Thirteen

We pulled into a CVS, and Zach went in. It was a while before he came out. Caleb and I sat in his car while Mike and Maggie were in and out of sleep behind us. Caleb took out his computer and he and I watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother. I watched, but then curled up in the passenger seat and attempted a very uncomfortable sleep.

I started battling my fear of getting sick again. You see, I had been fighting it for days already. And one by one, we were all going down. My whole family had gotten it. Mike had beaten it, Stephen was feeling better, and Zach was under.

Caleb kept saying he was feeling fine. Maggie was fine, and Mark was still on antibiotics for his wisdom teeth which had just been taken out. He was fine. But me... I was fearful.

Understand that this sickness was not just the mouth if you see where I'm getting at. That's all I want to explain.

I started saying to Caleb that if I were going down next, I'd get sick with all my might and take one for the team. I was braced. I was ready. The trip was already absolutely terrible. If it was going to get worse, we'd just agree right then we were going to endure it as champions.

Zach came out of CVS looking terrible, and Stephen took the wheel so Zach could try to sleep. Although he protested that as soon as he let his guard down, he'd almost get sick.

Slip out of consciousness, relax... sick. Fighting it was a wakeful war.

We all banded together and got back on the road. It was about 8am, and we had quite a while to go yet.

Caleb drove a while longer before we were going to switch to the backseat. We stopped at a gas station and everyone got out for the bathroom. We'd each look at each other as we came out, expecting an update on who was sick.

I wasn't feeling good. I just wanted to get to school. I didn't care if I got sick when I could have a bed and civilization. It's amazing the perspective you attain when you experience such misery.

Caleb and I got in the backseat, and piled up a bunch of pillows between us. We had a blanket, and we started to close our eyes as Mike took the wheel.

We stopped at another gas station a little while later, and a few people got food. I didn't want to risk it. I announced as we were pulling out of the gas station that I felt a little nauseous. I took off my seat belt, because it was pressing on my frustrated stomach, and lay on the pillows between Caleb and I.

As I lay there, my head close to Caleb's hand, I let myself wonder sleepily how it would feel if he put his hand on my head, or touched my hand on the pillow by his knee. I felt so close to him after already spending about 14 hours talking nonstop. I felt like I knew him. I felt like he knew me. I felt safe, and comfortable. I liked the whisper-soft haze of falling asleep and quietly waking up long enough to remember I was next to him, and we were still driving, and I was not sick.

My eyes were closed. Caleb's head leaning against the window. Mike and Maggie were in the front. It was afternoon, and we were only a few hours away from school.

A moment of calm. I slowly faded into the hush of the pillows, and quiet exhaustion.

And then, we hit.

The next instant, the only instant I remember at all...

Caleb had me. I clung to him so tightly I hardly moved. We hit again. And again, this time harder. Caleb clutched me, and I whispered into Caleb's shirt "Oh my gosh... oh my gosh..."

There was no sound. My eyes were closed. It was slow. I waited. Not sure if we would stop. Maybe we wouldn't.

Like eyes before they blink, content about what blackout was about to happen...

Before I knew what happened, I was outside, walking far away, down on the shoulder. No one followed me, and I didn't know where I was going. I ran back and grabbed my phone out of the back seat as Zach yelled at me to get away from the car leaking fluid.

I grabbed my phone anyway, and walked away again. I saw other people on their phones, and I called my parents. That's what I was supposed to do, right? I told them we were in a car accident. They asked me questions, panicked, but I didn't know what happened. I was sleeping, right? My head hurt, and I wasn't making sense. I hung up with dad after telling him I was ok, and I'd call him back.

I was so confused. What happened? Why did my knee hurt? Why were my jeans ripped, and why was my knee bleeding? Why was my wrist sore, and where was everyone else?

I realized I'd wandered off, and everyone was around the red car, smashed at the side of the road. Zach's car was on the other side of I-70, and everyone was gathered around.

Zach came over and hugged me... other people did too...

Zach was on the phone, and Caleb was on the phone. Traffic stopped, and Mark helped me sit on on the side rail. It hurt to bend my knee. We all asked each other if we were ok.  Zach was off the phone and came over to me, and ripped my jeans more around the knee to tend to my bloody knee. Caleb came over and touched my knee, and walked back over as police and more people stopped asking if we needed help.

Maggie came over crying, and then it hit me. I hadn't had my seatbelt on.

We were going 77 mph on a highway. We hit the rail several times. And I didn't have my seatbelt on.

I started bawling. No one was really listening in the chaos. I told Mark I didn't have my seatbelt on. If Caleb didn't shield me like he did... oh my gosh... oh my gosh...

We walked over to the police and we all said no one was hurt enough to need an ambulance. Stephen put a blue blanket over me, and we all rode to a Burger King in the police car with Zach Mark and Stephen behind us, before Trina (my roommate) came to pick us up and take us to Greenville.