It was a normal school day, but suddenly, that was all about to change. Directly after school, my mom had to go to work and work the night shift. She was running late and was rushing around like a madwoman. She said aloud, “Do I have everything I need?” she checked around rapidly, and thought she had everything. She dashed out the door and got into her car. At that time, I went out onto the porch to do my homework. I saw her speeding down the street, but then suddenly stop. Her car quickly backed up in front of the house.

Still in her car, she shouted to me, “Ashlynn, can you run upstairs and get me my work keys. They’re on my dresser.” Without saying anything, I followed her requests and dashed up the stairs and into my mom’s room. I scanned her dresser for her keys, trying to look past all the junk piled up.

Finally I found them underneath one of her shirts. I rapidly ran back down the stairs and out the front door. I immediately handed my mom her keys. At the exact moment I handed her the keys, my little brother shut and locked the front door. I quickly stomped up the steps and angrily yelled for him to open the door, but he refused.

Without even thinking, I banged on the window to the front door. Instantly, the window shattered into a million pieces like a rain cloud suddenly bursting. Seeing that, my brother momentarily opened the door. I looked down to see if I was injured or not and the only thing I saw were all the veins and muscles in my wrist, exposed. There was a gap in my wrist, which was cut about an inch deep by an inch wide and about an inch long. I didn’t even feel anything because it was such a clean cut. All I could do was scream. Naturally I broke down into tears. I ran into the kitchen just staring at my wrist, screaming, and crying. For some reason, I began to run my wrist under cold water from the kitchen sink. The water turned red like cherry Kool-Aid. My mom got out of her car just saying, “What’s wrong? What happened? Ashlynn!” over and over again. She ran over to me at the sink. All it took was one look at my wrist before she exclaimed, “Oh my God!” and turned off the water. She grabbed a handful of paper towels and squeezed my wrist with all of her strength. We got into the car and buckled our seatbelts with her holding onto my wrist the entire time.

We were about half way to the hospital when I noticed my hand was a weird color that looked like purple, blue, and black all mixed together. I shouted to my mom, “My hand is PURPLE!!!”

She proclaimed, “It’s okay. You don’t want any blood going to your hand.” We finally arrived at the hospital. What was only a three or four minute drive, seemed like an entire lifetime. It was time for my mom to park the car. She nervously said to me, “Ashlynn, I’m going to let go of your wrist. As soon as I let go, you need to grab your wrist with all of the strength you have in your body.”

“I can’t do it mom. I can’t,” I said to her.

“You’re gonna have to,” she demanded to me. She let go of my wrist and I immediately grabbed it with all my might. She quickly parked the car and grabbed my wrist again. We ran into the hospital. Thank God there wasn’t anybody in the emergency room. If there were, we would’ve had to wait our turn. Right away a doctor came and put me into a bed. He told me I had to relax and stop crying. I did as he said. I tried my best to stop crying, but the pain of the Novocain needle was just unbearable. I screamed the loudest I’ve ever screamed in my whole entire life. It was only seconds before the doctor was getting the needle and thread to stitch me up.

“Okay Ashlynn. I want you to look away while I do this, because I don’t want you to start crying again,” the doctor said. I looked over to my mom who was standing to my left right by my side trying to comfort me. All it took was about two minutes before he was finished. “The glass was half a centimeter away from cutting your main artery. If you cut your main artery, you would’ve bled to death. It’s a good thing your mom held on to your wrist the way she did. You didn’t lose much blood. On the bad side, you did cut your tendon. Your tendon is what makes you move your hand. You’re going to have to wear a splint for a little while, so that the tendon can heal itself.“ He gave me the splint. It was black and blue and it went almost to my elbow. The doctor also gave me some pain medication. He said that the Novocain would wear off in a couple of hours. We left the hospital thankful that the glass didn’t move over a half a centimeter, and I didn’t die. My little brother still locks me out of the house.