Care For Me Not, I'll Hurt You Too Much

You open your eyes to your molted ceiling. Your breathing was harsh again, but labored as if you just finished running several miles. Your heart was beating so fast that its rapid beating and the sound of your breath escaping jaggedly through your lips were the only sounds to be heard in the entire room. You felt the sweat trickle down your forehead and some soak into the pillow beneath your neck. The tears still rolled relentlessly down your face as they dripped out the sides of your tightly closed lids. You could feel one trickle down the side of your face and drop meagerly onto the pillow.

You close your eyes again and bring your sweaty hands up to your face. Your knuckles felt strained and sore. They felt as if you were gripping onto the sheets so tightly your life depended on it. With one quick look down at where your hands were previously positioned, you realized this was true. The dark colored fabric was crinkled horribly at either side of you, and the two mounds stuck up prominently in the air, compared to the otherwise smooth material.

You close your eyes again, and rub your cheeks, feeling all the tingling sensations that came with crying ebb away with your own touch. You felt all the remnants of the pressure your face went through because of crying, and you were trying to rid yourself of at least that. You push and prod at your cheeks, feeling your own face and wincing at the pain you still felt in it. You close your eyes tighter and attempt to swallow the lump that had worked its way up your throat. Your heart still leapt rapidly around in your ribcage. You could feel it in your chest and pushed your head further back into the pillow. The fast-paced beating made the rest of your limbs pulse awkwardly as they lay stationary.

You press your hands further against your face, trying to throw away all the images that still remained of your nightmares by using some physical reminder of consciousness. Except they wouldn’t go away, the memories, they flooded your mind more and more the harder you tried to rid yourself of them.

You could feel yourself slipping into that dream-like state again. You were falling into the point where time meant little to you as you laid completely still and dropped your arms away from your face. You stilled your movements and breathed in deeply as your nightmare reeled away in your head. It was of the crash again. You could hear the screeching metal and the explosion-like sounds of the collision as you lay there in your bed. You could see everything flying in every direction as the car skidded sideways down the highway. You could feel the pain ripping through your chest and you could feel the metal against your palms as your hands gripped mercilessly onto the chain-link fence of the overpass. You watched again, as your entire life was destroyed right before your eyes.

You shake your head against your pillow, trying in vain again to bring reality back to your senses and push the horrible images out of your mind. However, the feeling of the fabric against your head, and the rustling of the sheets beneath your slightly mobile limbs did little to rid your mind of that day. Instead, your thoughts threw you once again into that dream…that nightmare.

Your mind seemed to zoom in, with unknown capabilities, onto the blood dotting the inside of the windshield. You stare in horror at the limp arm dangling immobile out of the opening made by the shattered glass of the back window. You could see the people gather in shock and in awe out of the sides of your vision, as you looked over every part of that car. You remember hearing the screaming and the screeching of brakes as more and more people backed up the traffic gathering behind the 18-wheeler. You heard a woman crying out loudly at the sight before her eyes, but you were unable to move. No matter how much you wanted to run down there. No matter how much you wanted to see your family step out of the car miraculously unscathed, you couldn’t. All you did was stare and watch through the chain-link of the high-rise as the aftermath of the accident played out before your dreamy, unbelieving eyes.

You believed that if you had at least moved all those years ago—if you had just forced yourself to run up to the car and look at them, speak to them, do something to help them—then they would have stayed alive…or at least come back to you alive.

But, because of your childish ignorance, you only dropped onto the concrete beneath you and watched as everything you’ve ever loved crumbled before your eyes. If you tried to help them, maybe you could have saved them.

The thought causes more of the tears to spill from the corners of your tightly shut eyes as you take in a deep shuddering breath. The lump conjured in your throat and became difficult to swallow. Your body shakes with the sobs beginning to build up deep inside you. You hate the tears trickling slowly down the sides of your face and turn on your side to curl into a ball. You press your knees forcefully against your eyes and hug your curled legs further to your chest, hoping that the pressure against your eyes will just make the tears stop. All you wanted was for everything to stop.

The thoughts were tormenting, and the temporarily forgotten memories that now came rushing back to your mind seemed too much for you to handle. You felt as if you were going to break as you press your back against the wall. You try to use enough pressure against your back to snap your spine, but with all the surface area the wall provided your efforts were futile. You take in a deep, painful breath and wish for the memories to cease.

