“I’m leaving! I can’t stand it here anymore with you two arguing all the time, I’m sick of it!” There I’d said it; I felt so much better. Still a little angry but better than I was.
“You walk out of that door, to him, Lucy, and don’t expect to walk back through it.
Why do you only see everything in black and white? Never grey is it mum? Never in between!” was the next reply, as I stood and reached for the door latch. “You two are so prejudiced! Just because Jamie is black, you think he is bad. It’s just like everything else, isn’t it mum? It’s as if you just can’t compromise.” After I had said that, they didn’t say anything to me so I left.
The door closed behind me with a click. All the noise of the life in my house was shut out. It was still early so the street was quiet. I ran as fast as I could away from my house so that if my mum or dad came out after me they couldn’t take me back inside. As I ran, I decided I would go to my friend Jamie’s house. He didn’t live far away, only down the road and over the swing bridge. I suddenly became aware of a sharp pain in my side. I stopped. I was at the park so I sat down on one of the swings for a while and let my stitch go away. Then I continued, at a walk this time, towards Jamie’s.
I knocked on the large black front door and listened to it echo through the house. Jamie answered with a broad smile on his dark ebony face. His parents had gone out so I explained the situation with me and my parents as we sat on his couch drinking Coca Cola. We decided we weren’t going to stay in all day so we headed out for Jamie’s cousin Neil’s house in Appleton Thorn. As we left and began walking down the road towards the Spar Shop, I noticed a white car outside it that seemed familiar. As we edged closer to investigate, my mum appeared from the Spar exit! Jamie and I sprinted back towards his house and veered left down passage behind the houses, which to our surprise were full of nettles! It was too late to turn back by then, as we were already stung from knee to foot, so we ploughed on through them.
By the time we got to Neil’s it had gone lunchtime and to our disappointment Neil wasn’t even there, so we cautiously walked back to Jamie’s down the roads, purposely avoiding the passage behind the houses, as we were already stung all over.
It was dark by the time we got back. I spent about 10 minutes inside Jamie’s house before there was a knock on the door; I just knew it was my dad. I knew I couldn’t stay here forever so I followed Jamie to the door, and sure enough there was my dad looking livid.
“GET YOUR ARSE IN THAT CAR NOW!”
I really didn’t want to leave but I decided that I had better do as I was told, so I said goodbye to Jamie. He quietly wished me luck and I got into the car with my dad.
As he pulled away, he began ranting at me about how did not care about anyone but myself, and how next time he wasn’t going to come looking for me. All I could see was the speed dial in the car rising and rising until he was doing 80 miles an hour. We came to the swing bridge and I could see my dad trying to control the car. He failed in doing so and we went spinning head on into the oncoming traffic. I closed my eyes, my heart pounding in my head. Then I heard the screech of rubber on tarmac and wheels skidding as the traffic tried to stop and avoid our car. Then an almighty crunch and pain seared through my lower body. After a couple of minutes of excruciating pain, I fell into a pool of blackness away from the searing pain and shouting voices.
I awoke to the distant calling of my name. My vision was blurred but I could just make out a man leaning over me, calling my name. I realised that I was stuck inside the car; the pain in my lower body was increasing with every breath I took. The man asked me where the pain was so I tried to point to my legs. As I did so, another pain shot up my arm like someone had stuck a knife in it. I looked down so the man would see that I was guiding him towards my legs. As I did so, the most horrendous sight met my eyes, the whole front end of the car had been crushed inwards and my legs had disappeared beneath the twisted metal.
I stole a look at my dad and couldn’t believe what I saw. His head had hit the windscreen and was pouring with blood, his legs had disappeared amongst the metal, like mine, and the first thought in my head was that he was dead. Then the pool of blackness arrived again.
When I woke for the second time everywhere was white and my mum was by my side. As I looked at her, she began to cry and called for the nurse. It was then that I realised I was in hospital and I asked my mum how dad was, which was difficult as it felt like I had a mouth full of cotton wool. Mum told me that dad was fine; he had broken bones but no major damage. I had both legs in plaster and they seemed to be hanging in the air along with my left arm. I began to cry when I realised how lucky I was to be alive. I made a pact with myself, no matter how bad a situation gets, running away will only make it worse.
I was in hospital for what seemed like years; actually it was only 3 weeks. Family kept coming to visit me, bringing me cards and sweets. My boyfriend came and gave me a big bunch of white flowers and the big hug I needed. He started to cry whilst telling me how scared and worried he had been at the thought of losing me. He told me how much he loved me and I began to cry. Next my mum came and seemed to sit for hours telling me how sorry she was for not understanding me; she was making all kinds of promises to me. In the future, we would try to find a way to compromise.
Dad and I were discharged from the hospital at the same time. The first thing we did was give each other a big hug.
When I walked out of the door on that hot sunny Saturday morning, I had had no idea that I would be close to dying the very same night. We had all been wrong, too extreme, to ‘black and white’ in our attitudes. I looked forward to a more peaceful state of existence among the subtle shades of grey!
Word count :1510
