It must have been awful.

All she could hear was the screeching, the screams and the echo of the impact resonating in her mind.

All she could see was her own fear, reflected in the windshield, before it shattered.

Then nothing.

Total darkness.

Oh my goodness, the poor thing.

Indeed. I haven’t seen something as bad as this in years.

What will happen to her? What will happen to my daughter?

It’s too early to tell, ma’am. It could be nothing, it could be…

What? What could it be?

…Too late.

The voices were fading, as if whoever was having the conversation stepped out of the room. She could hear the footsteps resonating across the hard floor, too loudly. She felt herself wincing. Not so loud. She thought. Not only am I being kept in the dark, without anyone acknowledging me, but also the damn people have to go around making so much noise… her thoughts trailed off. Too many questions, and too little she knew to be able to answer them. To begin, where am I? She sat in silence for a moment, and she recognized the faint smell of antiseptic and chemicals, and through the silence she could perceive the steady beep of a machine. A hospital? Why would I be in a hospital? I’m deliriously healthy… then the scene played again in slow motion through her mind.

Crash, skid, collide.

She winced again. It must have hurt… but she couldn’t feel a thing. She felt something near her arm, and with the other ran her hand across it. Bandages. So I guess I am hurt. She felt them again against both legs, and a hard plaster cast on her right arm. She was wearing a light, flowing hospital gown, and was lying under a soft blanket, her head and back propped up by a pillow or two. She tried to move her arm, but felt a sharp pain on the back of her hand, so she decided to stop moving altogether, save the gentle rising of her chest.

It’s too dark. She thought, finally deciding to move. She reached up –ever so slowly- and tried to feel for the bandages around her face. What? Her fingers ran slowly across her eyelids, her eyelashes. She moved her hand away, and blinked.

Her screams echoed through the hospital.

…………...

It could be worse.

She had heard it too many times. How lucky she was, how thankful she must be. How most wouldn’t come out alive, and others would be missing limbs. She was supposed to be thankful.

“Adelaide…” the soft voice said. The girl didn’t move. The voice sighed, and with a soft thump deposited a package in front of her. “For you.” The voice said again, before the girl could hear it walking away. She rolled over on the soft mattress, and held the package above her head. She shook it violently, and heard a faint rattle. She rolled back over, and proceeded to remove the contents of the boxes. First were flowers, wonderful, odorant flowers that were casted off with the rest of them. Then was a book, with a smooth cover. To kill a mockingbird. She read tentatively. She smiled. And placed it carefully beside her. And then, in the last, smaller box was a pair of glasses. She put them on, before removing them slowly and throwing them against the wall. She could hear them shatter, the metal frame falling to the floor, along with the shards of tainted glass. She could feel the tears fall from her eyes.

The assholes.

The tears soaked the pillow she buried her face in.

That’s all the care about. What I look like. Oh, no, it doesn’t matter that I can’t see, as long as they don’t need to notice…

The door creaked open, and a few tentative steps approached her.

“Adie?” The voice asked. It was different than the other one, younger, sweeter, and more innocent. Whoever it belonged to smelled faintly like vanilla, and then more strongly like grass. Adie sighed, and moved her head away from the voice.

“Adie, mommy wants me to bring you your dinner.” She said shyly. She placed something beside her. “You’re lucky.” She then announced. “I always want to eat in bed, but mommy always says no.”

Typical. She doesn’t know.

“I promise ill ask mommy to change that. What’s for dinner anyways?” The voice didn’t respond for a moment, wondering why her sister wouldn’t be able to see what’s for dinner on the plate beside her, or maybe why their mother had given her plastic cutlery. “Well i'm eating chicken wings, roast potatoes, carrots broccoli and corn… but mom gave you chicken noodle soup in a sippy cup.”

“Don’t worry Adie, no matter how much you’ve changed, we’ll still treat you the same…”

Vile hypocrite.

Adie smiled sadly. “I’m sorry mom gave me your sippy cup. You’re awfully nice to let me use it.” “Only this once, ok?” the voice said worriedly. The girl smiled again. “Of course Rosie. Just this once. Now go, or mom’s going to get angry.” There was the soft sound of little feet leaving the room, and the door creaking to a close. Adie sighed, and lied back down onto her bed. She brought the cup to her lips, and managed to ingest most of the soup without dumping it onto her. When she was done, she leaned over and, with difficulty unlocked the simple latch that kept the window closed, and let all the cool air flow into the room. She lay back down, and listened carefully to all the sounds of the outside; noise being her only distraction. When the rustle of the wind in the trees had become too faint to hear, she replayed the events of the past weeks in her head.

The accident

The hospital

Attempted recovery

Home.

It didn’t seem like much now, once the two weeks had passed. But back then, she remembers, she thought it was hell.

She had awoken in the hospital, in darkness and took no notice. After a while though, she wondered why obscurity was so deep, and tried to remove the blindfolds. Then the slow realization to what she was, then the three stages; Distress, Sadness, Anger. Repeat as much as necessary. She had gone through 6 operations to try to restore her sight; most of her university funds had gone into it, but no use. Blind, she was, and forever will be. Then the classes. Braille in quantities unimaginable, along with training to improve her other senses, rendering them as acute as they could be. She was hospitalized for another week, surviving solely off of strawberry ice cream a kind nurse supplied, and her Ipod. Then the tedious ride back home, the sugar-coated remarks, the assistance she didn’t need, the gift giving, the hypocrisy… and her current state, frustration, anger and animosity towards the world.

Not fair.

Of course, she didn’t say it out loud. Her mother would go on another speech about how lucky she was compared to some in the world. Even though most living in the world were much luckier than she was, and had the ability to fix most problems the others had. Her mother didn’t mention them.

She sighed, bored of her reminiscing. She reached over, and picked up the book she had received. To kill a mockingbird, entirely in Braille, from the front cover to the last page. The nurses in the hospital had sent it, and she intended to finish it before she saw them again. She opened it to the first page, and scanned the page with her fingers, once, twice, before she truly began to concentrate. It isn’t as hard as it seems. And at her new school all her courses would be either in audio or Braille. The Keller school for the physically challenged. That’s what they called it, after Helen Keller, the famous woman who was blind, deaf and mute. I guess compared to her this isn’t so bad. And she had a family, a husband, a child. Maybe there’s hope for me after all.

She smiled to herself, and began her book. When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow…