Reminders of Him

happiest.
We were also high, so our decisions were slightly
more impaired that night, but whatever the reason, you
asked me to drive. And for whatever reason, I didn’t tell
you I shouldn’t.
I got in that car, knowing I had tripped on the gravel
as I reached for the door. I still got behind the wheel,
even though I had to blink really hard to make sure the
car was in drive and not in reverse. And I still chose to
drive us away from the lake, even though I was too drunk
to remember how to turn down the volume. Coldplay was
blasting so loud over the radio it was making my ears
hurt.
We didn’t even get very far before it happened. You
knew the roads better than I did. They were gravel, and I
was going too fast, and I didn’t know the turn was so
sharp.
You said, “Slow down,” but you said it kind of loud,
and it startled me, so I slammed on the brakes, but I know
now that slamming on brakes on a gravel-top road can
make you lose complete control of the car, especially
when you’re drunk. I was turning the wheel to the right,
but the car kept going to the left, like it was slipping on
ice.
A lot of people are lucky after a wreck because they
don’t remember the details. They have recollections of

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things that happened before the wreck, and after the
wreck, but over time, every single second of that night
has come back to me, whether I wanted it to or not.
The top was down on your convertible, and all I can
remember when I felt the car hit the ditch and begin to tilt
was that we needed to protect our faces, because I was
worried the glass from the windshield might cut us.
That was my biggest fear in that moment. A little bit
of glass. I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes. I didn’t
even see your life flash before my eyes. All I worried
about in that moment was what would happen to the
windshield.
Because surely no one dies when they’re at their
happiest.
I felt my whole world tilt, and then I felt gravel
against my cheek.
The radio was still blasting Coldplay.
The engine was still running.
My breath had caught in my throat and I couldn’t
even scream, but I didn’t think I needed to. I just kept
thinking about your car and how mad you probably were.
I remember whispering, “I’m so sorry,” like your biggest
concern would be that we would have to call a tow truck.
Everything happened so fast, but I was calm in that
moment. I thought you were, too. I was waiting for you
to ask me if I was okay, but we were upside down in a
convertible, and everything I’d had to drink that night
was flipping over in my stomach, and I felt the weight of
gravity like I had never felt it before. I thought I was
going to puke and needed to right myself up, so I
struggled to find my seat belt, and when I finally clicked
it, I remember falling. It was only a couple of inches, but
it was unexpected and I let out a yelp.
You still didn’t ask me if I was okay.
It was dark, and I realized we might be trapped, so I
reached over and touched your arm to follow you out. I

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knew you’d find a way out. I relied on you for
everything, and your presence was the only reason I was
still calm. I wasn’t even worried about your car anymore
because I knew you’d be more worried about me than
your car.
And it’s not like I was speeding too much, or driving
too recklessly. I was only a little bit drunk and a little bit
high, but so very stupid to believe even a little bit wasn’t
too much.
We only flipped over because we hit a deep ditch,
and since the top wasn’t even up, I thought surely it
would be minimal damage. Maybe a week or two in the
shop, and then the car I loved so much, the car that felt
like home, would be fine. Like you. Like me.
“Scotty.” I shook your arm when I said your name
that time. I wanted you to know I was okay. I thought
maybe you were in shock, and that’s why you were so
quiet.
When you didn’t move, and I realized your arm was
just dangling against the road that had somehow become
our ceiling, my first thought was that you might have
passed out. But when I pulled my hand back to figure out
a way to right myself up, it was covered in blood.
Blood that was supposed to be running through your
veins.
I couldn’t grasp that. I couldn’t fathom that a silly
wreck on the side of a county road that landed us in a
ditch could actually hurt us. But that was your blood.
I immediately scooted closer to you, and because you
were upside down and still in your seat belt, I couldn’t
pull you to me. I tried, but you wouldn’t budge. I turned
your face to mine, but you looked like you were sleeping.
Your lips were slightly parted and your eyes were closed,
and you looked so much like you looked all the times I
spent the night with you and woke up to find you asleep
next to me.

