In A Box

November - 12, One Year Since The Accident

He's screaming, I can't do anything about it, I know it's Jimmy, I can't see him, let me see him.
God let me see Jimmy, my heart pounds faster and faster, not enough air getting to my lungs, at the same time too much is. Jimmy, he's so young only eight years old, he's to young to die, I'm to young to die.
I hear the snap of the first bone, Jimmy has stopped crying, he probably passed out, my eyes are teared up, I lost vision in one of them and I'll never get it back.
Glass is shattered all over the left side of my face, the car tipped so only half my face was exposed.
Wake up, I beg internally, this isn't real, wake up, wake up wake up!

I open my eyes, my arms flailing frantically, I look around my room before realizing it was just a dream, a reoccurring nightmare. I wish I could forget it but I can't, I never can, and never will.
I stay lying on the bed, not moving, I can't move, I'm still paralyzed in fear. I slowly start moving my toes like my therapist said to do when this happens. After I gain control of my toes I move to my fingers, slowly I begin to move every muscle in my body.
And then I stop, I raise my hand and touch the left side of my face, I feel the scars and the marks. The person you see is different on each side, one side is a normal girl, the other side is a monster, ripped apart, destroyed. My hair grew back, but I will never look normal again, I have scars running along the left side of my head, preventing hair to grow in certain places.
Finally I turn over to look at my clock, the numbers are all blurred, but after squinting enough I can finally make out, 3:37 AM, I don't expect to go back to sleep, I never do, instead I stare up at the ceiling.
Jimmy, poor, helpless, young, Jimmy, why did he have to be the one paralyzed, but I don't want to trade places, I don't want him to suffer what I do, nobody deserves it.
But Jimmy, he used to be so happy, he used to run and play, now he can't, if only we saw the car, if only the driver in the other car wasn't drunk.
I stare at the ceiling, drawing pictures with my finger, I'm trapped, trapped inside my head, trapped inside the world.
I don't know how long I sat there in silence before I heard a knock on my door.
"Jimmy?" I whisper, before the accident Jimmy would knock on my door when he has nightmares, now he sends a robot to my room, I got it for him last year for Christmas.
I hear the whirring of the gears, I slowly sit up and turn to the edge of my bed.
I place both feet on the floor, and stand, as I walk towards my bedroom door I glance at the mirror, I look normal, but that's one perspective, if I turned my head a zombie would appear.
I creep towards the door and place my hand on the knob, I slowly open up the door and the robot appears.
I pick it up and hold the legs together, it makes the robot harder for Jimmy to control, it's how he knows I have it.
I walk down the hall to Jimmy's room and when I arrive I knock on the door, I don't get a response so I slowly opened the door, there is Jimmy laying in his bed, hes legs are completely paralyzed but his upper half is normal.
"Jimmy, are you okay?" I ask looking at him, "did you have a nightmare?"
He nods his head, I walk over and sit down on his queen bed, the blankets are all at the end of the bed so I pull them up over him.
"Do you want me to stay?" I ask him, he nods hid head, I stay sitting next to him, it's not like I have anything better to do, I probably won't be able to fall back asleep anyways so it doesn't matter.
I sit next to him for a few minutes before he falls back asleep, I don't get up and move after words, instead I sit and watch him breathing peacefully.
I wish this was what life was, but it isn't, tucking my little brother in after he had a nightmare is sadly the highlight of my day normally.
Nightmares are common in my family, when the accident happened we were driving to the hospital, my mom was already there, I was supposed to have a little sister.
My little sister, Sarah, died a week later, we buried her with my father, my family has never recovered from all the tragedies, to many, I lost my grandmother to cancer three years ago, and my best friend to suicide.
I have never lived a perfect life, not even a normal one, I'm far from normal, but my family and I are fine with it, sometimes it takes being abnormal to be normal.
Some days I run downstairs waiting for my father to get home, I pretend that this is all a twisted dream, that he's still alive, holding the football for him and Jimmy to play with, while I watch.
But I know that this is reality, and nothing can bring him back. Nothing at all can, in a way I'm fine with that, I can accept that he is gone, that I will never have him back. In another sense it is a terrible thing, that makes the memories I had of him fade, what's left slowly disappearing until we forever forget him.
Jimmy starts to snore, I put my hand on his chest, the ability to be able to feel him breathe in and out means he's alive, and if I can tell he is alive that means I must be.
I'm trapped, in a world no one understands, it's fine with me, but sometimes my wall had built so high that I can't get out, the wall built to keep people out keeps me in, I'm trapped inside myself.
Sometimes I think back to when Hunter committed, what was he thinking, did he know what this was going to do to me? He knew of all the losses I've suffered through, my father, my grandmother, my grandfather died before I was born in a war, but did he know, did Hunter ever think about how this would effect me.
The only thing left of Hunter is his old baseball cap, he left it at my house one day, I never gave it back, sometimes I think of going out to his grave and placing the cap on his headstone, but I don't, because then I'd have nothing to remember him by.
I start to hum the tune to Hunter's favorite song, he would always hum when he was sad, it's a habit I picked up from him, back when he was alive.
Jimmy lays quietly, he stopped snoring, the room is quiet, not a sound, not a worry, it's peaceful. I know he's dreaming, I hope he is dreaming happily, I hope he dreams that he can walk, play outside with his friends, the ones who are real, not the ones who turned against him after the accident.