Now that I’ve finally started talking about it, I can’t stop.
“Believe it or not, the truck driver wasn’t hurt at all—even though his cab slammed into the cliff and the nose of his big rig crumpled like something in a cartoon. He was the one who called 9-1-1.
“While we waited for the police to show up, he kept circling close to me, kept telling me he was so sorry and how he hadn’t seen us coming.
“The state police came. And then an ambulance. Fire trucks. I remember the flares and lots of swirling, flashing lights. The paramedics told me not to move. To keep my head perfectly still. That’s when I realized I couldn’t move. At least, not my legs.
“While they were working on me, steadying my head, moving me to the backboard, I kept asking people, ‘Where’s my sister? You have to find my sister.’ ”
Cool Girl is kneeling beside me now. She wraps her arms around me and holds me tight. “I’m here,” she says. “I’m right here.”
“They told me to calm down. Not to move. I was flat on my back, and the raindrops kept falling straight down at me. ‘Where’s Jenny?’ I kept asking. Finally, a police officer in a Smokey Bear hat all wrapped in wet plastic leaned in and told me, ‘She didn’t make it, son.’ That’s when I blacked out, I think. I don’t remember anything else. Except for the rain. It kept falling into my eyes, washing away my tears.”
Cool Girl squeezes me harder. She holds me like she’ll never let me go. She holds me like I’ve needed to be held since that horrible night out on the side of Storm King Mountain.
She’s crying for me, I guess.
I’m crying for my mom and dad, and for my little sister, Jenny.