Chapter Nine: Bitter Antiseptic
Sophia Crawford

“How was your day?” My grandmother asks as I climbed into her car.

I throw my schoolbag on the backseat and pull the seatbelt over my body, ignoring the knots around my stomach from having to be in a car again.

I thought that driving in a car would be easier seeing that a few months has passed since the accident, but I was wrong—it doesn’t get easier, at all.

When I’m inside a car and it rains, the image of what happened that night would play inside my mind, on and on again: the rain, Daniel yelling for me to watch out, the car swerving, the headlights of the oncoming car… I see everything when I’m inside any car, but it’s ten times worse when I’m behind the wheel. And that’s why I made a promise to myself that I would never drive a car ever again. I won’t allow myself to drive ever again, either.

I won’t endanger someone else’s life again.

I shrug at her. “It was fine,” I tell her, “there’s not very much to tell, really.”

The silence inside the car was deafening, and the atmosphere in the car shifts drastically and almost immediately and it was then when I realised that my grandmother was about to tell me something I might not be happy with, and when I turned my head to look at her, sure enough, she had a deep frown between her eyebrows as if she was contemplating something. Her hands were also very restless—they kept tapping the steering wheel.

“Spit it out, Grandma.”

She sighs, deeply. “Your father called.” She says. “He asked me how you were doing and if you are coping with the new school. I think you sho—”

“Stop right there,” I practically beg her, “please.”

“Sophia… Your father—”

“No.” I shake my head. “He wouldn’t just call to ask how I am doing.” I ball my hands into tight fists, trying to compose myself before say something I might regret. “My own mother disowned me and dad just stood there and watched without saying or doing anything to stop her…”

Tears stained the bottom of my eyelids and I wipe them away.

“He’s just as guilty for letting something like that happen, Grandma.” I shake my head.

“Sophia…”

“He did nothing to stop my mother from throwing me out of the house after the accident that took Daniel’s life.”

She was trying to stop the tears from flowing too, but it was too late. Her tears were running down her cheeks, and her sniffles were loud in the car.

“My parents hated me before the accident and they hated me even more after, Grandma.” I tell her. “And I know he’s your son and you love him, but he just watched my mom when she kept calling me ‘murderer’ every chance she got. He even helped me pack my own bags to get me out of the house faster. He didn’t even try to stop my mother from throwing me out.”

My grandmother sighs in defeat. “Your father doesn’t hate you, Sophia.”

“He does.” I nod. “They do. I killed Daniel. How can they not hate me?”

“It was an accident.”

“It was an accident I could have prevented if I just looked at the road while I was driving,” I swallow hard and felt the warm tears running down my cheeks, “but I didn’t focus like I should have, and when the car swerved on the wet road and hit another car, I killed him. If I didn’t look away from the road, Daniel would still be alive, but even if he did survive the accident, nothing would have stopped my parents from still hating me, because they’ve always hated me, especially my mother—my own flesh and blood.”

I inhale deeply, feeling the first of the tears start to stream down my face.

“She always had this hatred toward me.” I continue. “It was a hatred I never really quite understood. Until now. I was a failure to her. She didn’t want a daughter who failed her classes. She didn’t want a daughter who didn’t get along with other people, and she sure as hell didn’t want a daughter who killed her own boyfriend. To her, I was always a failure. I couldn’t do anything right. She wanted the perfect daughter with the perfect grades, but she got me instead. She doesn’t want me.”

“Your mother is an asshole, Sophia.”

I couldn’t find the strength to chuckle. If anything, it made me cry even more, because it was the truth: my mother is an asshole. There aren’t any good words to describe her, because there wasn’t anything good about her.

“After the accident, and before my parents sent me to come live with you, my mother never gave me a chance to really recover from losing Daniel.” I tell her. “My mother was always there, reminding me of how stupid and reckless I was for looking away from the road.”

I pause, only for a few beats before I continued. “My mother always found a way for me to remember the accident when all I wanted to do was forget that awful night. She always made me remember because she never wanted me to be happy. She never wanted me to recover from his death. She told me that I didn’t deserve to be happy after I murdered Daniel. That was one thing we could actually agree on. I don’t deserve to be happy ever again.”

“The accident wasn’t your fault.” My grandmother says, looking at me with tears in her eyes. “It’s a shame that it took Daniel’s life, yes, and that you’re now living with the guilt because of it, but Sophia, there is something you need to realise…accidents happen, and they’re inevitable. Yes, you might have looked away from the road to kiss him, but it was raining and the road was slippery. The accident could’ve happened either way.”

I close my eyes when I started to remember the accident again.

