Head Over Heels

“Hold on,” Patrick says with a grin, revving the engine on his dad’s silver ’09 Jetta. “Aren’t boys supposed to grow out of their reckless stage after high school?” I ask, fully recognizing the glint in his eyes. “We’re juniors in college now.” He ignores me, and as the car shudders to life, I feel the familiar rolls of panic and nausea swarm in my stomach as I clench the door handle beside me. Closing my eyes, I force myself to breathe through my nose as the car shoots down the narrow back road and my mind blindly flies down its own black streets of terror. Suddenly, I feel the car jerk to the left and can almost hear the squeal of tires as I’m thrown into the memory I’ve yet to come to terms with.


         As my head slammed backwards, I finally relinquished my grip on the wheel, admitting I was no longer in control. I was spinning too fast for my mind to catch up, and I closed my eyes just as I felt another vicious jolt and began whirling back in the opposite direction. A fierce lash across my face stunned me and I felt the strange sense of weightlessness as my heart lodged in my throat. I was still moving at approximately seventy-five miles an hour across a busy interstate and even without opening my eyes I knew with a sickening dread that I was upside down. I heard an explosion to my immediate left and then my car was blasted sideways as the crunch of gravel and squeal of distant tires resonated in my ears. The car finally slowed and then with one last, sickening lurch, I felt it roll again. In my head, I was silently repeating, “You’re okay, you’re okay,” but the disturbing smell of burnt rubber and smoke made me wonder if that was true. I opened my eyes, realizing I could still be in danger, unable to see out of any of the shattered windows through the smoke. As the new panic of being hit by another car swamped me, I began frantically trying to escape. My seat belt, which had probably saved my life, had now become my worst enemy as I struggled with the flattened button. I had as much blood in my head as I did on my fingers before I finally realized my entire body weight was hanging on the strap, preventing it from releasing me.

         Forcing myself to take calming breaths, I reached below me and braced an arm on the roof of my car, leveraging myself up until—with a few sharp tugs—I fell onto the shattered windshield. I looked in horror at the disfigured car door, bent in at an awkward angle, and it dawned on me that the only way out was to crawl through the crushed driver’s window. The faint voices I heard propelled me through the shards of glass and gravel as they embedded themselves in the sensitive skin on my palms and knees. Coming to a standing position on the bank my car had careened over, I avoided looking back at my white Nissan, a present from my parents, and instead focused on the small man sprinting towards me. “There’s a girl!” he was shouting, “She’s alive!” I noticed other people on the side of the road, all coming towards us as the stranger put his hands on my shoulders and asked if there was anyone else in the car. I shook my head, unable to form any words, and the man put an arm around me, shielding me from the wind. I pressed my face into the side of his jacket, replacing the smell of scorched tires and gasoline with clean fabric, and felt my knees give out.

         
At the sound of my name, I open my eyes to see worried blue eyes peering into my own. Patrick leans back as I release my death grip on his arm. I struggle to control my breathing as I realize the car is no longer moving. It’s been a year. Why is it still like this? “Are you alright?” His words clear the haze, and I nod tensely. “Yeah, sorry.” Patrick shifts the car back into gear and continues down the road, much slower this time. “I just don’t like going fast.”