Driving around proved to be more therapeutic than I believed it would be. I drove all around the town I'd been living in for a little more than a year. Toward the beginning of the trip, I was trying to convince myself to not do what I was ultimately planning to do. I forced myself to think that it was completely necessary and that I wouldn't be able to advance in the path of forgiveness without it. It became blatantly obvious what I had to do.

I made my way toward where the accident had taken place. I knew exactly where it was because I'd taken so many cautions in the past year to avoid it. Now, I wanted to do the exact opposite. It was farther from my apartment than I thought.

I took so many turns just to get to that place. I knew that I was sure of how to get there, but I had no idea how I'd remembered where it was for all of this time. I hadn't been there in so long, but it was as if I had a map of it etched into my brain. How easy it was to make my way there made me think that I was being led there, that it was so essential for me to get there that God was leading me there. It was in an isolated place, on a road with lots of trees surrounding it. Plus, the morning of the accident, it was foggy and hard to see. It felt like I didn't know where I was going, but I was being led there. That was one thing I knew.

The closer I got, the more nervous I became. I was so scared of what would happen when I got to the place. I hoped that, after this, I would feel a lot better. I believed I wouldn't need therapy any longer. I hadn't been to therapy in weeks, but I hoped this drive would mean I no longer would force myself to go. As I came closer to the place of the accident, I knew none of that was even close to true. I would need even more therapy after coming back here and seeing this. I wouldn't be able to get through this and be able to forgive Thomas after seeing this.

I had come this far, and I wasn't going to turn around at this point. I couldn't turn around even if I tried. I wouldn't let myself, and I had to see the site where the accident took place. My foot had taken over, pressing on the gas, and my foot wouldn't let me hit the brakes. My arms wouldn't turn the wheel like I'd asked them to. There was no way I was getting out of this.

I approached the place where the accident took place. As I drove toward it, I had a panic attack. My arms began to shake, I felt lightheaded, and I was nauseous. My body had taken over all of my actions and left my brain in the dust. Soon, my brain decided that, on its break, it would take me to a flashback.

I watched as I sat in the back of my parents' three-row SUV. When I looked outside of the window, all I could see was fog. It wasn't even translucent. The fog showed no mercy to anything outside of the vehicle. It covered all of it up, and I saw nothing. Stubbornly, I tried my best to be able to see out of the windows beside me. Nothing was shown outside of the car, and there was no way I could see anything in front of the car either.

I returned my focus to my father who was driving cautiously, as he always had. I heard a voice come from nowhere, "Dad, are we going in the right direction?" I tried to yell at whoever said that, and I knew it was me who'd said it. That sentence was one I wish I could take back if I could. I screamed to my dad not to look at the map, knowing what was going to happen next.

However, it did no good to scream and waste my breath. I was certain he wouldn't hear me because he never heard me when I had flashbacks, so what would be different during this flashback? Nonetheless, I tried and tried to tell him not to do what he always did next. As he looked at the map, I screamed my lungs out, begging him to hear me, as if changing the flashback could actually reverse what happened in real life. It was arrogant of me to even dream about something like that happening. It was done with, and I couldn't change anything. I could only wish.

I heard my year-younger self scream, my dad looked up, and everything went black.

I thought it was just what was happening in the flashback—that everything got dark. While I hoped this was true, the doctors were telling me otherwise. I was lying in a hospital bed, propped up with a trillion pillows until I was almost sitting. I had to have the doctor explain the story to me more times than they wanted to explain it. I apologized as I asked them to tell it again. It seemed harder and harder to grasp every time it was explained to me.

"You were driving, Miss Cole," the doctor began to say, but stopped there. That didn't give me any explanation. I'd known I was driving. If I hadn't known I was driving, that's what would've caused a problem. Apparently there was a problem now, because I was in the hospital surrounded by nurses and doctors. Did they know what else happened? I couldn't remember anything after I blacked out.

"I'm guessing that there's more to that story?" I asked, prompting the doctor to continue speaking.

"Yes," the doctor said with a sigh. "We believe you passed out while driving or something similar to that, and you crashed into a tree. Do you remember anything from this afternoon?"

"I do," I nodded before trying to think of a way to convey my story to them without them thinking I was insane. "I had a panic attack," I began, but a nurse began to talk before I could continue.

"Do you know what caused the panic attack?" she wondered, and she seemed eager to ask the question. I predicted that she was a new nurse who was learning the ropes of the job. I wanted to smile, but I couldn't put enough pressure on my lips to form the shape.