The rain. The headlights. The car swerving on the slippery road. Our car colliding with the oncoming one. Daniel’s groans. The blood. Oh, the blood. There was so much blood, but I still, to this day, don’t know whose it was, but seeing that Daniel was the one who died, I now realise that it was his.

The damage to my cheek and leg were painful, but they weren’t as painful as the gaping hole Daniel’s death left in my heart. There’s no physical pain in the entire world I could ever feel that could ever overtake losing Daniel.

Losing someone who was close to you is the most painful thing to ever feel.

“I would have been able to live with myself if the car swerved on its own on the slippery road, but I looked away from the road. The car swerved because of me, so the accident was my fault. It was my fault and everyone hates me because of it. And do you want to know what the funny part is?” I look at my grandmother. “I don’t even blame my own mother for hating me, because I hate myself too. And the only reason you don’t hate me too is because you feel bad for me, but don’t feel bad, Grandma. I don’t deserve to feel love after everything I did. I don’t deserve to feel anyone’s pity.”

I was grateful for Daniel because he made me feel more love in those years we were together than I’ve ever felt in my entire life, but now that he’s gone, I don’t deserve to feel love ever again. I don’t deserve pity for being reckless.

“I need to be resented, despised and hated for what I did to Daniel.”

My grandmother doesn’t say anything.

She didn’t really have to because silence was also an answer.

I look out of the window as we were driving home.

There were thick, dark clouds covering the sky and a lightning bolt flashed in the distance, telling me that the rain was almost upon us. My stomach twists itself into a million knots, and I immediately feel sick to the stomach.

I wipe the warm tears away with both my hands.

• • •

The drive home was silent.

The only sounds were coming from outside—the rain pitter-pattering against the roof of my grandmother’s car, and the thunder’s rumble.

I didn’t realise that my fingernails were digging into the heels of my palms, and when I turned my hands around, there they were: the crescent shaped marks of my fingernails imprinted into the heels of my palms.

There was no blood, though, only the marks my nails left behind.

My hands were shaking violently in my lap and my heart threatened to beat itself out of my own ribcage.

Thunder rumbled again in the distance, making me close my eyes tightly.

I waited for the headlights. I waited for the car to swerve.

I waited for the head-on crash that took Daniel’s life from me.

But it never came.

And when I opened my eyes again, we were already home.

My grandmother parks the car inside the garage, out of the pouring rain.

Her hand pauses on the keys still in the ignition when she turned to look at me. “Sophia, I didn’t mean to upset you earlier. I just wanted you to know that your father cares about you. He loves you. He wants to talk to you…” She sighs, her warm breath fogging the windows inside the car. “I’m sorry.”

I take her hand in mine and give it a squeeze.

The strength to fight with her has left me. It was, after all, not her fault. It was my dad’s for trying to reach out after months of not reaching out at all. She doesn’t deserve to be in the middle of my family’s affairs, but I think she realised that I will never be able to rekindle the relationship with my parents—my own mother doesn’t want me and my father just doesn’t care.

“I know,” I smile at her, “but I would appreciate it if we don’t talk about them again. They’re out of my life because they left it first and they never really wanted to be in it anyways, but I don’t blame you at all. I never did.”

“Sophia…Your father really wants to make amends…”

“Please, Grandma.” I beg her once more. “If my dad really wanted to reach out to me, he would have messaged me. He wouldn’t have called you.”

“He says he did,” my grandmother says, “but your phone has been off.”

It’s not off. I wanted to tell her. I just never really make an effort to unlock it.

“Please, I don’t want to talk about him anymore… Please understand.”

“Okay,” she says softly, “let’s get out of this car and out of this rain, then. I’ll make us some nice cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows on top.”

I nod, grabbing my school bag from the backseat and getting out of the car.

Once we were inside the house, my grandmother makes a beeline toward the kitchen and starts the stove for the boiling water, and takes out two cups out of the cupboard for the hot chocolate.

“I have something to ask you…” I lean against the wall of the kitchen. “There’s this party next week Friday.” I smile hopefully at her. “Can I go?”

My grandmother gives me a look. “You know how I feel about parties.”

“I know,” I nod, “but it’s Ana and Cole’s party and they’re my friends.” She opens her mouth to say something, but I beat her to it. “You’re the one who said that I needed to go out and make friends… that’s exactly what I did.”

My grandmother purses her lips and nods. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

“So…?”

A few seconds of silence passes when she finally nods. “Yes. You can go.”

I grin widely. “Thank you, Grandma!”

“The only reason I’m letting you go is because I want you to forgive me.”

