Leaves covered the ground beneath my feet. Bright oranges and dull browns. I knew my grandmother would be upset with me after school, but I couldn’t be in a car right now. Not today, not now. It was only a fifteen minute walk from home to school, and I had exactly twelve minutes to get there.
Leaves crunched underneath my boot-covered toes, my backpack heavy on my shoulders. The wind whipped my face, the cold hugging my ears. My phone buzzed in my pocket.
“Ainsley, I know this is tough for you but you’ve got to get through it. I’ll pick you up after school. Love you.” My grandmother’s recorded voice repeated.
  I started to walk faster so that I could get to school on time. The wind was slapping my face. I wrapped my coat around me tighter but to no avail, the wind still chilled my body.
I watched car after car drive past me. A blue van with stickers of a large family, a yellow sports car, which seemed out of place in my quiet neighborhood, green and silver cars driving on their ways to work, school, to their lives. Bitter thoughts filled my mind. Thoughts that my parents would never be able to drive to work again. They would never even see sunlight, or the leaves changing color.
My speed walking had quickened my pace, giving me three more minutes as I neared the school. A red car came into my vision. My heart thumped in my chest. Red cars were the enemy. They were horrible, terrible things.
As I walked across the road the cars lights turned on, and the car zoomed towards me. I stood in the middle of the street, watching the car drive way too fast in a school zone.
Forgetting my shock, I ran the rest of the way, just as the car sped over the leaves behind my feet.
“Are you alright?” Mrs. Chad asked. I sat down in the corner of the room where my desk sat. “Ainsley?”
I was definitely winded from the long walk to school, and the upcoming panic attack was not helping my case.
“Brooke, go get someone from the office!”
“No! No, I’m fine!” I heaved. My throat was closing and my head was spinning. It was obvious I wasn’t alright. I looked out the classroom window, searching for the bright red car that had nearly run me over.
I wanted to cry. This was not my day. It hadn’t been for the last four years. “Ainsley, you nearly passed out. You are clearly not alright!” Mrs. Chad shouted. The students in the classroom looked over at me warily. They were scared and nervous.
Join the club, I thought bitterly.
“Dear, can you tell me what happened?”
I couldn’t catch my breath as I heard her words. The last thing I wanted to do was tell her the reason for my panic attack.
“A car. It came out of no where. It almost ran me over,” I whispered.
“Did you see a color? Or even a license plate number?” Mrs. Chad pressed.
“It was red. That’s all I saw.” I decided not to tell her about the large dent in the front headlight, nor the man wearing large sunglasses on a very overcast day, in the driver's seat.
Mrs. Chad sighed but nodded her head. “I’ll alert the principal. Why don’t you go out and get a drink.”
I flashed out of my seat, trying to avoid the eyes of my prying classmates. I quickly walked out of the classroom and down the hall.
This was going to be one long day.

I clutched the handle of my backpack as I waited for my grandmother to pull up in front of the school. I stared at the light tan ground below me. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes.
The short horn of my grandma’s car filled the air, causing my heart to jump.
“Hi sweetie, how was your day?” She asked. But after one look at my panic-stricken face, she understood. “Ainsley, it’s been four years. You can’t not ride in the car just today!”
My grandma was sympathetic to my problems, but she was never one with a lot of patience.
I slowly stepped into the car, closing my eyes and counting to fourteen in my head.
My hand reached over to the radio slowly, as if I was reaching through a marshmallow. My heart jumped as she pulled away from the curb and into the spiralling traffic. I kept my eyes slightly closed as we drove. I kept my thoughts focused on my breathing, for I feared if I didn’t, I would forget how.
As my grandma turned the car onto the road leading to the grocery store, I saw a car. A silver car driving quickly in our direction. I screamed, letting my grandma know in a not so efficient way. She looked at me in shock, then in the direction I was looking. She screamed and swerved just as the silver car collided with both our car and a green station wagon.
I wanted to scream when the car shook again. My grandma yelped and place a hand over my seat. She looked at me in fear and I could tell she remembered.  I couldn’t help but think I was going to die. The movement of the car frightened me, reminded me of the terrible memory of four years ago.
I don’t know how long it had been before the shaking finally stopped, yet my heart wouldn’t stop trying to jump out of my chest. This feeling was familiar. I’d felt it four years ago.
“Ainsley? Are you alright?” My grandma’s strangled voice rang out. The last thing I wanted to do was reply. I wanted to curl into a ball until I could fall asleep.