"I was driving past the site of a car crash for the first time since it happened about a year ago," I told her, hoping they'd understand or that they had seen my medical history. I didn't want to have to explain to them what happened to me. I had told enough people over the past year, and if anyone would already know, it would be a doctor with my file.

"The crash that landed you in the hospital in April of last year? Is that the one you're talking about?" the doctor asked, flipping through the papers on his clipboard before looking me straight in the eyes.

"Yes, that was the crash. It killed my parents and my three brothers, and I thought I was ready to visit the site of the crash, but apparently I wasn't," I paused for a few seconds so I could sigh. "After my panic attack, I had a flashback to when the crash happened. My mind was inside of the flashback while I was still driving, so that must've been when I drove off of the road."

"And that is something similar to being unconscious!" The young nurse exclaimed as if she'd figured out the largest mystery of all time.

"Yes, that must have been what happened," the doctor, whose name I still did not know, told the nurse, whose name I did not know either.

"So, why am I still in the hospital if I feel completely fine? Why am I not able to go home?" I questioned the doctors and nurses. They looked at me as if I'd just told them the craziest thing they could ever imagine. The main doctor looked at me and cleared his throat. He looked down to my feet, them back up to me. I stared at him with a confused look on my face as he took a step closer to me.

"Miss Cole, you're telling me that there's nothing wrong with you?" he wondered and nodded toward the rest of my body, which I hadn't paid any attention to since I'd woken up.

Whenever I glanced down at my body, I saw that my right arm, up to my mid-forearm, was in a cast. Looking down at my legs, I wasn't able to see them because they were covered up by a thick, white hospital blanket. I once again glanced up at the doctor.

"My arm feels fine, and it's already in a cast," I shrugged when looking at him.

"Here are the x-rays of your legs," He showed me x-rays that he had on his clipboard. My legs were broken in many places, but I couldn't feel anything.

"Because my legs are broken, I can't leave? I can get around in a wheelchair for however long I need to," I assured him. He chuckled.

"Miss Cole, we wanted to inform you that we are soon going to do surgery on your legs, making sure they'll be able to heal properly in the casts, and then we'll need to get the casts on your legs. Once they're on, we'd like you to stay the night, just to be sure that you're alright, and tomorrow morning, you may go home," he promised. I nodded thankfully. "We're going to get the surgery done and these casts on your legs as soon as we can. It may be anywhere from ten minutes to an hour until we start. We promise we'll get them on soon." The doctor smiled at me. "Until we're ready to do surgery and put your casts on, I'm going to leave you here alone, if that's fine with you."

"Thank you so much, doctor," I said as he began to walk out of the room. When he was almost to the door, another person sped into the room and past the doctor, about knocking him over. I couldn't help but chuckle. I was finally able to smile, the one thing this boy never failed to make me do.

The person who'd run into the room dropped down at my side by the hospital bed and grabbed my hand. I smiled once again at him as he grasped my hand in his. He admiringly looked up at me with worry and concern in his eyes.

"Devyn, are you alright? What happened? Tell me everything," he demanded. I didn't pay any attention to what he'd said. My only thoughts were about how he knew I was here. I was glad he was, but who told him I was in the hospital?

"Who called you and told you I'm here?" I wondered, completely confused by who told him and why he was told. He was the person I was closest to, but who knew about me being in the hospital, and how did he know?

"Apparently, I'm on your emergency contacts list." He raised an eyebrow at me. "I got a call from the hospital, and I was freaked out by it!"

I suddenly remembered putting him in my emergency contacts without telling him. I apologized, "I'm sorry I forgot to tell you about that. It's just that you're the person I'm closest to, since my family's not around anymore. I don't know who else I'd put on that list. I had to put you there since you're the one I'd want to be here if something happened to me, just like what happened today."

"Well, I'm glad it's me who's on that list and not a distant cousin that you haven't seen in seven years." He smiled. "But now tell me: what happened to you that landed you in the hospital?"

I sighed and thought for a minute before I started to talk. I didn't want to tell him everything. He thought I was taking my medication again, so I didn't want him to know that I wasn't. I began to tell him about what happened right after he left.

