The Long Drive Home

The Long Drive Home

The day was Sunday, March 17, 1996. It was St. Patrick’s Day, my aunt’s birthday, and a day I will never forget.
Elle, my friend and I had just gotten out of work and were making plans with our friends to go out together and do something. We all met up at a friends house, when we decided that we needed to pick up Kevin too, seems how Elle was just 'in love' with him, and couldn't go a day without seeing him. He lived clear out in the middle of no where, a quiet little area outside of town.
There were two cars full, actually, two in my car and four in my other friends car. The whole way there we were playing car tag, slowing down, then speeding up, passing each other and such, just for the hell of it. We finally made it to the back dirt roads, 'now we can really have some fun,' I thought to myself.
We were racing down the road, when she cut me off. That really pissed me off, so I raced up along side of her, and sharply cut her off, little did I know at the time we were going around a bend in the road. After I passed her I hit the soft shoulder, which, needless to say, threw my car out of control. It threw us across to the other side of the road. At that time I managed to slam into a mailbox. The impact of hitting the mailbox threw the car up into the air, flying over the neighbor’s driveway and the majority of their yard, landing in the middle of it. At that point we did two turnarounds and went strait for some trees. I knew for sure that was the last gasp of breath I would ever take, when all of a sudden the car made another turnaround, in the middle of the trees of all places. I had the tightest grasp on the steering wheel; Elle took my seat belt off, ripped my hands off the wheel, and turned the ignition off. She tried to open her door, it wouldn't, she leaned over to push mine open, and neither would budge. At that point I leaned across her, pushed the button in the glove box, and we made our way out the hatch of the wagon.
I went strait for the front of the car; I sat down in front of it, and just starred at it for about 30 seconds. I got up and started to walk around it, all I could seem to say was, 'my mom's gonna kill me, my mom's gonna kill me.' The man and woman that lived in this house came outside. She took a look and her mouth just dropped open. I glanced around, the mailbox was just about on their porch, their yard was dug up to hell, and my car was in the middle of a bunch of trees. I got down on my knees and started to cry.
The woman walked over to me, and tried to comfort me, but again all I could say was 'my mom's gonna' kill me...’ Within fifteen minutes a policeman had arrived. My body shook tremendously as I had to explain the details of the accident. Although my friend wanted me to tell the man that she was at no fault I just explained exactly what happened and let him decide if she was or not.
The policeman was very nice. My friend ended up with a careless driving ticket and me with a reckless driving ticket.
It wasn't just a ticket, it was a ticket, a messed up car, a neighbors yard to fix up, a messed up mind, and a soon to be very pissed off mother.
It was kind of weird; I just jumped right back into the car and drove right out of their yard. I felt horrible; I didn't know what to expect when I returned home. It was almost dawn so I decided to make a quick stop by the car wash, hoping that my mom wouldn't notice. Besides the damage to the car didn't look all that bad, some messed up body damage, where I had hit the mailbox, and a bunch of branches sticking out from the car.
I dropped my friend off and cruised home. I had gotten out of trouble for the night but I will hear it in the morning. The next morning I had woken up and was getting ready for school. My mother went outside to start the car to take me to school. I really didn't want to go out there. She didn't say anything the whole way to school. So I was hoping she didn't notice. I returned home from school to find the car gone and a note stuck to the refrigerator. I sat down and read it. The note said that in order to fix that neighbors’ yard the car insurance would increase three times as much as it was. Although I would have to pay it. I knew with the job I had and going to school, the only other choice I had was to surrender my license back to the state. I also had to pay for the damage to the car, which unknown to me was more than I thought. The car ended up with small body damage that equaled 250 dollars alone, a broken headlight, four new tires, and a front-end alignment needed. All of this equaled a little more than 400 dollars, which had to come out of my pocket. Everything that happens in life teaches you a lesson' is one of my philosophies. Trying to figure out what it's trying to teach you is the hard part. Except in this situation. What I learned from this life experience was that life is worth a little more than I had thought. When Elle and I were flying through the air, we remembered later, that we grabbed each other's arms and yelled 'we're gonna die' to each other. Right then death was looking us in the face and it could have been prevented. All the consequences that come with an accident aren't worth fooling around with cars. Just think about it, if I was to live and my best friend in the car with me didn't. How guilty would I feel for the rest of my life, how could I wake up everyday knowing that I had taken someone’s life away from them? So when my friends decide that they want to go play car tag, I simply let them know that cars are not toys, and if their going to do it knowing what I had to go through, then let me out. Being in an accident, being that close to death gives you a better outlook and awareness of the world. You don't take life for granted anymore and are more cautious of dangerous situations. I'm just trying to make others aware of the danger and consequences of reckless driving. Try to be careful and live life to the fullest.