The Rain

Nolan Pitlick
Advanced Writing

I’d never felt pain so severe, a pain that didn’t physically hurt. It seemed the words entered my body and wrapped themselves around my soul squeezing it tight. Every time the doctor spoke the words squeezed tighter. I wanted so badly to run, to escape the grip, but what use was it now? There would be nowhere to hide as the words were now embedded in me as a horrible memory; a memory that I would relive so many times over.
Up to that point I had shown no emotion. I’m not sure as to why but I felt that if I showed emotion then it had won. What had won? This wasn’t a sporting event, it was a life, and nothing I did was going to change the situation.
Then it hit me. I could no longer take the grip of the words, the pain was too much, and as the tears streamed down my face I felt the grip loosen slightly. It was at that moment that I realized it was ok to show emotion and by showing the pain I felt better. I was winning now. Though I knew I couldn’t cry forever I knew that right then it was ok.
Time went by in that small white room and though the words never fully let go it felt as if they were only loosely bound. However, this feeling didn’t last long. I soon found myself back at that intersection. The intersection that forever changed my life.
The glare from the wet pavement made it difficult to see. Combine that with the fact that it had started to rain again and I had lost one of my senses, the most important sense while driving.
“Hey!”
This voice had jolted me from my memory, one that I didn’t care to relive again anyways.
“I need to ask you a few questions.” The voice was cold and uninviting. I didn’t want to look up as I knew what I was going to see. It was a familiar sight, one that I had seen so many times that night.
I don’t remember any of his facial features, just as I didn’t remember any of the facial features of those men and women dressed in blue.
I told this faceless figure the same thing I told all the others who had inundated me with questions throughout the night.
“I don’t remember much.” As I said this line I knew it to be a lie. I could relive every moment of that night as if it were happening all over again.
“I know my light was green though, it had to be.”
I don’t remember the exact response from the man, only that he informed me that the driver of the pickup truck was very intoxicated and that it was in no way my fault. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Once again the words took hold of my soul and with renewed power crushed me squeezing tighter than ever before. The stranglehold on my soul sent me once again back to the events of earlier that night. I was back behind the wheel, looking over at the beautiful girl to my right; hurdling towards the intersection at sixty miles per hour.
“Are you still with me Nolan?” The voice of the man shattered the final wonderful memory I had of her.
I just looked up at him saying nothing, nothing with words that is, the pain in my eyes told all the story he needed. And with that he handed me his card, said he was sorry and headed out of the door.
That’s when I snapped. I finally came to truly realize that she was gone. I knew at that moment that my life would never be the same. I sat motionless in the room, staring at the officer’s card. The words blurred together creating a haze of black and white.
Once again I found myself back in the driver’s seat. I glanced up at the green light and entered the intersection. The cab of the car quickly filled with a magnificent white light. I looked to my right only to see a once beautiful face now washed out by the brights of a truck piloted by a drunk driver who had no regard for life he was about to take. This sight soon vanished as my head was filled with a noise that is indescribable; to this day I’m not sure if it was the metal crashing and twisting or the screams of the girl in the car.
I don’t remember if I screamed, I don’t know if I even had time. I remember is waking up, my head resting on the pavement, rain soaking my body. As I rolled to get to my feet my eyes caught a stream of rain water running down the gutter. It didn’t take long to realize that it wasn’t rain water, but blood. As the blood mixed with rain water and swirled out of sight into the drain I was yet again purged from my memory and back into that white room.
I sat in the room alone; the only sound coming from the hum of the fluorescent lights above.