By the time that I realise we’re crashing, the car is rolling down the side of a long grass bank. I scream, but the noise is lost in the screeching of brakes. Hard thumps sound above me as the car bangs into trees and asphalt and the hard grass bank. I’m strapped in – for the first time, glad that my mother is so insistent about wearing seatbelts – and I’m tethered to my seat as the car bashes and rolls.
It’s dark and the light of car headlights flashes all around me, from our own car and the cars in the road above. The turmoil feels like it lasts both a lifetime and no time at all. Suddenly, the car stops moving. I scream again, and this time I can hear it. With a final crash, we are wedged up against a few sturdy trees, the car tipped slightly towards one side.
For a second, everything is still.
It takes a second for me to come down to reality. In the front seat, my mum is groaning, and on the driver’s side, my dad sounds like he’s trying to form words. I can’t even understand if they are real words, let alone decipher what it is that he’s trying to say. Maybe I’m panicking too powerfully.
I close my eyes and force myself to take a deep breath. I realise that screams are still tumbling out of my mouth and finally I shut them back in. I can hear my dad better now, I’m on the cusp of understanding him…
“Phone,” he manages to gurgle, and I finally get it.
Where is my phone? I pat both my pockets, but it isn’t there. Slowly, agonisingly, I manage to lift my head from where it’s resting on my own chest. I blink hard, once, twice, trying to pay attention to my surroundings. It’s dark, and I can’t see much, but I can just about see the back seat beside me. I try to calm myself, closing my eyes for a brief second, praying that when I open them, my phone will be within reach. No luck, however. When I open my eyes again, I look back at the seat – but no phone. Nothing.
I breathe out, feeling somewhere between anger and panic. I don’t know what to do. My mum is still groaning somewhere nearby. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do…
Then I see it, and my heart leaps. Resting on the side of the footwell by the other back seat, I can see a vague glint that has to be the screen of my phone.
I can’t hear my mum now.
I push that thought out of my mind and, after a brief hesitation, unclip my seatbelt. The car can’t roll any more, surely? I push that out of my mind too as I tentatively try and shuffle slightly upwards, over towards the other seat. I can feel on my chest already where the seatbelt has bruised me. Luckily, it doesn’t feel like anything’s broken. I’m aching, definitely, but not like anything is badly wrong.
Finally I reach the other seat, moving slowly and carefully in order not to unbalance the car. I don’t know if that’s scientifically possible, but I feel like I would rather be over-cautious than dead.
I lean down, though at this angle I can’t quite see the glint of a screen that I thought I saw a moment ago. I pray that it’s just the light; if I can’t find the phone here, I don’t know how we’re supposed to get out of this.
But to my intense relief, I only have to rummage for a moment before my hand connects with the cold screen of my phone. I grab it, forgetting about being slow and careful, and pull it up to my ear. My hand is shaking as I dial 999.
A calm operator answers me and I feel instantly soothed, instantly a little unburdened, to have a human listening to me as I tell them what’s happened. The voice on the other end stays composed, collected, and tells me that people are on their way. I believe her. I trust her.
But I don’t tell her the reason that we crashed.