Drinking and Driving - A Lost Friend

On Halloween night of 2009, after a long day of (nerd alert) a marching band competition, my friends Laura and Amanda and I went out to the movies. The night was full of screaming songs at the top of our longs, our shenanigans, and dancing “interpretive” dance. We planned on seeing Saw 6, but Laura and Amanda were too young and we tried our hardest to “woo” the ticket salesmen, but they wouldn’t sell us tickets. Defeated, but still in high spirits, we then ran to Taco Bell. After eating in a school parking lot, we couldn’t think of anything else to do, so we decided to just head home. I was driving, so I was going to take Amanda home first and then Laura. Before heading off, I stopped and got a Diet Coke from a gas station without a thought of death in my head. There weren’t any street lights and it was nearing midnight. I was going around a curve when suddenly I saw a pair of headlights pointing straight at me. I had no time to react. I was going 50mph and the other car was going about 60mph. I swerved ever so slightly to the left. I remember being jutted forward, hearing the sounds of the windows exploding, the sound of my car being reduced to half its size. And then I woke up. Smoke filled the air and I was disoriented and dizzy. I felt something warm and gooey drip onto my face. Putting my hand up to my head, I pulled it back and all four fingers were covered in blood. Amanda was screaming in the back, crying. Laura said nothing. We called out for Laura, but still she said nothing. I heard my best friend take her last breath that night. I put my hand on her head; I had no clue that she had died already. A man helped Amanda and I out of the car and laid us in the grass, a short distance away from my car that was now in flames. The only thought that was going through my head was that Laura was still in the car. And that’s where she would still be as I swept away in the ambulance. The man that hit us had an alcohol level of three times the legal limit. He had turned the wrong way onto a divided highway. This scar on my eyebrow is the only physical evidence I have of this. I find it unfair that Laura died and I got a measly scar. I’m emotionally scarred; I suffer from post traumatic disorder and I have flashbacks when I smell certain smells: car exhaust, smoke, etc. I see her laying in her casket when I see pictures of her. What kind of world is it when an 18 year old suffers from PTSD? His next hearing is Monday. He’ll probably only get five years in jail.

Laura was robbed of a wonderful life.