Beautifully Shattered (The Beautifully Series Book 1) (53 page)

“
Mom!”
I cry.

“
Shh
you’ll . . . be . . . fine without . . . me sweetie.” She
whispers so quietly I barely can hear her.

“
Mom,
don’t. I’m so sorry!”

I
start screaming again. I scream for her to say more, but she never
does. I stare at her unmoving body. I don’t know how much time
passes until I finally break. My mom is gone and it’s all my fault.

“I blamed myself the
instant that my mom died. I watched her die. Slowly and painfully and
there wasn’t anything I could do. I silently promised that I would
take care of Hadley. I failed. I failed all of them.”

“You used past tense.
You usually use present tense. Do you not blame yourself anymore?”
Liv asks.

I’m too shocked to
speak. I did use past tense. I meant what I said. I blamed myself. I
don’t know if I still do or not. It’s hard to accept change when
I’ve believed for the past six years that I was responsible for the
crash. I always thought I was too weak to save them. If only I was
stronger. If only I was able to reach my phone sooner.

“I felt so weak. I
still do sometimes. I kept telling myself to stay awake, but I
couldn’t even do that. Every time before my eyes closed, I didn’t
know if they would open again. I was glad. I didn’t want to be in a
world where they didn’t exist. Then I would think of Logan and I
would feel so guilty. Guilty that I wasn’t strong enough, guilty
that I was giving up. The list was never-ending.”

Liv waits for me to get
everything out. My heart hammers so hard that I’m sure it’s going
to beat out of my chest. I have to finish reliving that night. I
don’t know why or how, but for some reason, I feel like I will be
better once it is all over. With each word I say, I feel lighter.

“I was losing hope. I
knew it had been hours since the accident and still nobody came. I
kept thinking that the person that hit us was just getting help. I
knew she wasn’t. I hoped that she was in worse pain than I was. The
pain I felt from the accident was nothing compared to listening to my
mom die and knowing that my dad had been dead the moment his head hit
the window. I couldn’t see him to be sure, but I never heard
anything from him the entire time I was trapped.”

I drink the ice water
in front of me. My throat tightens again. Either from talking too
much without pause or because of the horrible story that is my life.

“The only small
sliver of hope I had was that one of the passing cars would see our
car or hear my screams. I had to have hope because of Hadley. I could
see her breathing. Even though it looked like each breath was causing
her pain, it still gave me hope. Whenever I was lucid enough, I would
call out her name. She never responded. I would watch her breathing
and match my breaths with hers. If she was going to die, I wanted to
die with her.”

Just remembering
feeling so lost, so alone, sends me back into the car.

Something
flashing catches my attention right before sleep takes over again. I
blink the fuzziness away and use my broken left hand to wipe blood
from my eyes. I don’t need to feel the cut on my head to know I’m
in bad shape. I’m losing a lot of blood. I see another flash and
hope blossoms again in my chest. Help is here.

Finally.

I
start to close my eyes when another flash catches my attention. That
small feeling of hope vanishes as quickly as it came. Nobody is here.
Nobody is going to save us. It’s my phone.

Phone!

I
try to move towards it, but my feet aren’t responding. I can’t
even feel them. I haven’t been able to feel them since the car hit
us. I haven’t even thought of them because I didn’t feel
anything.

Panicking
all over again, I force myself to concentrate on moving my feet. I
have to be able to move. If I can get out of here, I have to be able
to walk to the road. I see Hadley stir right before she lets out a
whimper that will forever haunt my soul.

Hadley
needs me.

I
give up on moving my feet. They’re not listening to me and it’s
wasting my time. Time is not on my side right now. I search
everywhere around me, trying to think of a way to get out of my
seatbelt.

The
flash goes off again, alerting me to a new text. It’s exactly what
I needed. That little flash lit up my surroundings, allowing me to
see my swim bag. I know I have nail clippers in there. I always keep
one in there for water polo. I’m thankful that I never get around
to taking it out when polo season ended and swimming started.

Biting
my lip to keep from screaming, I reach over with my left hand to grab
it. Pain shoots through both arms and I bite down harder. Blood fills
my mouth from biting too hard and I let out another scream.

I
wrench the bag onto my lap. Every cell in my body tells me to close
my eyes, the pain will go away if I close them. I can’t. I need to
cut my way out of here.