“You did nothing wrong, Grandma.” I tell her. “You don’t need to be forgiven.” I walk over to the table and sit down on the chair behind it. “You’re not the one who upset me, anyways. It was Dad. He watched as my mother forced me out of the house and he didn’t do anything to stop it. And the fact that he wants to reconnect with me…it just kind of threw me off guard. And I don’t know if want to forgive him.”

“If I were in your shoes, I don’t think I would’ve forgiven him, either.” She says honestly. “But everyone deserves a second chance at least, Sophia, even fathers who make shitty mistakes.”

There’s a fine line between dads who make shitty mistakes and dads who are just plain shitty, and my dear father was standing in the middle of that line—he didn’t know on which side of that line he wanted to be on yet, and I have a good feeling that my dear mother has a big role in that decision.

• • •

The throbbing pulse of rain could be heard from my bedroom window, and when I glanced out of my window, the clouds were very dark, telling me that the rain wasn’t going to stop any time soon.

My pillow was clutched against my chest and my chin was propped onto it.

I couldn’t stare at the weather outside anymore so I turned around to stare at my beige and boring walls—I haven’t moved out of my position since.

My phone was lying on the wooden nightstand before I reached for it. I haven’t unlocked my phone in months, and as I was staring at the black screen, I contemplated whether or not I wanted to unlock it.

I was afraid of what I would find the second I would unlock it.

It was such a small and easy task: press the unlock button on the side of my phone and unlock it, but even such an easy task brought me so much anxiety. My hand was shaking around my phone and my heart was racing.

“In and out, Sophia.” I chant.

The first thing I see when I gathered enough strength to unlock my phone is my wallpaper of Daniel smiling widely. His hair was untidy and all over the place. A lock of his brown hair had fallen over his forehead, and even now, just staring at the picture of him after all these months, I wanted to run my fingers through his hair just to make it look like it always did—slicked-back.

When I first met Daniel, it wasn’t his devastatingly good looks that captured my attention: it was his restless energy and his captivating presence. Daniel was fun to be around and he would always make a bad day bearable again with his jokes, but then again I never had bad days when I was with Daniel.

Whenever he was around, my day was instantly better.

When I first laid eyes on Daniel Oakley, I knew deep down that he was going to be my first love, and I was right, he was my first love. He was the first person who has ever told me that he loved me, and vice versa. I did, however tell my teddy named Roscoe that I loved him too when I was like three years old, but I didn’t love Roscoe as much as I loved Daniel. Daniel was my first and true love, and he will always be my first, true love.

As I started to scroll through the pictures I had in my gallery, ignoring the multiple messages I have received over the past five months in the process, I realised that I had to treasure the memories—keep them safe at all costs.

I didn’t have a memory card where I could store the pictures on and I also didn’t have a laptop to make copies of them, so if I lost any of these pictures, I would lose everything because it’s the only thing other than the ring he used to propose to me with that night that I have left of him.

I already lost a really big piece of him once, I won’t lose another.

I find a specific photo and trace my thumb over it. It was a photo of him holding the first fish he has ever caught in both of his hands. He had the biggest grin on his face and I swear his eyes were filled with pride and joy.

“Sophia, look!” He yells. “I did it. I caught one!” He ran towards me with the slimy fish in his hands. It nearly slipped through his grasp a few times as he ran over to me, but he swore he wouldn’t drop the very first fish he has ever caught in his life.

He stopped once for a photo, and then he started to run towards me with it again.

I, on the other hand, ran away as fast as I could. “Get that slimy thing away from me!” I squealed when he caught up to me. “I don’t want that slime over my new outfit.”

Daniel found it hilarious that I was so afraid of the fish, but he respected my wishes, and threw the fish back into the lake where it belonged.

He kissed me under the moonlight to make it up to me and held me without letting go. If I knew that time that the accident would happen, I would never have left the lake. I would’ve stayed with him under the stars forever.

The next picture, the one right after the fish one, was the one where we were lying underneath the moonlight with a warm fire illuminating both our features.

I smile at the memory.

I’d do absolutely anything, as weird as it sounds, for Daniel to chase me with that damn fish one more time. Instead of running away from the fish and its weird teeth and eyes, I would’ve savoured the memory, instead.

“Sophia!” My grandmother yells from downstairs. “Can you come down for a second?”

I wipe the tears that started to roll down my cheeks with the sleeve of my cardigan and place my phone back onto the nightstand. “Coming, Grandma!”

“I’m not in the mood to cook tonight,” she says when I joined her in the living room, “do you want to order some pizza?”

“Yes!” I practically salivated at the idea of greasy pizza with bacon and delicious cheese. “But on one condition though…”

“What?” She eyes me carefully.

“You have to do the ordering.”

She sighs in defeat. “You know I don’t like talking over the phone, but if it means that I’ll be able to spend some time with my granddaughter, then so be it. Go get the phone.”

