Diary of a Girl from Seattle

Going Going Gone

Dear Diary,

I've only ever failed one test in my entire life. Actually the lowest grade I had ever received was a B. Well that streak of good grades came to an end with one test in English. My score? A 14%.

It was a few weeks after the plane crash. I still remember seeing everyone coming back. The body bag around Lexie, Arizona with her leg mangled, and Derek's destroyed hand.

Most of my time at the hospital was spent at Arizona's bedside those first few days. Then they had to amputate and she just wasn't the same.

Then Mark slipped into a coma. I couldn't wrap my brain around what happened. He was fine or at least getting better and then all of a sudden he was just, unresponsive.

The day they took him off life-support didn't come as a shock to any of us. We all knew it was coming. On our minds all day was what would happen when the clock struck 5:00.

That's all I could think about that day. The fact that my friend would be gone forever come that night. I couldn't focus in school, to the point that one of my teachers honestly thought I was on drugs. That was the day I failed my English test. It was an easy multiple choice exam but I didn't even bother reading the questions. I just colored in the dots to spell out Mark's name.

When 5:00 came around I was sitting in the hallway next to Meredith. We were all gathered, watching as Derek and Callie pulled the plugs and unhooked Mark from the machines keeping him alive.

I sat in that chair in the hallway and cried. Something I never do, but that day I just sat there and cried as I watched another man I cared about die as the switch was turned off.

That was the first day since the crash that I didn't visit Arizona. She was back at her and Callie's apartment and I would stop in on my way home everyday. She seemed reluctant at first to let me visit her after the amputation but we both knew she needed a friend. She was too angry at Callie to let her help, really to let her do anything, but Callie tried her best. I admired her for that. I don't know if I would have the strength and patience.

Somehow we all made it through those rough few months. I'm still not sure how, but we did. Everyone seemed to change a little, maybe for the better, but we all come out the other side stronger than we were before.

- Mattie