“Emma…”
The voices swirled around me, calling to me.
“Emma…”
Were they angels? I didn’t know.
“Come back to us, Emma…”
More voices now, more familiar. They hung around me like a curtain.
Where was I? I didn’t remember anything about the previous night, except…
Except…
Oh my God.
More voices, unfamiliar this time. I caught snippets of the conversation.
“Your daughter… terrible accident…”
The party. I wasn’t even supposed to be there. Mom and I had a big fight about it, too… But Ashton was going to be there…
“…Swerved off the road…”
He told me he hadn’t been drinking all that much, that he could drive home, no problem.
“…a tree around a corner…”
I believed him.
I could hear my mother now, crying. I hated to hear my mother cry. And now I was the cause of it.
“Emma… my baby…”
I could see her now. Sitting there with my dad, hugging each other. I wanted to tell her that I was going to be all right, that I wasn’t going to die.
Was I?
And then I saw myself. I saw my forehead wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage. My arms, badly burned, were placed carefully by my sides. I was hooked up to machines, to help me breathe, to help me live.
Maybe I was going to die.
And then a sudden, sharp, continuous beep confirmed my thought.
“Emma!!”
A new voice said my name with such pain, raspily, like it hurt to get the word out.
Ashton.
He was sitting in the chair next to my bed. I could tell he’d been crying. When he cried out my name he rushed to my side, gently taking my hand.
My parents are at my side, now, too. Dad knelt by my side and looked up at me, saying something.
Could he see me?
No.
He was praying.
“Emma…” Who were these voices? “Come…”
I looked around. I couldn’t die, not then! I was only sixteen. I wanted to go to college, to become a lawyer, to raise a family.
I wanted to live.
I closed my eyes and drifted away from the new voices and back to my family. Opening my eyes slowly, I saw my parents on one side, their eyes filled with the pain of almost losing their only daughter, and Ashton on the other, his own eyes filled with remorse.
“Emma!” Mom’s relief-filled voice washed over me like a warm blanket sheltering me from the cold pain.
“Mom…” I croaked hoarsely. “I’m sorry…”
Mom smiled, then burst into tears. “It doesn’t matter now, Emma. You’re alive, and I forgive you. Rest now, and we’ll talk in the morning.”
I smiled and closed my eyes, drifting back into sleep. But I heard one last thing before sleep and exhaustion overtook me.
“She’s going to be all right.”
THE END