Username: Caladhiel
Contest: Short Story contest
Title: Why? ((Dedicated to a dear friend of mine, 1989-2007. I miss you!))
Word Count:
Prompt: ~“Skin breaks so easily, it makes me wonder if we were meant to hurt.” –wild wolf free17 (fanfiction author)
Story:
“Why?” I keep asking myself that now over and over with my face smashed into a nearly flat pillow. “Why? Why does this only happen to me? Out of all the cars in the world why did it have to be my sister’s ugly beige Buick? I’m sure there were other cars on the street then so why?” I cried to myself my pillow pressed tightly against my face. I’m sure if anyone had walked in the room at that point they would have thought me a mess, and I was. I really was. I was laying on my bed, with the clothes I had worn yesterday still draped over my body; which was now sitting with my knees curled in as far as they could go with my face buried in a pillow. I’m sure thoughts were running though my head back then but all I could manage to do was scream. Scream and cry and sob. That’s all I could manage to do with myself, that and ask myself over and over why.
Why couldn’t it have been another car?
Why couldn’t she have left the house later?
Why couldn’t she taken a different turn?
Why, why, why?
Of course no one answered me. No one could hear me. All they could hear when I found out was my screaming, and all they could see were tears. They didn’t hear my questions they only saw my breakdown. I though I was surely dreaming… but if I were, why wouldn’t I wake up? Why am I stuck in this nightmare? This couldn’t have happened. There is no way that this could have happened to my sister. My arrogant, caring, annoying sister... they must have been wrong. It just doesn’t seem like reality. But it was.
I hugged my pillow tighter, my stomach was starting to burn from crying so much and I’m sure my makeup didn’t look so great either. I could feel my whole body shaking now, from crying, from a sleepless night… from guilt.
“I’m sorry Amber, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry!” I screamed my voice feeling as though it was about ready to crack. My mind was stuck on what I had seen. My sister’s beautiful long brown hair dripping with crimson, her eyes closed. Her lips tinted with a soft purple color and people dressed in white rushing around yelling orders to one another. I was sorry, that I wasn’t there instead of her. I was sorry that I was the reason she had gone out in the first place. I was sorry that I would never see her again. I was sorry that I had to live without her.
Looking back on that moment now everything is blurry but I remember her face and skin bruised and bleeding. Damaged from an accident that wasn’t her fault. Skin breaks so easily, it makes me wonder if we were meant to hurt.
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