Taut
Taut is an adjective that means something is pulled, stretched, or drawn tight with no slack.
I got into a car wreck on sunday, and this was my experience.
It happens quickly, too quickly. You don’t feel pain, don’t feel the impact. You completely lose control when someone hits you from the side. You freeze, can’t think, can’t do anything. You don’t see what happens, just know that suddenly there are airbags, a ringing in your ear. You don’t really believe it happened either. Stunned, almost believing it was a hallucination. Then it hits you all at once. That happened and you could do nothing. They came out of nowhere, t-boned you- and you’re alive… but are they? Did you hurt someone? Can hear voices, muffled at first, before growing clearer. Trying to get out but you can’t. The door is too heavy, or maybe you’re too weak.
Can hear sirens, hear people telling you to wait. Telling you to stop that paramedics are on the way, that they called 911. Can hear the sirens as they get closer and you want to cry but you can’t. Someone arrives and finally helps get the door open. You’re dizzy- shaking, unsteady like a newborn fawn. Try to stand but you can’t and they’re telling you to sit down. You turn and it’s there. The mangled side of your car. It was almost you. That was almost you in that mangled mess. If you had been driving a bit faster, if that car had jumped out a second later you wouldn’t be here you wouldn’t be alive it would have-
All you want is comfort. Want to be held, to be told that it’s okay. Want to be wrapped in arms that would look at you and not the car. Can see a group of people staring, some with their phones out. Recording you like some kind of attraction, like your accident is entertaining. You don’t want to be entertaining. Someone closer asks if there's a number they can call for you, they were the one to tell you to wait, to calm down and sit. They’re kind and you can hear it. You ask for someone, recite the number you know by heart, you’re still freaking out. I want them here, I just want them here. It’s when they don’t pick up that the tears begin to fall. When the kind stranger, who doesn’t know you- doesn’t owe you anything asks if there's another number they can call.
There isn’t, not one you want around you, no one you want to see you like this, frightened, vulnerable, a caged animal. You tell them the number anyway. Hope they’ll answer, that they can call who you wanted to let them know. They don’t pick up either. There's no one else to call. You don’t know their numbers, or they’re thousands of miles away from you- or you simply don’t trust them. Don’t trust them to care. To answer and understand that you need someone.
You don’t hear when their phone is called back, not by who you want, but the second one. Too far away- too lost in your own head to notice them speaking as the paramedic starts to take your vitals. You only know it happened because suddenly they are here and you can smell it. They were drinking, and it’s not long before they’re laughing at you, making fun of you. Turning your trauma into a joke. Later you’d see they turned it into views. Recording it for anyone online to see. You feel dirty, exposed and ripped open.
You should have known they would. No matter how many times you asked them, begged and pleaded to stop recording you, to stop making fun of you. To leave you alone when they were drinking they never listened. Should have known they wouldn’t call someone else, that they’d come anyways even if you had told them not to. You hate that they’ve done this, that you trusted them this one time when you were desperate. That they’ve broken your trust again.
You hate your father and everything he has done. Wish it was your mother who called back instead of him. Wish your brother would take his phone off silent for once. Wish you could trust your friends that live nearby, that you knew the numbers of those who didn’t.
You will not be the same. You will never be the same.
