Emergency | Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 9:13 p.m.

Two headlights in my left periphery. No time to react. An almost instantaneous blow, vehicle against vehicle. And then it all went black.

Or did it? I couldn’t remember. Time passed, I thought.

How long?

Was that someone screaming? She’s screaming at me. I raised my head and looked over at her. She asked if I was okay. I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know.

What I did know was that my front tooth had been knocked out. Cool air filled the gap that once held what I now felt laying on my tongue. It seemed much smaller than a front tooth should.

Who was that beside me, talking through the window?

“Ma’am, can you hear me?” someone asked. “Are you okay?

I lifted my head to answer him.

I don’t know, I wanted to say, but nothing came out. I didn’t know if I was okay, but my mouth wouldn’t form words. My brain wouldn’t let my voice respond. Why couldn’t I talk?

“Ma’am?”

Jagged pieces of something white were coming out of my leg. Or was it my foot?

I saw it, even from the twisted angle of my seat. Bones coming through skin. Blood. Oh my God.

I knew there had been an accident that warm July evening. I knew I was driving. And I knew my front tooth was gone.

The girls. I had three members of the high school dance team I coached in the car with me. Were they okay?

“Who is this?” the voice outside the car asked.

Jorden answered behind me.

“That’s Aimee Young. She’s a teacher at Loudonville High School,” she screamed. “She’s had a heart attack before!”

She sounded frantic, but somehow I felt relief.

Where was Emily? She had been right beside me in the front passenger seat, but she wasn’t now. And what about Sarah? She was sitting behind Emily. Did she get out okay?

Two silhouettes. One beside me, the other behind him. They wanted to free me from the wreckage. Two arms reached inside my window, and I tried to move my body to help, twisting my left shoulder toward whoever was at the open window.

And then I heard a voice from inside the car.

“Stop moving or you are going to die.”

Who was it? Who said that?

I stopped moving.

I understood.

This was bad. Really bad.

They lifted me out of the wreckage and onto some kind of board. A large, white sheet was draped over the back window where Jorden had been.

Was she out of the car, too? Or were they going to get her?

Flat on my back. The night sky. A zillion stars. A head moved over my face like a shadow. Kenny, once my husband of eighteen years but now my ex-husband of one month.

What’s he doing here? How did he know?

“Aimee, you’ll be okay,” he said. “I love you.”

We had known each other since we were both seventeen, and his voice was familiar and comforting, but I couldn’t answer him. I still couldn’t speak. If he was saying I’d be okay, I must have looked okay. Did he see that my front tooth was missing? And just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone.

They were wheeling me somewhere, but I didn’t know where I was. Inside? A hallway? Everything was happening so quickly—a hospital? Someone leaned in and told me she loved me. Natalie. She was in another car—behind us? Had she seen it happen? I thought she was crying.

They were moving me again, through doors—outside? A heli-copter was there—for me? It was so loud. And maybe the back was open. That was where they were taking me? They pushed me in, still lying flat, and immediately I sensed that we had lifted off. But wait—was the back still open? What if I fell out?

Then everything went black.