I smile. “You can’t be afraid of talking over the phone forever.”

“That’s easy for you youngsters to say.” She huffs, shaking her head. “Those cellular devices are practically glued onto your fingers.”

I laugh and grab the phone lying on the coffee table for her.

• • •

“I can’t remember ever crying so much for a damn movie before.” She says, wiping her nose with one of forty tissues she had on the couch beside her.

I nod and had to refrain myself from telling her that I have watched the same movie twenty times before and but the tissues still lay bundled up on my lap underneath the small pizza box.

I have not yet mastered the art of holding in my tears when the sad scenes came up, even though I have watched this movie a million times before.

“Well,” she gently slaps her lap and gets up from the couch, “I had fun, but it’s still a school night and you are a good ten minutes over your curfew, young lady.”

“I wouldn’t have been ten minutes over if you weren’t on the phone for too long.” I eye her with my eyebrow raised. “So you are the one at fault here.”

“At least I got the order right!” She defends.

I nod, gathering all the tissues and the two pizza boxes before throwing them in the trashcan in the kitchen.

“Goodnight, Grandma.” I smile at her when I return from the kitchen.

“Goodnight, sweetie.”

When I enter my room, I frown.

There was something I had to do before I headed for bed, and when I glanced at the container sitting on my desk, realisation hit me like a truck: I completely forgot about the caterpillar I had to take care of.

I run towards my desk and open the lid of the container.

I prepare for the worst.

I only breathe again when the caterpillar moves a tiny inch.

I release a relieved breath and close the lid again.

“You scared me there, little one.”

It has food for the entire night, but tomorrow the real work has to begin: making the habitat with my partner.

• • •

I wake up in a hospital. I know it was a hospital because of the sounds around me. There were alarms and beeps coming from the side of my bed. It was a heart monitor and the beeping wasn’t the only thing that told me I was in a hospital.

It was the smells too.

The air around me smelled like antiseptic. It was very bitter.

I scrunch up my nose at the smell when it burned the back of my throat.

The hospital room was bland too.

The walls were painted white and everything else was white too. The room was minimally decorated with basic furniture and there were various beeping machines all around me. There was a standard blanket sheet draped over my body and a sheet for extra warmth.

There was an IV hooked into my arm.

Definitely a hospital.

“Daniel?” I ask, but the words come out weird.

A nurse in about her early thirties comes into my room, smiling sadly when she noticed that I was awake and searching for Daniel.

“W-where’s Daniel?” I ask her, feeling my throat burn as the words leave my mouth. My throat was so groggy—I needed water to ease the scratch.

I lift my hand to touch my dry lips when I feel a bandage on the left side of my cheek.

“Don’t try to move, dear. You’ve been in a terrible accident—”

“Where’s Daniel?” I ask again, feeling panic bubble up inside me the longer she didn’t answer my question.

She comes over to the side of my bed and smiles sadly at me yet again.

She didn’t have to tell me what happened because the answer I was looking for was painted across her face — in her sad smile.

“I’m sorry, but Mr Oakley passed away in the ambulance. He passed away right when the ambulance arrived at the hospital. The paramedics did everything in their power to save Mr Oakley but it was too late. I’m so sorry—”

I didn’t register the rest of her words. They started to become indistinct when all I could think about was that I lost the love of my life.

It all came crashing down on me when realisation dawned on me.

I caused the accident because I looked away from the road to kiss Daniel.

He was shouting for me to watch out but it was too late.

“No.” I shake my head furiously. “It can’t be true.”

“I’m sorry.” The nurse smiles sadly at me.

I jerk awake, hearing the nurse’s words play on repeat inside my head: “I’m sorry, but Mr Oakley passed away in the ambulance. He passed away right when the ambulance arrived at the hospital. The paramedics did everything in their power to save Mr Oakley but it was too late. I’m so sorry—”

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all.

I was supposed to be the one who died, not Daniel.

It was unfair.

He had dreams and aspirations for the future. He had everything planned, but I took that away from him because I was being stupid and reckless.

I press my hand over my beating heart, feeling the unsteady beat of it through the fabric of my favourite panda-themed pyjama shirt.

I lick my lower lip, tasting the salt of my tears on the tip of my tongue.

I lift the back of my hand to my cheek, wiping the tears that were streaming down them.

“I’m so, so sorry, Daniel.” I whisper.

I knew the second when I touched my phone that I would unlock more than just my phone. And I was right. When I unlocked my phone and saw all of the memories I had of Daniel stored in my gallery, I didn’t go down the path to ‘good memory’ lane, I unlocked more painful memories instead.