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I tried pulling you, but you still wouldn’t budge
because the car was on top of part of you. Your shoulder
and your arm were trapped, and I couldn’t pull you out or
get to your seat belt and even though it was dark, I
realized moonlight reflects off of blood the same way it
reflects off the ocean.
Your blood was everywhere. The entire car being
upside down made everything even more confusing.
Where were your pockets? Where was your phone? I
needed a phone, so I scrambled and felt around with my
hands, looking for a phone for what felt like an eternity,
but all I could find were rocks and glass.
The whole time, I was muttering your name through
chattering teeth. “Scotty. Scotty, Scotty, Scotty.” It was a
prayer, but I didn’t know how to pray. No one had ever
taught me. I just remember the prayer you had given over
family dinner at your parents’ house, and the prayers I
used to hear my foster mother, Mona, pray. But all I’d
ever heard people do was bless food, and I just wanted
you to wake up, so I said your name over and over and
hoped God would hear me, even though I wasn’t sure if I
was getting his attention.
It certainly felt like no one was paying us attention
that night.
What I experienced in those moments was
indescribable. You think you know how you’ll react in a
terrifying situation, but that’s the thing. You can’t think in
a terrifying situation. There’s probably a reason for how
disconnected we become to our own thoughts in
moments of sheer horror. But that’s exactly how I felt.
Disconnected. Parts of me were moving without my brain
even knowing what was happening. My hands were
searching around for things I wasn’t even sure I was
looking for.
I was growing hysterical, because with each passing
second, I became more aware of how different my life

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would be going forward. How that one second had
altered whatever course we were on, and things would
never be the same, and all the parts of me that had
become disconnected in that wreck would never fully
reconnect.
I crawled out of the car through the space between
the ground and my door, and once I was outside and
standing right-side-up, I puked.
The headlights were shining on a row of trees, but
none of that light was helping us, and then I ran around to
the passenger side of the car to free you, but I couldn’t.
There was your arm, sticking out from under the car. The
moonlight glimmering in your blood. I grabbed your
hand and squeezed it, but it was cold. I was still
muttering your name. “Scotty, Scotty, Scotty, no, no, no.”
I went around to the windshield and tried kicking it to
break it, but even though it was already cracked, I
couldn’t break it enough to fit through it, or pull you out.
I knelt down and pressed my face to the glass and I
saw what I had done to you then. It was a stark
realization that no matter how much you love someone,
you can still do despicable things to them.
It was like a wave of the most intense pain you could
ever imagine rolled right over me. My body rolled with
it. It started at my head and I curled in on myself, all the
way to my toes. I groaned, and I sobbed, and when I went
back around the car to touch your hand again, there was
nothing. No pulse in your wrist. No heartbeat in your
palm. No warmth in your fingertips.
I screamed. I screamed so much, I stopped being able
to make sounds.
And then I panicked. It’s the only way to describe
what happened to me.
I couldn’t find either of our phones, so I started
running toward the highway. The further I got, the more
confused I grew. I couldn’t imagine that what happened

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was real, or that what was happening was real. I was
running down a highway with one shoe. I could see
myself, like I was ahead of me, running toward me, like I
was in a nightmare, not making any progress.
It wasn’t the memories of the wreck that took time to
come back to me. It was that moment. The part of the
night that was drowned out by the adrenaline rush and
hysteria that bowled through me. I started making noises
I didn’t know I could make.
I couldn’t breathe because you were dead, and how
was I supposed to breathe when you had no air? It was
the worst realization I ever had, and I fell to my knees
and screamed into the darkness.
I don’t know how long I was on the side of the road.
Cars were passing me, and I still had your blood on my
hands, and I was scared and angry and couldn’t stop
seeing your mother’s face. I had killed you and everyone
was going to miss you, and you wouldn’t be around to
make anyone feel appreciated or important anymore, and
it was my fault, and I just wanted to die.
I didn’t care about anything else.