The familiar rattle of my outdated engine shook my body as I turned the key. After a tedious Monday of school, I tilted my head back, assured by the fact I had the day off work. All my worries fell behind me as I accelerated away from the high school parking lot. Automatically, I headed towards my girlfriend’s house. I pondered whether to avoid the notoriously dangerous intersection that had claimed countless cars. Taking the short way into town often bothered me. It seemed every time was a near accident. Almost as soon as the thought entered my head, it exited. Ever in a hurry, I set out for the deathtrap of a junction.

I shivered as my car slowed to the stop sign while the four lanes of traffic scuttled along in front of me. After some waiting, the westbound lanes trickled to nothing. The steady stream of eastbound traffic persisted until a few turning cars stopped the caravan. By this time, I felt the nervousness of rush hour traffic as a short line formed behind me. With a final look to my left and right, I attempted my left turn. Midway through my turn, however, I realized my view had been blocked. A single juggernaut of a truck persisted its unstoppable motion towards me. It was too late to break. The split second lasted for a seemingly infinite amount of time. An eerie screeching of wheels echoed in and out of my ears before a deafening smash.

The smell of smoke sharply pierced my nose. As I gazed up, the cabin of my car hardly resembled a shell of its former self. No sooner had I realized what happened that I counted my limbs to make sure I was one piece. A few good Samaritans pounced out of their cars to help. “Are you okay?” one shouted to me.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I responded matter-of-factly. Shame rushed through my body as I realized what I’d caused.

“Don’t move,” a bystander ordered me.

I reached for my door handle only to find the door had been smashed beyond any use. In a fit of desperation, I climbed over the center console to reach the untouched passenger side.

As I opened the door, the bystander shouted, “What are you doing? Stay down, kid!”

In a confused daze, I stumbled over to the truck that struck me. The driver was a grey-haired man, no younger than my father. He was talking on the cell phone, facing away from me. Then, I saw nothing but red.

My shaking hands scrambled for my eyes to wipe away the blood. Sirens screamed in the distance as I sprawled out on the ground like an injured horse. A steady stream of dark red poured down my face onto my clothing. My once baby blue varsity jacket was stained blood red. The paramedics arrived and strapped me onto a rock-hard stretcher. My mind raced with a trillion thoughts. ‘Had I hurt the man?’ prevailed above all the others.

“What hospital do you want to go to?” the paramedics asked.

“I don’t want to go to any hospital,” I replied.

Regardless, I was shipped off. Adrenaline rushed through my veins as the paramedics strapped down my head. Every muscle of my body shook.

“You lost a lot of blood, bud,” a greyed paramedic said. “We need to run an IV,”

A sting brought feeling back to my body as he injected a cooled needle into my inner elbow. I cringed when I felt a pop on my arm. “I just ruptured your vein. We have to try again on the other one,” he confessed.

Another paramedic, an older lady, chimed in, “I bet this isn’t how you planned to spend your day! At least you’ll have a small vacation, right?” adding salt to my wounds.

My father waited for me at the hospital, smiling when he saw me. For two hours, doctors hauled me in and out of a dozen rooms. The diamond pattern on the hospital ceiling burned into my brain. Once in the room, another patient listed off a dozen imaginary health issues while my head was strapped down, forcing me to listen. A state patrol officer silenced the room when she entered. She asked a variety of self-incriminating questions that I happily responded to. “Did you have the right away?” she asked.

“Probably not, it was my fault,” I answered.

To my relief, she told me the man who hit me only had a sore neck and left the hospital already. The news made the next hour of stitches bearable. As the doctor picked glass out of my face, I, perhaps for the first time, realized the degree of my mistake. I had lost my car, earned a court date, and marginally hurt another person. Had I simply taken an extra five minutes and gone the long way around, none of this would have happened. I would have been asleep on my girlfriend’s couch instead of the stained hospital bed. After four hours, the hospital sent me home with seven sutures, a broken nose, concussion, and crushed pride.