The Story of Thia

Intro/ That Night

           

Thia's POV
There was little six year old me with straight blonde hair, brown eyes, and freckles lightly dabbled across my nose. I was playing on a swing at the neighborhood playground with the others kids, having the kind of life every little kid should have: a joyous, carefree life. Who knew that six years later I would be such a horrible person, that I wouldn't even be able to look myself in the mirror and register the girl in the reflection looking back at me. With no recollection of the past I used to have, just the downward motion my life was headed. Another three years went by and I am sober, and go to more double letter support groups than I can count. I am Thia by the way, I like to run track, dance, and my favorite color is blue. Sorry about the whole hobby list. We are told to tell people in our double letter groups something besides our problems that we either participate in or like, and what our favorite color is. I don't know why, it's just something they do.

       I was only 15, Joshua 17, when I did the worst thing I have ever done in my entire life. I remember it as though it were just yesterday.
"Josh?!!! Noo Joshua!!! You have to be alive!!"
The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital, with no clue where Joshua was. Later that night is when I decided my life had to change. I couldn't live with myself if I ruined another person's life like I had done to Josh's that night. It changed his life. Forever. It had all started with just one joint, then another, hey let's add ten shots of tequila to that, and why not some more drinks to wash down the ten shots? Joshua and I left the group after our brains gave us the common sense we needed to keep us from becoming even more wasted and high than we already were. We got out of the never ending ally way and made our way to the streets. Josh saw a car, so he said "we don't have a ride, let's take it. There's no harm in borrowing it." I looked at him and the state he was in, which was far worse than the one I was in, which was hard to believe. "Ok, but I'm driving. Why that specific car anyway?" A huge grin spread across his face when he realized just how smart he was for noticing. "The dumb owner left the keys in the ignition."
He and I hopped in the car, with me in the driver's seat. I sped through the town, running so many red lights I couldn't keep track. I felt like I was driving a race car. So fast, so powerful, it almost felt like I was flying! PHOOSH! I got into the middle of an intersection, and the car suddenly started to veer to the left, but I wasn't turning the wheel...
I woke up with a slight concussion, only to see Josh on a stretcher completely banged up, scratches and bruises everywhere. I was on a stretcher, being pushed to the second ambulance. That was when I screamed across to him, "Josh?!!!! No joshua!!! You have to be alive!!" I hadn't known how badly he had been injured until the next morning when I was free to roam the hospital (well not actually allowed by the doctors, but in my opinion I felt just fine). Little did the doctors know, that even though I had a concussion, I never forgot a mission. My mission was to find where Joshua was in that giant hospital. I peered through door after door, I almost opened a door when I realized it was an operation room, and an operation was surely taking place....'ewww that was so gross...so that's what it looks like when the human body has a surgical operation going on while the person is unconscious'...The next door I searched, I found him. There was my Joshua, laying on the hospital bed with so many things on him you would think that they gave him six other people's bandages and wires as well as his own. When I went in I was quickly pulled out by a nurse. She told me that he had more operations and brain scans that needed to be done. When she said brain scans, I was thinking, "are you crazy lady?" But little did I know I would be coming through that door just five days later after all the procedures and rest he had to have, to find him with the prognosis of brain damage and specific memory loss. They added that on the bright side, he may get through this injury alive and well again.
When I walked into the room I went over to Josh. He was laying there with fewer wires than before, but most of his bandages. He opened his eyes and they seemed to get a little sparkle in them when he registered I was in the room, "Josh!! Oh my gosh I'm so glad you're still alive!! I'm so sorry for what I did, it's unforgivable. Baby I didn't mean to, I promise that if I could go back and change everything that happened, I would have placed you in the driver's seat and me as the passenger. (By that time I was bawling my eyes out. I could barely say the words without a huge pause in between, when I had to gasp for air from crying and talking) I'll never forgive myself for what I did to you."
He laid there with tears streaming down his face but his entire body stayed still, I clutched onto the pendant on my necklace. His eyes shifted towards my necklace and his eyes got brighter. This time a new flood of tears came to his eyes, but they were tears of joy and happiness. "Forever and always Josh, no matter how everything goes I will always love you the same," I kissed his lips to receive no kiss back. I looked in his eyes and they were full of emotion, but it was as if he had forgotten how to move his lips. His eyes started to prickle with tears he was holding back. Reading his mind, I knew why he was crying, "I told you no matter what, I still love you." He was upset because he knew deep down in his memory that he should have returned that kiss. I didn't love him for his kissing and ability to show me how he felt. The love I felt for Josh in that moment was unconditional. I just wanted him to be alright again. While he was lying in a hospital bed, I could wait forever for him to gain his memory of how to kiss back. Although, that was something I wouldn't let anyone partake in teaching him. They could do the speech and the physical therapy.
After I sat there with him for hours getting no reply in return to what I said, I couldn't keep my tears away, wishing so badly to hear him say he loved me too. When it came time for visitors to leave I said "I love you Joshua." I came out of the room with tears in my eyes. Heather and Walt saw me and they quickly came up to me with their arms wide, ready to hug me and tell me everything would be alright. We went home and I plopped down on the couch, I took out my iPod and headphones from my pocket and I listened to music, drowning out all my thoughts.
Weeks went by, but my life seemed to repeat the same routine every day: go to school, do volunteer work for having committed many offenses, visit Josh at his house after he finished his therapies for the morning, ate dinner, did homework, went to bed, repeat. The weekends were the only two days I got to choose what I wanted to do, which was see Josh as long as I could and do what I love most, dance. Those were the only two things I wanted to have in my life since the accident. Dancing helped me forget everything that happened in my life, like the accident. I could just freely move without judgment throughout the entire barn. The barn is abandoned and not that structurally sound, but I still love swinging from one hay loft to the mirroring hay loft right on the other side.

Joshua'sPOV
Nothing. Absolutely nothing could come out of my mouth. I couldn't say a word, my body was sore, and my senses felt dulled. What exactly happened to me? Thia came in the room and walked right over to me. I felt the urge to pull her close to me into a hug, but my mind didn't know how to control this body. She started apologizing to me profusely, while her eyes flooded with tears. I couldn't keep my eyes from doing the same. Why was she blaming herself? She didn't purposely do this!! I wish I could go back and erase this night. I may never be the guy that she loved before, and worse, she will blame herself for this the rest ofher life. She grasped her pendant and I knew exactly what that meant. "I know, how could this be real? It can't be, it just can't!" That's what my response would be to her unsaid words. Just seeing her holding the necklace I gave her made me so happy that she would always have the slight memory of me whenever she held it tight for confirmation. I wanted to kiss her to show her everything was real, but it didn't matter because I loved her, we would get through this. Then she kissed me. My mind was confused, not knowing what to do with the sensation. As she pulled away I looked in her eyes with shame of giving her probably the worst kiss in the world. I knew I should know how to kiss, but it just wasn't registering.
After a few hours went by, visiting hours came to an end and she left me with something else I wanted to return: "I love you Joshua."