But instead of trying harder to stop them, you allow them to consume your mind and fill your soul with dread. All because you knew, deep down, that all of your pain and suffering, as well as your father’s, was your fault entirely.

If you hadn’t been so selfish, if you hadn’t demanded that they come to get you, if you hadn’t acted so stupidly, they would still have been alive. You would never have gotten your first bruises at the hands of your father. You would never have had to endure the sight of the cadaver bags being zipped up with the remnants of your life enclosed inside.

If you had just let them stay home, if you never asked your mother to come get you from school then everything would be okay, and you wouldn’t be a pathetic mess in your bed right now.

You lie there, feeling all the guilt wash over you like a tidal wave. You replay all of your father’s truthful accusations again in your mind. You clutch onto yourself tightly, not caring if things still hurt from before. All you knew now was that you deserved what you got.

His fists hurt, but you needed to be hurt. You needed to be punished like that. He needed to hurt you like that, just so you could make it up to him for what you must have been doing to him all these years…remaining alive and taking away all the things he loved as well. You not only destroyed your life by being selfish, but his as well…and he knew it.

Now you did too. Now you saw that, by asking them to come and get you after school, you caused their lives to end. You caused their hearts to stop beating and their lungs to stop working. You caused their deaths, all because you wanted yourself to be spoiled just like all the other kids in school.

You wanted that big party at the pizza place. You wanted a lot of presents that you would pick out yourself. You wanted to get out of school early and miss classes just so you could be pampered. It didn’t matter if it was a couple days too early to celebrate. You were young and still naïve enough to think that you deserved a party, and because they wouldn’t be able to celebrate on your actual birthday, you wanted all of that anyway…so you asked your mother to come pick you up after school let out. You asked your mother to come and get you, that way all of you could go into town and celebrate you, the selfish, miserable, pile of shit for a daughter.

You made her go through the trouble of getting your little brother ready and calling your sister in from her apartment in New York. You made her ask your father to do this for at least her, because even then you knew that he wouldn’t have done it all on his own. You made them drive down that damned highway right at that one moment, only to be met with exploding tires and colliding metal.

But what were you doing as she went through all that trouble for you? Pouting. You got upset at the fact that they weren’t there earlier to check you out of class and traipsed off toward the highway. Just because you had to sit in class for a little longer than promised, you grew spoiled and childish and began to walk home, determined to make them worry over you not waiting there at school for them…all because they were late.

But your selfishness didn’t go unpunished.

No, in your haste to get home, you decided to take the shortcut across the overpass of the highway. You walked, bottom lip jutted out to show your dismay to the world and head bowed down in frustration. But when you finally reached the top, your obvious disregard for them was quickly punished.

You decided to look down at the cars passing beneath you, still walking along dejectedly. You decided to glare at them and hope someone down there realized how angry you were at your family for forgetting you and taking too long to get there. But as you glared at the passing cars, you spotted yours coming closer and closer to the off-ramp that eventually leads to your school. You saw your entire family sitting inside so you stopped and gripped onto the chain-link. You wanted to watch and see if your family felt even remotely bad for breaking their promises to pick you up early. You knew they didn’t see you, but still you watched them as the car began to slow in order to exit the ramp.

What you didn’t expect though, was the sudden clap that reached your ears as the front tire exploded surprisingly. You remember your eyes growing wide in shock and horror, as the large truck that had been exiting just after them plowed directly into the side of the suddenly still vehicle. You remember staring horrified as the metal collided and exploded into ripped up shards right before your eyes, sending the twisted clump of metal and rubber careening down the highway until what was left of your family’s car skidded to a stop beneath the overpass you stood on.

After that, every second, every minute, every hour you spent watching the aftermath of your foolishness, seemed to stretch out into the spans of eternity.

You watched petrified at the sight of your crumpled vehicle beneath you, replaying what had just happened to them over and over in your mind.

All you could see was the 18-wheeler plowing over and over into the side of the car, the vehicle having turned due to the popping of the tire, and overcompensation of the wheels. You replayed that image, and the one right after of your car skidding sidelong into the divider that separated the off-ramp from the highway, over and over in your head as you felt your soul being devoured from within.

Just like that day six years ago, you felt your insides being ripped to shreds and your heart caving in on itself as you lay motionless in your bed. Your stomach churns from the recurring emotions you felt the day your life was destroyed. The only thing you knew now, was that tomorrow you would go back to school, and start the horrible cycle of your punishment all over again…simply waiting for the day that he finally kills you for what you caused.