After the paramedics arrived, everything was a blur. The next time I remembered anything was when I woke up two days later in a hospital room. I can still smell the clean, alcohol-like antiseptic scent, the bright white walls that reflected the bluish daylight light bulbs that were on all day and all night.
Mom and Dad visited me, and so did Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They all asked me about Jeremy and his stupid friend David, but I couldn't bring myself to visit them. I thought I hated Jeremy, but after this… well, I didn't know anymore.
That day I was released from the hospital and I went back to school. It was testing time, so Mom didn't want me to miss any school. Stupid April. We always did standardized testing in April, and I felt it was a very stupid way to ruin such a pretty month so close to summer vacation.
"Hey Sarah," my friend Ashlyn Conley greeted. "What happened? You disappeared for three days!"
"I don't really want to talk about it," I said. I tried to walk past her and avoid any attention. I knew the rumors had probably run wild while I was gone and I wanted none of it.
"Well, at least it's Friday," she said, letting me pass. Maybe she sensed I needed some space.
Classes passed like a blur. I couldn't even tell what I was eating at lunch. Over the course of the day, more people asked me what happened, but I didn't tell them. Most fourth graders didn't get into accidents and get their brothers extremely hurt.
Math class. Last class of the day. I sat down at my desk, put my head down, and slept. Halfway through the period, Mr. Brady came over and hit his metal ruler on my desk.
"Miss Wells, wake up. You know what I think of sleeping in class," he said, putting a detention slip on my desk.
"Whatever," I muttered, glancing at the paper then shoving it into the darkest corner of my backpack. My detention was right after school, but I didn't care. I wasn't going to tell my parents. I was going straight home with or without a detention.
I walked home alone since Mom was all teary and crazy over the accident, and Dad was working, or watching baseball reruns, or attempting to do both.
I had a short afternoon snack and then I jumped onto my bed, burrowing my head into my pillow. Everything still hurt, even though they said I was mostly healed. Not only my body hurt, but my being hurt, my heart hurt. On top of all that, I had my skipped detention to worry about.
I felt so screwed up inside. I'd lived my whole life thinking that I hated my brother and his stupid friend, but now that this happened, I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know whether to be dejected or elated, or neither.
Of course, I had homework to catch up on, but I didn't do any of it. I wasn't in the mood. I felt like I'd never been in the mood. My brother nearly died, and I couldn't even bring myself to visit him. Yeah, I loved him so much. Especially his stupid friend. I didn't even want to think about David, his stupid, hotheaded personality, the way he said crazy things way too seriously sometimes.
I felt like a bag of hurt. And regret. All of it.
I took out my phone and started just playing a game. A driving game. A realistic driving game where you could do just about whatever you wanted with whichever car you wanted. I drove a bright yellow mustang into a line of crashed cars, causing the pile up to burst into flames. One of those cars was a baby blue minivan.
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