Fine

Fine

Feature Piece

My chest starts to tighten.

My breathing is getting quicker and quicker.

My head is throbbing.

What is happening? What is going on?

I try and just watch the movie.

I can't.

What the hell is going on.

My chest is rising and falling at a rapid pace as I try desperately to focus on Bilbo Baggins fending for his life on the big screen in front of me. The obnoxiously loud surround sound doesn't help as my head pounds with each crack of the cliff falling into no where. The hundred people or so in this packed theatre are all gazing on in wonder and I feel like I'm going to be sick. All over the couple in front of me.

My hands are sweaty.

My stomach is in knots.

I can't feel my arms. I can't feel my arms anymore. I can't feel my arms.

What the hell is happening to me?

My mum takes my dead arm and she hauls me out of the theatre as I try, clumsily, to stay on two feet as the numbness is spreading through my hips and to my knees. It actually feels like someone is pouring hot water all over me.We leave the theatre room and make our way to the closest bathroom as I clutch onto the wall in sobs. My left hand is holding my stomach and I hunch over the railing bawling my eyes out, gasping for air repeating, “it feels like the accident, it feels like the accident, it feels like the accident” over and over and over.

* * *

It was a dark and rainy night in November. I offered to drive Cally, Erica, and two of Erica's friends to Moncton that night to help them out and save a little on gas myself. It all started out fine enough talking about classes and relationships and listening to various top 40 and country hits. Someone joked about my driving and I assured them all I just got winter tires put on that day and had never been in an accident – knock on wood – we laughed.

We joked and laughed and talked about anything that came to mind. Like a road trip clipped from a movie. I was in the middle of explaining an adorable story about my boyfriend when – SLAM. Before I knew it I was breaking hard and cranking the wheel to the left. I knew we were going to hydroplane but there was no other choice.

Oh my god.

What the fuck.

What do I do.

Don't hit the gas.

Don't hit the break.

Watch out for the guard rail – oh my god the ditch.

We were spinning and spinning in circles in the middle of the highway on a dark and rainy november night and oncoming vehicles approached at equally rapid speeds. We spun around and around and I could see what might happen as if it was already happening.

My stomach is in knots.

I can't feel my arms.

Just hold onto the wheel.

Try to get control.

What the hell do I do.

All I could picture was my driver's ed teacher sitting on that little desk teaching us the lesson on hydroplaning.

Don't pump the brake.

No, do pump the brake.

Wait, no, pump the gas.

Pump the break and the gas.

DON'T TOUCH A THING.

I couldn't believe what was happening. None of us saw it coming. Just like none of us saw the vehicle from behind us barely miss us screeching passed like double-oh-seven to the right of the vehicle. I think it was the right. I have no idea which way was which.

I cranked the wheel the other way and we started spinning again when I finally felt the ground underneath the tires. SCREEEECH. I put the brake to the floor and the whole car stopped in a jolt. It was a split second of relief until I looked to the right and we were horizontal in the middle of the highway, with no lights on, and two cars bee lining it at the girls.

The gas won't go. The gas won't work. Oh my shit!

Turn it off, turn it on, gas. Nothing.

Turn it off, turn it on, gas. Nothing.

Turn it off, turn it on, giver gas and GO. Finally.

We pulled off to the side of the highway just in time to miss three cars driving by and what felt like unbelievable speeds. My body almost gave out entirely as I looked at the girls, “What the actual fuck just happened.” I could finally hear again – I could see straight and the pounding headache and throbbing ear drums had calmed the hell down.

Cally looked pale as a ghost. I felt sick to my stomach. I know she wanted to cry. I wanted to cry. But I couldn't. I couldn't even process what happened. What could have happened. What did happen?

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT CAR DOING” I was so livid, “HOW ARE YOU THAT IGNORANT!” Erica chimed in, “Who just pulls onto a highway from a dead stop and doesn't even look to see if a car was coming!” “Well shit, yeah! Like, Okay, going to pull out here without a light, without notice, with a fucking transport truck in the other lane, what the hell was I supposed to do?!”

Cally just sat there and stared. It broke my heart. I have known this girl for years and I could have just killed her. That's when all of it sunk in. I could have killed all of them. I could have killed four people and myself. Killed them. Dead. All of us. On the side of a highway in a bloody massacre. Gone.

We didn't T-bone the idiot who pulled out in front of us

We didn't rear-end a transport truck going 100 km/h

We didn't hit the guard rail, we didn't hit the ditch

We didn't hit the oncoming vehicles

We didn't roll the car

We didn't cause an accident

We didn't get hurt.

Physically.

* * *

My mum looks at me as I curl up on the bathroom floor at a theatre in Toronto. We all just came out for an innocent family movie night over the holiday break and no one expected me to freak out. But it did. Just like the accident. I'm still hyperventilating as my mum hands me a wet paper towel for my face and tells me over and over and over to take a deep breath. “Take a deep breath, Lissa, just in,” as she moves her hands along with the air in her belly, “and out.”

My head is numb.

My arms are weak.

My stomach feels sick.

My heart is pounding.

But I can hear straight again.

I can see again and the pounding headache and throbbing ears have calmed down.

“It just feels like I'm in the car again, and we're spinning around and around and I don't have control over what's going to happen. I can't do anything and I put them in danger. I could have killed them, mum.”

She puts her arms around me, “but you didn't. You had to make a decision and you made the right one, there's nothing you could've done differently and you're all fine.”

Fine.

Define, fine.

Physically, sure. But the left over emotional impact that little what if has is scarring. Just scarring.

It's happened several times. Several movie theatres. Several movie nights. All putting me right back in the drivers seat and feeling like I'm about to die and take four lives with me. Knowing that I had the ability to rip Cally, or anyone for that matter, out of her family's life for good and there would be no changing it. That's a shitty feeling.

Breathe, take a deep breath. I can hear my mum in my ear every time my chest starts to tighten and my breathing gets quicker and quicker. Take a deep breath. You're fine.