The soft wail of sirens sounded in the distance. How long had we been here? I looked up at my grandmother, watching the tears run down her cheeks. I looked outside the car to inspect the damage. I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw we were at the better end of the accident.
I couldn’t help the image of a car spiraling on the ground, its wheels out of control, from running through my mind. An image of my parents being loaded into an ambulance, of them being taken away from me for the last time. I wanted to stay in our car. I wanted to cry until I dried out, when I heard a sob that was not my own.
A girl, no younger than six, was being loaded into an ambulance. A couple stood, hugging onto each other, watching the girl being taken away.
At ten years old, I lost the rocks in my life. This couple was me; the little girl, my parents. I couldn’t allow them to lose someone they loved, just as I had.
Without thinking, I undid my buckle and ran towards the couple. I heard my grandma shouting after me but I didn’t care. Of course they looked nothing like my parents, with blonde hair and blue eyes, but I felt connected to them. They were in a similar situation as I had been, four years ago on this day.
“Is she going to be alright?” I asked, tears rushing down my face. The couple looked at me in shock and pity. The man sniffled slightly before nodding.
“They said she’ll be fine. Just a little scratched up.”
I couldn’t help myself as I ran up to them and flung my arms around their torsos. They stiffened before accepting my embrace.
“She’s going to be okay,” I whispered.

I knew my grandma though my request was insane. But I knew it was what I had to do.
I looked into the little girl's hospital room, watching as she laughed at something her father had said. I knocked quietly on the door.
“Oh, come in! Come in! Abby this is Ainsley. Ainsley, this is Abby.” Mrs. Winchester announced. I smiled at the woman I had gotten to know while my grandma sorted things out with the police and the person who caused the accident.
“Hi,” Abby mumbled, suddenly shy. Her blonde curls that matched her parents’ were shaken up, falling in loose waves around her face. Her bright blue eyes stared up at me in wonder and with slight fear.
“Hi, how’re you feeling?” I asked. I didn’t want to crowd her like I had been.
“Good, the doctor said I can go home soon.” She said with a trace of a lisp. I smiled and watched her parents smile at their daughter.
“Abby, your father and I have to go sign some paperwork. Why don’t you stay with Ainsley for a while?” Mrs. Winchester proposed. Abby and I nodded while her parents left the room.
“Want to play a game?” I asked, pulling out my phone. She nodded my head so I pulled up “The Game of Life,” so that the both of us could play.
Abby and I laughed and played together as we went through college and marriage.
Suddenly Abby asked, “Why did you come see me?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t even know me. But you’re playing a game with me, why?”
“I came because I was in the accident today too. I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
“But why? You could’ve just left. You didn’t need to come.” I realized then that Abby was one smart six year old.
“That’s true. But honestly, I just wanted to meet you.”
“Well thanks then. I really like hanging out with you.” She smiled again and went back to playing our game.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what she said. I could’ve just left, yet I felt the need to see if she was alright or not.
We were halfway to retirement when her parents came back in with the release forms.
“Thank you so much Ainsley,” Mr. Winchester said.
“Don’t worry about it, we had fun.”
“Hey mommy, can I play with Ainsley another time?” Abby pleaded.
“I’m sure we could work something out,” Mrs. Winchester smiled.
It was almost a bittersweet moment as I watched Abby and her parents walk down the hall. Part of me thought it was unfair. Why should she get to leave when four years ago I lost my parents to this dreadful place? I shook my head, trying to get rid of those insanely rude and stupid thoughts.
It was almost seven when I finally reached the doors of the hospital. I found my grandma sitting in the car, bobbing her head to a song by someone most likely dead.
“How’d it go?” She asked, turning down Hey Jude. The Beatles, figures.
“Good, she’s okay. She got to leave actually.”
“That’s wonderful,” she said as we pulled out of the parking lot and out onto the road.
The thoughts running through my mind baffled me. I was happy for Abby and her parents, though still upset, and maybe even a little jealous. But that’s not what my parents would’ve wanted. For me to be bitter and jealous, isn’t what they died for.
“Well, that was one long day. Are you thinking about them?” My grandma asked, placing a hand on my knee.
“Yeah, I am.” I was thinking about the way they laughed and the time we went to the Apple Orchard down the street. For the first time, I wasn’t thinking about how they’ll never be able to go again.
My grandma looked over at me sympathetically, “Don’t worry, pumpkin, you’ll be okay.”
And for the first time in four years, I thought so too.