Missing Piece

The anniversary of the accident is today. Nobody knows how I feel; it should have been me that died.

Two years ago, my younger sister and I decided to go out on a mini vacation to get away from our feelings. We packed our bags and I drove us to a hotel an hour away from home. I was twenty years old at the time while she had just turned seventeen. My boyfriend had broken up with me and I was a mess. Peyton was having problems with her best friend and suggested that we get away for a week and that is exactly what we did. The little vacation brought us closer together as we discovered what we wanted in our lives. I can still remember one of the first conversations we had after we settled into the hotel and were laying by the pool.

"I just don't know what to do with her anymore." Peyton sighed as she talked about her best friend.

"You have to stand up for yourself. The way she’s been treating you isn't a way that a friend should treat you. You deserve better," I responded.

"It's just hard. We've been friends since first grade and now that we're seniors, everything’s changed. I've started to realize how awful she really is to me. I just want this bad time to stop."

"I know how you feel, but you just need to remember that bad times are just times that are bad. It's up to you to make them good again." She smiled at my response.

The day by the pool as she told me what was going on was a special day for me. She and I had never been super close, but on that day, I truly felt like a big sister- a good sister. She became a bigger piece of the puzzle in my life. By the end of the week, we were so close and she was not ready to go back home, but I knew it was time to face our dilemmas in person.

On our way home, it began to storm. The road was slippery, rain was falling, and lightning was going off. I managed to stay on the right side of the road however, the car on the other side was a different story. When the car slammed into us, we flipped over. It happened on a mountain; the little rails saved us from going down all the way. The last thing that I remembered before passing out was Peyton bleeding badly. When I woke up, I was in the hospital with my parents sleeping on the chairs to the side of the hospital bed. I groaned loudly as my head was in a large amount of pain which woke them up. My memory was foggy as I was unable to recall anything after the storm started. Some of the memories came back a few days later causing nightmares to occur. I can still picture in my mind when I was told what happened.

"What's going on?" I mumbled out as I looked around at my surroundings seeing only my parents in the room before a doctor came in to check on my injuries.

"There was an accident," my mom responded as she started to cry and I joined along with the crying as fear rose inside of my body.

"Your sister didn't make it," my dad said to me and I gasped as I cried harder.

There was not much I remember after that. The doctor held me down before giving me a shot that made me tired making me pass out shortly after. When I woke back up, the doctor came in and told me as much as he knew.

"There was a storm and the roads were slippery," he stated. "A car from the other lane lost control and smashed into the car you and your sister were in causing you guys to flip over. Your sister was dead on scene.”

I never forgave myself. As a teenager, I had really bad depression, but I managed to get away from the sadness as I realized that there was still so much beauty around the world. The depression came back after the accident and has yet to go away. I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. After the accident, I stopped driving and no longer go inside cars, trains, and subways. I will only walk or bike even if it is a long trip. I cannot go back into a moving vehicle- not after everything that has happened in the past.

Someday, I hope to allow myself to get better- not just for myself, but for the people that support me. They deserve to not have to always check up on me and make sure everything is okay. I need to allow myself to care for my own body and my own mind. Losing my sister due to a car accident was my breaking point. I was finally getting to truly know Peyton as we started to grow closer and knowing that there is no longer a chance to cherish her breaks my heart. I need to find a way to stop blaming myself over the incident. It was not my fault for being ready to go home while Peyton wanted to stay away for longer and it was not the person in the other car's fault for losing control. It was the storm that caused the accident.

I believe that the vacation was a way of God allowing Peyton and I one last chance to connect before He was ready to meet her. I know that she will always be in my heart.