Page 82 of Frozen Flames

Mistakes happen, and we should learn from them and move on with our lives.

At least that’s what they say.

Some mistakes grow roots into your back, each root spreading away from your spine, down your arms and legs. Said roots infiltrate the veins surrounding your beating heart. And such roots will either suffocate you or make you thrive and survive anything.

I made a mistake.

Agrave fuckingmistake.

And every inch of my body is telling me that I messed up—that there’s no way up from here, nowhere else to fall but rock bottom.

I hoped that reality would’ve set in by now, but I can’t shake the fact that a month ago, I was living my best life with very few worries to trouble me. Today, I’m in a wheelchair at an inpatient rehab center near my hometown of Clarendon Hills, Illinois.

The rehab has a big wraparound porch around its perimeter with a ramp in front. That’s where I sit right now, away from the other patients, seeking solitude.

I’ve been surrounded by many people since the accident, yet I’ve never felt lonelier in my entire life.

And I can’t even cry about it.

I don’t feel shit.

The numbness is all-consuming as I rehash my mistakes—how I rode my motorcycle during a stormy night, how Gemma sustained injuries because of me.

And I can’t take any of it back.

Even my stay at the hospital keeps taunting my every waking moment. Just the smell of hospitals is enough to make me relive it all—the pain, the news, the tests…so many tests, including an MRI and myelogram.

It was never-ending.

I process this information for the millionth time, emptiness coursing through me.

The rehab center has a group therapy program where we have to talk about our feelings, as if I have any. We were asked to share something about the day we lost our mobility. Actually, they used the words “since your mobility has been affected,” but we all know what they meant.

My mobility wasn’t the only thing affected.

I lost something.

I told them the truth. That I barely remember the accident.

What I do remember, vividly, was the scorching contrast of the July heat as Gemma and I rode our bikes the entire day, compared to the stormy downpour that led to our accident that night.

I remember that it was my fault.

Gemma begged me to go home right away, and I, like a dumb-fuck twenty-one-year-old, cared more about experiencing a high on my Harley than the anxiety-ridden voice of my girlfriend through the speakers on our helmets.

I know that a car crashed into me—a hit-and-run.

I know that Gemma’s bike skidded off the road and she fell down the hill.

I know that all of this could’ve been avoided.

But the rest? All a blur.

It’s like my brain has created patches of gray within my memories, and all I can do isfeelhow everything felt. And those feelings are woven through every goddamn particle of my upper body, like an echo, like a scene out of a movie that isn’t my life.

To be honest, I can’t wait to get out of rehab so I can ditch this program.

If you ask me, it’s like a pissing contest among which of us can get better physically the quickest. I’m being harsh, but I can’t help it.

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