Young Writers Society

Dreams shattered

I woke up surrounded by the darkness and the heavy beating of the rain smashing down on the roof. I’d never known it to be so loud. The wind pounded the windows to left of my bed, creating the illusion along with the moon that the small trees outside the window were actually giants about to take over the entire building. The noise was outstanding and gave me a violent headache. I reached over to my bed side table, to discover it wasn’t there. Of course it wasn’t, I had forgotten, that I had moved it to the right of the bed. Yes, there it was. As I brushed my hand along the surface of the table I realised there was no glass of water to soothe my headache so I turned the lamp on. That’s when it hit me, like a car you can see but you just stand there, terrified with the knowledge that you have frozen, in fear, in the middle of the road, the car draws closer and bang, that’s you finally realising you should have moved.

Everything came flooding back to me, all at once, the memories I so desperately wanted to leave behind from a few nights ago when my life and Olympic dreams changed forever.

It was the last day of term before the summer holidays and everyone including Mr Drew my physics teacher, who constantly complained of global warming and how everyone was going to die in this year’s heat waves, were counting down the last few seconds to the school bell. Then it was the miniature earthquake, during which chairs went flying; classroom doors swung open in such force that there was no squeak from the badly rusting hinges. The stairs to the exit would shake and become invisible from the hundreds of pupils racing to get out. As the pupils left the school building, the teachers would begin moving the desks for the next term, then race down stairs themselves. It was all going great. What was even better was the fact that my best mate Georgia convinced me to lay off all the athletic training for the night, so we could have a high time down town for her 16th. My coach at the national youth athletic centre had always warned me of going out so close to a race that would determine the rest of my life as a professional athlete and maybe my place at the next Olympics. Of course, I didn’t think of that at the time. It was all about getting completely drunk for the best night of our lives or so we thought. We together, that night, forgot the fact that we were under age, had no pretend I.D and couldn’t get into a single bar. Georgia and I gave up on getting high. She phoned her boyfriend Ricky for a lift home.

We stood shivering under a broken, old bus shelter, and huddled together. Georgia’s hands were ice cold as if she had stuck in them in freezer. It was so unusual that night, it should not have been that cold and definitely not that quiet. There should have been drunken men stumbling down the street asking rudely for our numbers and women dressed as devils on a hen night, but there was nothing. In the distance Georgia spotted the first outline of a drunken figure stumbling towards us. As the figure got closer Georgia recognised it was Ricky and let out a huge sigh of relief. When the odour of many pints of lager came rolling out of Ricky’s mouth. Great, I thought. My lift home was drunken wreck. Finally I was Ricky’s car with the heat on its highest temperature possible and the radio was blazing the sound of Queen’s We Will Rock You.

Time, then, moved so slowly. I remember being in the car and the heat slowly but surely enticing me to fall asleep. I remember Georgia’s precious head resting on my knees and the smell of smoke flowing from Ricky’s foul mouth. With the glaring street lights shining through the windows, my eyes became blurry and I was asleep, with Georgia sleeping as well. I woke a few minutes later surprised by the fact I still couldn’t see my street or house. All I could see was one stretched out road in front of me that seemed to go on for ever.

“Are you a wake yet?” slurred Ricky

He bashed his hand on the steering wheel, over and over, shouting until he had to breathe again.

“Are you a wake yet?”

Georgia’s head slowly rose up and suddenly she sprang to life.

“Course I am babes.”

“Wanna have a good time?”

The car came to a holt, as Ricky revved up the engine, 30...40…50…90...100mph. We sped down the road, Georgia roaring Ricky on, go faster the words I so wished to forget. Ricky let go of the wheel, and started to clamber out of the seat towards Georgia. Why? He slapped her on the face.

“Stop telling me how to drive!” he roared.

He got back into the drivers seat, I thought that was the end of that and we’d be driving home. No, my mistake, he drove faster than ever, whilst he leant over the wheel to grab a sip of Vodka swerving the wheel to the left. He made up his mind that this seemed like some kind of game and did it over and over again. Until he just had to go too far. All I can really remember was the sound of ripping metal like the sound sharp finger nails on a board but one hundred times as bad, as we bashed through a barrier. The feeling of being slightly more vertical than usual, having no time at all to think or stop what was going to happen, and diving straight down a grassy embankment crashing into small bushes and trees. With one loud crash, the car slammed right into a giant tree towering over the car and everything stopped.

I felt a throbbing up the side of my left leg. I called Georgia’s name with tears rolling down my face but everything was quiet. The car was smashed to pieces where Ricky sat. I tried desperately to free my self and I eventually did but this made things worse. Every time I moved the pain became intense than it had ever been. I looked in the mirror which had fallen down and looked at where Georgia was sitting. There she was, seat belt undone and her head side ways on the seat in front of her. I stared at her; she looked like a silently sleeping angel, except from the blood dripping from her ears. I remember the intense silence, so deafening, the car creaked with intensions of rolling over again and at that moment my life had no importance, let it fall on top of me. With no energy, my eyes slowly closed.

A slender man looked down upon me, telling me something about my leg and I would be ok, but all I could do was stare into the blank eyes of Georgia, as her body was lifted out of the car and moved past me. Why did it have to be her and on her birthday? Why? I don’t really know how long tears flowed down my cheeks, but they had no intention of stopping.

It was 10am before I finally stopped thinking of that day, and there stood my athletic coach looking miserably at me. I wanted to say I was sorry for not listening and it was my entire fault, but before I could he came running towards me and sat there hugging me as if there was no tomorrow. My coach was like a father figure to me, I had never really known my dad. If I had only listened to him, I wouldn’t be lying here trying to remember the sound of Georgia’s voice. He said I had a visitor, someone who was going to help me rehabilitate myself. When I first saw Katy with her brown wavy hair and pale green eyes she reminded me so much of Georgia I could barely hold back the tears. She was there to give me support. Saying, I had every thing going for me even if I had lost a limb it didn’t really matter.

I couldn’t believe she’d never walked, she was so full of life, which was her and I guessed this would be me, now. Her sarcastic way of putting things placed the first smile on my face in days. I thought myself to be lucky, maybe one day I would stand to receive a medal. Maybe Georgia would watch from her cloudy seat, just maybe.

by Sarah (pineapple_princess_1992)