want to slide on the ice.” Being patient for more than four hours isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially when it’s cold and there’s nothing to do at all. Every so often the cars would jolt to a stop, wait for a couple minutes, then start to slowly move again.

Then the call of nature kicked in. “Mom, I really need to go. What are we going to do? Should I get out or something?” I asked. My mother gave me a look to end all looks.

“Couldn’t you have said this when we were just sitting in here doing nothing?” she asked, her voice sounding exasperated. I could tell that I wasn’t her favorite person right now.

“I’m sorry. I’m truly honestly sorry, but I didn’t have to go then. Can’t I just get out and come back to the car when I’m done? It’s not like we’re going 90 miles per hour or anything,” I apologized. Although I didn’t say anything, relieving myself wasn’t the only reason I desperately wanted to go outside. My legs kept falling asleep every five minutes and my back ached from sitting so long. I needed to get up and walk around soon.

“Allie, honey, I know you need to go, but what happens if we do miraculously start driving faster and you’ll get left behind, or what if someone loses control and hits you? I could never forgive myself. Just think about something else until—Oh my God!”

Boom. Crash.

My seat jerks. My head hits the dashboard. My mind spins. I hear noises around me. Voices and sirens. I see flashes of bright colored lights, peeking out from the everlasting snow. Everything blurs.

My head wakes up from the dizziness. Except something’s not right. I’m no longer in the car anymore. I look around and see policemen crowding over a smashed car. When I look closer, I notice it’s black and the back says “Corolla.” Then it all comes to me. That’s my car. My car is smashed up. I feel a throbbing pain coming from my forehead. I put my hand on it and feel something sticky, but warm on it. I bring my hand back down and see blood all over it. A police officer walks over and bends over me.

“Do you feel better now? You clunked your head pretty hard on the window. Lucky for you the airbag was on or you could have ended up in a seriously worse condition,” he says in a kind tone.

Then a sudden thought came to me. Where was mom? Why hadn’t I thought about her yet? I turned my head side to side scanning everywhere for her. But all I could see was people. Strangers.

“Where is my mother?”

The police man’s face froze. And for a split second he started to pale. He quickly tried to cover it up, but I could see he didn’t want to tell me something. “Your mom is fine. Just fine don’t worry about her. She’s being well taken care of,” he says with a fake smile.

If I was five, I would have fallen for that trick. “Where is she? I know you’re lying. I’m not a little kid, I can handle things!” I blurt out.

The officer sighs, “Fine. Your mother is in a critical condition. Her side of the car was hit the worst. She apparently has a broken leg and arm and she punctured a lung.”

I gasp. Tears start to fill my eyes. How could my mother, the one who was so frustrated at the snow, who just wanted to curl up by our fireplace at home, be so badly injured like this? The officer tried to say something else to me, but my shock blocked everything.

Then guilt started to set in. If I hadn’t kept complaining and being a brat, would she have paid more attention to the road and less to my mouth? Would she then be able to steer us out of the way from danger? I start to cry endlessly. The tears just pour out of me, like a dam that breaks from the weight of the river. If she dies because of this, will it all be because of me?

All these questions spin around and around in my mind. They start to mix in with the river of tears. My mind begins to swim and the world spins.

Gasp.

I bolt up. And I feel the strangest thing. Warmth. Why would I be warm in the middle of a blizzard on a highway?

I take a second to let my mind wander back to reality. When I focus my eyes, I see a closet door in front of me and a dresser beside it. I see walls painted orange and pink. On the wall on my left side, I see photos of three girls laughing together and one of a family. Where am I?

Then I realize something. This is my room.

My room? I think to myself. How on Earth did I get back here? Then the thought of Mom being injured begins to sink back into my head. I want to cry, but I feel like tears have been sucked out of me. I step onto the floor and I feel dizzy. Then I hear a knock.

“Come in?”

The door opens and in walks my mother. My mom who was supposed to be severely injured. “Ally, you’ve overslept! We’re supposed to be visiting your grandfather this afternoon, and who’s going to make us late? Come on, get up,” she says.

I stare at her for a moment and just as she’s about to say something, I jump out of my bed and give her a hug. Surprised by my sudden affection, she jumps. “What’s gotten into you, Ally?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. But, one question,” I say breaking away from her, “is it going to snow?”