There I am, on a gurney with eight, nine or maybe it’s ten people working frantically to save my life. They yell loudly and demand things that don’t make sense to me all while machines constantly beep and my blood pools on the floor as someone screams that they have a bleeder. I have a tube coming out of my mouth and my eyes are taped shut, except I can see everything that is happening and I seem to be breathing okay. The clothes I wore are tattered and some pieces lay haphazardly on the floor with shards of glass embedded in the fabric while my chest is open and exposing my organs, yet I seem to be dressed. My brown hair is now jet-black and half my scalp’s missing. Consciously, I reach up to feel my hair, but everything seems to be normal. So why am I there on the table, bleeding, broken and dying when I’m standing here watching everything happening.

“She’s crashing!” the doctor yells as someone hands him two wands. They look like drumsticks with small symbols on the end. If my dad saw them, he would have a fit. He would never allow me to play his drums with something like those. His drums are precious to him, at least the ones that stay in the spare bedroom at my parents’ house, that I’m allowed to play when I visit. When they moved to Los Angeles, I cried. I felt like I no longer belonged anywhere. My brother Quinn was already there and Elle was far too excited to leave me by myself in Chicago.

But they’re not drumsticks because the doctor puts them into that gaping hole where my breasts used to be. Whatever he does, they cause me to jerk off the table. My body on the table feels it, but I don’t. He does it again and again, barking out orders as if he’s in charge. After each jerk, everyone pauses and watches one of the monitors.

“She’s back,” one of the nurses says. Where do they think I went? Do they not realize that I am on the table, waiting for them to fix me up so I can go to dinner with Kyle?

Where is Kyle? He was with me in the car, smiling at me as we pulled out of the parking lot. But where did he go. I look at the door and see people running by and I’m curious to know where Kyle is.

Out in the hall, the noise is different and the lights seem brighter. There is more yelling and alarms continue to beep. In the room next to mine, someone lays on the table with a sheet pulled over their face. I hate sleeping like that because I feel like I can’t breathe.

The nurses are all wearing blue and green, but none of them stop and ask me what I’m doing or ask me if I’m hungry. I am, hungry that is because Kyle promised me dinner but somehow we’re here. I don’t think this was his idea of a good time. It’s definitely not mine.

The room across from me is empty, but there’s blood on the floor. A man brushes by me, whistling and pushing a mop bucket. He slops the wet threads onto the floor and pushes the puddles around, repeating the process until all the blood is gone then he’s breezing by me again.

I go back to my room and now there are fewer people by me. A few of them leave the room with their hands and gowns covered in my blood, while the others filter around me.

“Let’s stitch her up and get her to ICU. Has anyone contacted her parents?”

“They’re on their way.”

They are? My parents are coming to Chicago? But it’s cold and snowing. My parents hate the snow. I can’t imagine that they would want to come here when I could easily go see them at the beach house.

A big burly man comes in and the nurses pile wires onto of my bed as the man pushes me out the room. I follow behind because I need to know where they’re taking me. The room is small but with a very large window. After the nurse plugs everything back in, she pauses at my bedside and runs her hands through my hair, picking out more shards of glass. Each piece tings as it hits the stainless pan that is resting on my chest.

“You’re going to be okay, sweet girl,” she says.

“How do you know?” I ask, but she doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even look at me. She just keeps running her hand through my hair.

“Your parents will be here soon. As soon as they get here, we’ll let them right in so they can see you. I bet your mom will spend the night because if you were my daughter, that is what I’d do. I’ll make sure she has a blanket and pillow.”

“Do you know my mom?”

She still doesn’t answer me.

“What about my dad? He’s famous, ya know. I bet if you ask him, he’ll give you his autograph.”

She still doesn’t respond. I wave my hand in front of her face, but she’s focused on my body that lies in the bed being kept alive by the machines that beep incessantly. She continues to talk, telling my body about her family and how she doesn’t have any children but wants to have a daughter with brown hair.

“What color eyes do you have, sweetie?” she asks.

“Noah says I have blue eyes like the ocean, but sometimes they change when I’m angry,” I tell her but she doesn’t acknowledge me.

A man enters my room and opens the binder that rests on the counter near my bed. “How’s she doing?”

