A car killed me.

I thought I’d die in a much cooler way – doing something adventurous.

But no; it was just a car.

I was leaving the comic book store with my two best friends, Jonah and Michael. They dragged me there so they could buy the latest issue of Batman.

As we left the store, I walked ahead of them in hopes to keep their petty bickering from reaching my ears. For a moment, it worked. I squinted up at the cool spring sun and breathed deeply. Nature had such a beautiful smell. It was a carefree day and, for once, everything just felt at-ease. No schoolwork to worry about; just me and my wonderfully annoying friends.

I checked the street – a little one-way that never had any cars – before crossing. As usual, nothing was there.

“Hey, Anna!” Michael called, wanting me to take his side. “What do you think?”

I turned to face them and began walking backwards across the street, toward the park. I laugh. “I think you guys are ridiculous. Everyone knows Iron Man is better.”

I saw the speeding sports car from the corner of my eye, but I didn’t even have time to gasp. The only sound I heard was the sound of my bones crushing on the entire right side of my body.

For twenty feet, I was flattened against the front bumper like a mosquito. For twenty feet, the car continued to push me, scraping my body along the concrete – smearing blood like a snail’s trail. When the car finally stopped, I peeled off the front and rolled another six feet.

My instinct was to cry out every time I rolled over my right side, but a rib had punctured a lung and it was quickly filling with blood.

I could taste the iron every time I breathed out.

With my right side crushed and my left side torn open, I hoped death would come quickly. I was completely selfish, only thinking about my pain ebbing, instead of thinking about my mother and siblings. Little Zack and my twin, Maggie. I never said goodbye to them. I still regret that.

Almost immediately, Jonah and Michael were crouched at my side. I saw Michael look up and move to push away the angry drunk man that got out of the kill-mobile and was screaming at me.

“Michael, call the ambulance,” Jonah frantically ordered. He gripped my left hand and didn’t even care that my skin was mangled and hanging off the bone.

That really warmed my heart.

Jonah gave me a sad smile and, humiliatingly enough, I coughed blood up on to his crisp white shirt.

“Sorry,” I croaked. It was hard to say it, but it was necessary at the time. I wasn’t just sorry for the shirt. I was sorry for getting myself killed and for never telling him the truth of how I felt. He knew I meant all of that; I could see it in his eyes. I closed my own and tried to focus the pain away.

“Don’t do that,” Jonah whispered.

“The ambulance is on their way now,” Michael assured me. “Just try to hang on, okay?”

I slightly nodded my head, but by the time sirens could be heard, I was already gone.