With
agonizing slowness, I cut my seatbelt with my nail clippers. I’m
forced to use my right hand since my left can’t grip the clippers.
My shoulder howls at me to stop. To take a break. Tears gush down my
face while I whimper in pain.

A
lifetime goes by before I’m almost free. I turn my head towards
Hadley again. Her slow breathing keeps pushing me when everything in
me is insisting that I give up. I won’t give up on her. She needs
me.

My
blood blinds me as it spills into my eyes and down my face. I blink
the blood away, and focus on my seatbelt. I exhale when I realize I’m
done. Using my left hand, I tear the last few threads apart.

I’m
free.

Moving
quickly to my sister, I check her pulse. I need to make sure I’m
not crazy and I wasn’t imagining her breathing this entire time.

Thump
. . . Thump . . . Thump.

It’s
there. Faint. But there. I’ll settle for faint over nothing.

“
Hadley,
open your eyes. Please. Open your eyes for me. We’re gonna be
okay,” I plead with my unconscious sister.

I
search for my phone on the ground. The rain has stopped and it’s
gotten lighter outside so I can make out shapes on the floorboards.

“We were out there
all night. Nobody noticed. My entire world was falling apart and
everyone kept going about their lives. All it would have taken was
one person! One person to see us and things could have been
different.”

“You’re angry at
the world because it kept spinning while your world stopped.”

Liv doesn’t say it
like a question. She knows that’s how I feel. I’ve said it before
during therapy, countless times. I answer her anyways.

“Yes.”

I now know how
impossible it was for someone to see us that night. Our car veered
off the hill and it was pouring. You had to have known that the
accident happened to have seen us. The driver who hit us, Emily
Hayes, could have gotten help, but she didn’t. Instead she drove
home and died from internal bleeding. Her reckless driving killed my
family. I hope she suffered unimaginable pain.

Finally, at sunrise,
somebody, somehow, noticed our car and called the cops. He didn’t
even stop long enough to see if anyone was inside. He drove away
thinking he did a good deed.

I wish I could say that
I’m thankful for that unknown man, but I can’t. Yes, he called
the cops and that’s why they came to the scene. But I’ve always
wondered “what if?” What if he got out and searched our car?
Would things be different? Would Hadley still be alive?

“
I’m
gonna get us out of here. I promise,” I vow to my unconscious
sister.

Spotting
my cell phone on the floor, I reach down to grab it. Relief comes and
just as quickly as it disappears. Dead!

I
laugh at the absurdity. Everyone always reminds me to charge my phone
in case of an emergency. I never do. I always forget to charge it
until it’s dead. Now I need my phone because of an emergency and
it’s dead. I can’t stop laughing even though it causes pain in my
chest. I’m losing it.

The
phone slips from my grasp when I hear Hadley sob.

“
Had?”
I ask timidly, afraid I’m losing my mind and I’m hearing things.

“
Ads?”

Despite
everything going on, that one word makes me smile.

“
It’s
gonna be okay. I’m gonna get us out of here.”

She
barely manages to nod. She is unrecognizable with blood and bruises
covering her skin. She looks so tiny and afraid. I need to do
something. I need to get us out of the car. I don’t know how I’m
going to get us out since I still can’t feel one of my legs. My
right leg has started throbbing, which is good. If I can feel it,
then that means I should be able to move it soon.

I
calculate ways to get us out of the car and to the road. I come up
with nothing. I know from countless CPR classes that I shouldn’t
move her in her condition without proper equipment. I will crawl to
the road if I have to. Drawing a deep breath, I try to wiggle my
right foot. I scream in pain when it cooperates. I lean over and kiss
Hadley on the forehead.

“
I
love you. Be strong. I’m going to go get help.”

She
doesn’t respond, not that I thought she would. She hasn’t made
any other sound since she whimpered my name. The only way I know she
is still alive is from her shallow breaths. I don’t have much time.

With
all my strength, I crawl over the center console, dragging my left
foot. I bite down on my tongue, trying not to yell. My voice is
already raspy. I need to save it for when I reach the road.

Turning
my head, I see my dad. I wish that I closed my eyes so that I
wouldn’t have the image of glass shards through his face forever
imprinted in my mind. Needing to make sure that this is real, my dad
is really gone, I touch the side of his neck.

This
is real.