In the Middle of the Bed (A Saira Collings Story)

December 20, 1994 (Emily's Story)

The roads were icy. A car accident was guaranteed. If only I had known enough to stay away from the crash.

Two drivers had collided in a busy intersection three days after Ashly died. No one else except for my family were at the crash site, so we were the ones who called 911.

Against my parents' wishes, I climbed out of the truck and approached the car in the ditch. It was a small one-a POS, as my brother would've called it. Its dull gray hide was dented in numerous places, though the left side and front were the worst. The car was T-boned by a large SUV, swerved on the ice, crashed into a telephone pole, and spun into the ditch.

The driver, a young teenage girl, was trapped by the severely dented driver side door and the console beside her. Blood flowed from her forehead, where a piece of glass must've cut her. The airbag was deployed, and her thin frame seemed to be depleted even more. She wheezed as she breathed, and it looked like every breath hurt; must have a few broken ribs, at the very least.

I climbed in through the passenger-side window, and sat next to her. She looked over at me, one of her brilliant sapphire eyes jabbed through with a sharp shard of glass. "I'm dying, aren't I?" she asked me, and I nodded. With the amount of blood flowing from her numerous cuts, bleeding eye, and probably punctured lungs, she wouldn't last very long, especially not until the ambulance arrived.

She nods, turning back to face the broken windshield. "I used to define my life as shards of glass," she said, not looking over at me. I simply sat and stared at her, waiting to hear her final breath, memorize her final words, listen to her tell her life story.

"Each shard of glass was a choice I made. The more shards of glass, the better. The red shards were the ones who brought other people pain. The black shards were for those that didn't really mean anything. The blue shards were those of good choices, ones that didn't really affect anything. And the clear shards were those that've drastically altered my life. Like the one to not wear a seat belt today. I'm lucky I didn't fly out the windshield."

I nod after she finishes speaking, my thoughts whirling. This idea of shards of glass seemed to ring within me. Even as I sat there, I felt my soul split in two. One shard was red while the other was black. On the red shard glittered the name Ashly in scratched handwriting. On the black shard, a name carved deep into the surface read Mary. And now, as I watched the life fade from this young girl, I felt my soul split even more.

"My name is Emily, by the way. In case you wanted to know," she says, looking over at me. I nod, and give Emily one last smile before she turns back towards the shattered windshield. "My name is Emily," she whispers with awe, a tiny smile of her own on her lips, then her body goes limp, and I sense her spirit leave her.

The scar I got that time curls across my right shoulder blade, a mirror image of the one Ashly gave me. It hurt less than the other two, surprisingly.

I didn't really notice this until I got home after crawling out of Emily's car, having my parents rush to me, getting questioned by the EMTs, and the long drive to my house, but Emily's spirit was beside me. Her blue-white body was transparent, though her features stayed the same. I didn't know that no one else could see her; I didn't really care. I only cared about her last words to me, when she was still living: my name is Emily.

It's amazing how the last words someone ever says to you can resonate so deeply within your soul for years after you heard them.