"I was thinking about helping you unpack as I walked past your apartment, but I decided against it. Now, I know I really should've helped you." I chuckled and continued, "I was out driving, like I had told you I was going to be. It was obvious that I needed to get out of my apartment, even if I was just taking a short trip in my car. The entire motive behind going for a drive was, as I figured out, going to where the accident occurred. I thought that it would be a good idea to visit the site of the accident for the first time since it happened. The doctors told me they think I passed out, and I crashed into a tree. I broke both of my legs in multiple places, and I obviously did something to my hand, but I don't know what I did exactly. I haven't been told much detail."

Jackson stared at me for a minute as I watched tears well up in his eyes. He held them back, however, as he tried to be tough. "You lied to me." He scooted slowly and uncomfortably away from me.

"What do you mean?" This was a question I didn't need to ask, but I wasn't ready to admit to his accusation yet. He knew what was going on, but I couldn't confirm his suspicions.

"You didn't start taking your meds again, and I know it. I know you, and I'm one hundred percent sure that you had a panic attack while driving and that you had a flashback, which made you wreck." He shook his head from side to side in disbelief. He wasn't able to comprehend why I'd lied to him. I wasn't completely sure either, so I started to cry. "Why haven't you been taking your medication, Dev?"

"I feel powerless when I take the pills, but I don't really know why. They help me control my panic attacks, but I still feel like I'm not in control. They are the things that control me when I take them. If I don't take them, I am the one controlling myself and my thoughts," I told him between hiccups from crying.

"Devyn, you don't need to cry. Please don't cry," he begged. I knew he never liked watching me cry. I never liked crying in front of people, but I always felt comfortable crying in front of Jackson, and I could never understand why.

"I'm sorry," I apologized, hiccupping even more as I tried to stop the tears from flowing. Jackson reached over and rubbed his thumb under each of my eyes to rid them of the tears. He shook his head, as if to dismiss my apology.

"I need you to start taking your medication again. You may feel powerless when you take them, but you can't control your panic attacks by yourself. Think of them as helpers in order to keep your panic attacks at a minimum. From now on, I'll be sure that you take them every time you're supposed to. I'm hoping this was a wake-up call for you. You could've gotten hurt even worse, and I don't know what I would've done if my best friend would've died if it was something I could've prevented. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if you died when you crashed. You were lucky, even if you don't think you are. You could've left the accident in a lot worse shape. I'm so glad you're alright." He began crying himself, something I didn't see often.

Jackson hugged me, and I did my best to hug him back because of the bed restraining me as well as not being able to move my legs much. I comforted him, assuring him that I would start taking my medication again, and I really meant it this time. He was right, and this was a wake-up call for me.

"So how bad is this?" hquestioned and pointed to my arm and legs.

"I'm not sure exactly about my hand, maybe something with my wrist, but I know that I broke both of my legs in several places. They have to do surgery sometime soon before putting the casts on. I don't know for how long, but I'll have to get around in a wheelchair for a while," I explained.

"That'll be fun," Jackson said sarcastically while rolling his eyes. He began to chuckle.

"I can't wait." I copied his actions and laughed with him after I'd done so.

As we were laughing, I saw the door to my room open behind Jackson. The doctor walked in through the door and made his way over toward me. I smiled up at him until he looked down at Jackson and looked back at me.

"I'm sorry, Miss Cole, but your boyfriend has to leave," he told me. This one sentence stopped me from saying anything. I was going to correct him, but the tone of his voice stopped me, forced me to be unable to speak. I just stared at him and nodded. Luckily, Jackson jumped into the conversation and made his presence as a human being known.

"I don't mean to be rude, Doctor, but I am a person, and you can talk to me. You don't have to talk through Devyn to tell me to leave," Jackson sighed and began to walk out of the room. I gasped at the way he'd spoken to the doctor, but I had to hold in a laugh at the same time. Once he was out, I watched him peek his head back in and add, "And plus, I'm only a friend." He shot me a quick and small smile before walking out of the room for good.

"I'm sorry about that," the doctor apologized automatically, not meaning anything by the apology at all. I rolled my eyes without letting him see before he continued.

"We're taking you into surgery now. We'll tell your 'just a friend' that you won't be able to have visitors anymore today. You'll need your rest tonight after the surgery this evening. He can pick you up tomorrow, but he isn't allowed in the room before that, and I will make sure the nurses know that." The doctor made it extremely clear that Jackson couldn't talk to me until tomorrow morning.

"Do you have something against visitors?" I wondered, wanting to know why he was being very rude all of a sudden.

"Only when they get in my way or waste my time," he sighed audibly before getting some nurses to help roll my bed toward the operating room where they'd perform the surgery.