Tragedy ✔️

Chapter Six

Chapter Six: Crisp Autumn Air
Sophia Crawford

I wish I could forget the sounds from that night.

I wish I could forget the gut-wrenching sound of metal crashing against metal and Daniel’s groans when our car collided with the other one head-on, but it’s a sound that will haunt me for the rest of my days.

I still hear the sounds of the accident when everything goes completely quiet around me, and I’m alone with my thoughts. My ears still ring like when it did at the accident before everything went dark for me.

I still feel how it felt like when the car collided with ours; it felt as if my breath was knocked from my lungs when the seatbelt dug into my stomach.

And that wasn’t even the worst part, the worst part was that I had a seatbelt on but I still managed to damage my face and head through the windscreen.

That’s how I managed to get this nasty scar across my cheek.

Well, that’s what the doctor told me, at least.

The doctor said I should be grateful that I didn’t lose an eye in the accident. And I was, but I think, personally, that I would have preferred to lose an eye over losing Daniel.

Every time I looked in the mirror, at the scar, I was reminded of that night. I see the accident happening right in front of me, even though it was more than five months ago. I still remember as if it happened yesterday.

My leg was pretty busted up too, it broke in, and I say again—if I can remember correctly—three places. I have a purple-ish scar that goes from just above my thigh to below my knee. I didn’t mind the scar I had on my leg, but what bothered me was the scar I had across my cheek because I couldn’t hide that one from the world like I could hide the scar on my leg.

Sometimes I wouldn’t look at myself in the mirror at all because I was ashamed of the girl I saw looking back at me, but then sometimes I deliberately looked in the mirror so that I can remind myself of what I did and that I deserve to feel this way about myself—embarrassed and ashamed.

My grandmother says that it doesn’t matter that I have a few scars on my face and body and that someone would come into my life and appreciate the scars nonetheless. She also says that my scars don’t make me less of a person just because I look slightly different than the rest of the population.

But I tell her differently.

No one wants a damaged girl in their lives. No one wants a girl who blames herself for the accident that took her boyfriend’s life. No one wants a girl who still cries over her boyfriend who died over a few months ago, either.