“Hadley.”

Nothing. Absolute silence.

“Hadley!” I yell louder.

More silence.

My eyelids feel heavy. I know I only have a few more seconds before sleep takes over. I fight it, fearing that if I close my eyes now, I won’t be able to open them again. My mom’s voice is the strength I need to keep my eyes open and keep fighting.

“I’ll always love you my sweet beautiful girl. I-I—”

“Don’t talk, Mom. Save your strength. I know you love me. I love you so much. I’m so—”

“You have nothing to be sorry for . . . Be the person that I raised . . . I’m so proud of the woman . . . that you’re becoming.”

She starts coughing, the kind of coughing that sounds like she’s choking. The sound alone makes my heart stop. It’s the red dots flying on the dashboard that have me screaming in terror. Blood. My mom is coughing up blood and the only thing I can do is sit here and watch her suffer.

When she finally stops coughing, she speaks again. I know that this is the last time I will ever hear her voice. With each word, I can tell how much pain she’s in and how much effort she expends to say words that most people take for granted. Nobody ever realizes how much they take for granted until it’s too late. Even words.

“Hadley will . . . need . . . you. Be strong for her. Tell Logan . . . how much I love him. Never forget . . . how much I love . . . you three.”

“Mom!” I cry.

“Shh you’ll . . . be . . . fine without . . . me sweetie.” She whispers so quietly I barely can hear her.

“Mom, don’t. I’m so sorry!”

I start screaming again. I scream for her to say more, but she never does. I stare at her unmoving body. I don’t know how much time passes until I finally break. My mom is gone and it’s all my fault.

“I blamed myself the instant that my mom died. I watched her die. Slowly and painfully and there wasn’t anything I could do. I silently promised that I would take care of Hadley. I failed. I failed all of them.”

“You used past tense. You usually use present tense. Do you not blame yourself anymore?” Liv asks.

I’m too shocked to speak. I did use past tense. I meant what I said. I blamed myself. I don’t know if I still do or not. It’s hard to accept change when I’ve believed for the past six years that I was responsible for the crash. I always thought I was too weak to save them. If only I was stronger. If only I was able to reach my phone sooner.

“I felt so weak. I still do sometimes. I kept telling myself to stay awake, but I couldn’t even do that. Every time before my eyes closed, I didn’t know if they would open again. I was glad. I didn’t want to be in a world where they didn’t exist. Then I would think of Logan and I would feel so guilty. Guilty that I wasn’t strong enough, guilty that I was giving up. The list was never-ending.”

Liv waits for me to get everything out. My heart hammers so hard that I’m sure it’s going to beat out of my chest. I have to finish reliving that night. I don’t know why or how, but for some reason, I feel like I will be better once it is all over. With each word I say, I feel lighter.

“I was losing hope. I knew it had been hours since the accident and still nobody came. I kept thinking that the person that hit us was just getting help. I knew she wasn’t. I hoped that she was in worse pain than I was. The pain I felt from the accident was nothing compared to listening to my mom die and knowing that my dad had been dead the moment his head hit the window. I couldn’t see him to be sure, but I never heard anything from him the entire time I was trapped.”

I drink the ice water in front of me. My throat tightens again. Either from talking too much without pause or because of the horrible story that is my life.

“The only small sliver of hope I had was that one of the passing cars would see our car or hear my screams. I had to have hope because of Hadley. I could see her breathing. Even though it looked like each breath was causing her pain, it still gave me hope. Whenever I was lucid enough, I would call out her name. She never responded. I would watch her breathing and match my breaths with hers. If she was going to die, I wanted to die with her.”

Just remembering feeling so lost, so alone, sends me back into the car.

Something flashing catches my attention right before sleep takes over again. I blink the fuzziness away and use my broken left hand to wipe blood from my eyes. I don’t need to feel the cut on my head to know I’m in bad shape. I’m losing a lot of blood. I see another flash and hope blossoms again in my chest. Help is here.

Finally.

I start to close my eyes when another flash catches my attention. That small feeling of hope vanishes as quickly as it came. Nobody is here. Nobody is going to save us. It’s my phone.

Phone!

I try to move towards it, but my feet aren’t responding. I can’t even feel them. I haven’t been able to feel them since the car hit us. I haven’t even thought of them because I didn’t feel anything.

Panicking all over again, I force myself to concentrate on moving my feet. I have to be able to move. If I can get out of here, I have to be able to walk to the road. I see Hadley stir right before she lets out a whimper that will forever haunt my soul.

Hadley needs me.

I give up on moving my feet. They’re not listening to me and it’s wasting my time. Time is not on my side right now. I search everywhere around me, trying to think of a way to get out of my seatbelt.

The flash goes off again, alerting me to a new text. It’s exactly what I needed. That little flash lit up my surroundings, allowing me to see my swim bag. I know I have nail clippers in there. I always keep one in there for water polo. I’m thankful that I never get around to taking it out when polo season ended and swimming started.

Biting my lip to keep from screaming, I reach over with my left hand to grab it. Pain shoots through both arms and I bite down harder. Blood fills my mouth from biting too hard and I let out another scream.

I wrench the bag onto my lap. Every cell in my body tells me to close my eyes, the pain will go away if I close them. I can’t. I need to cut my way out of here.

With agonizing slowness, I cut my seatbelt with my nail clippers. I’m forced to use my right hand since my left can’t grip the clippers. My shoulder howls at me to stop. To take a break. Tears gush down my face while I whimper in pain.

A lifetime goes by before I’m almost free. I turn my head towards Hadley again. Her slow breathing keeps pushing me when everything in me is insisting that I give up. I won’t give up on her. She needs me.

My blood blinds me as it spills into my eyes and down my face. I blink the blood away, and focus on my seatbelt. I exhale when I realize I’m done. Using my left hand, I tear the last few threads apart.

I’m free.

Moving quickly to my sister, I check her pulse. I need to make sure I’m not crazy and I wasn’t imagining her breathing this entire time.

Thump . . . Thump . . . Thump.

It’s there. Faint. But there. I’ll settle for faint over nothing.

“Hadley, open your eyes. Please. Open your eyes for me. We’re gonna be okay,” I plead with my unconscious sister.

I search for my phone on the ground. The rain has stopped and it’s gotten lighter outside so I can make out shapes on the floorboards.