“I think she’s waiting for her parents to get here. I don’t know how she’s alive,” she says.

I look from her to my body and wonder the same thing. If I die, I can be with my father. I miss him, he has missed so much of my life that I would love to talk to him, to tell him everything.

But I would miss my sister. She’s my best friend even though she’s living in California I talk to her every day. Except I didn’t tell her about Kyle and I need to. Elle would like him. He’s cute, seems smart and was very polite when he escorted me out of the stadium.

And I’d miss my mom. She’s already been through so much but has Harrison to take care of her. He sure does love her and us. He’s always treated Elle and I like his daughters. It was like he was meant to come into our lives after my father passed away. He and Quinn saved us, made us whole.

“Does anyone know what time her parents will be here?” the doctor asks.

“They’re flying in from California. I don’t know if anyone knows what time they got a flight.”

“I’ll stay until they arrive so I can talk to them,” he says before writing something down in the book. I try to see what it is, but the words are blurry.

“I’m not leaving her,” the nurse says. “I want to be here with her, just in case… so I can tell her mom that she didn’t die alone.”

Wait, I am dying? What if I don’t want to? I mean I want to see my father, but I don’t want to leave my mom. And there are things that I want to do, like be on television and be there when Noah wins the Super Bowl. That’s his dream, and mine for him. We’ve spent countless hours talking about what it’ll be like for his family to run onto the field and for him to raise the Lombardi trophy for all the fans of the Portland Pioneers to see. I plan to be there as a broadcaster even though I’d be biased during my reporting. Maybe that would have to be a game I skip so I can yell at him from the fifty-yard line. Either way, Noah will want me there, so I can’t die.

The doctor leaves and another nurse walks in and stands by my other side. “Jenna, do you want me to sit with her while you eat?”

Jenna? I have an aunt named Jenna. She has beautiful red hair and looks nothing like the nurse who is holding my hand.

“No, I’m not leaving her.”

“I’ll bring you something then.”

Jenna nods but keeps her eyes focused on my body. It’s weird. Usually I can tell when someone is staring at me, but I can’t seem to make my eyes open.

She leaves my side and goes to the sink, wetting a towel and filling another pan with water. When she returns, she picks up my hand and starts cleaning the blood that has dried around my nails and along my arm, cleaning around the cuts carefully. Every so often she dips the cloth into the water and it turns light pink. When Jenna has finished both arms, she starts on my hair, careful not to touch the area where my scalp is missing.

Jenna pulls a brush out of a bag and runs its bristles under the faucet. She runs it through the ends of my hair, working her way up until almost every strand is wet and then she braids what she can.

I wait for her to move the blanket that covers my chest so I can see what they did to my chest, but she never does.

“Your mom should be here soon, sweetheart. Then you can go and you won’t be in pain anymore,” she says, but she doesn’t realize that I don’t want to go, at least not yet. And I’m not in pain.

“I feel great,” I say as I look down at my body. I’m still in the outfit that I wore the game. My arms aren’t cut up, my hair is still perfectly styled and I’m happy.

Her friend returns with some food and that reminds me that Kyle still owes me dinner. “Where’s Kyle? Do you know? He was supposed to take me out to dinner.”

Neither lady answers me and it’s starting to make me mad that they’re ignoring me. Why can’t they see me standing here next to them? I can see them and hear everything they’re saying yet they act like I’m not even in the room.

“Did you give her a bath?”

“Not really,” Jenna says. “I cleaned up the blood and braided her hair. I don’t want that to be the first thing her mom sees, ya know.”

“You’re a good nurse, Jenna.”

She smiles at her friend with tears in her eyes. The other nurse goes to the book that lies on the counter and makes a note. Again, I try to see what it says, but everything is blurry. It doesn’t make sense because I have perfect eyesight.

My dad, Elle, and Quinn walk by the large window of my room. I go to them, desperate to feel their arms around me, but my dad looks right through me.

“Dad… Elle… Quinn…?” but they don’t say anything. In fact, they ignore me like everyone else has been doing this entire time.

I stand in front of Elle and look at my twin. She’s so beautiful. Tears stream down her face and her hand covers her heart. Does she know that I’m not in pain?

There’s an audible gasp and I turn to see my dad in the doorway. Elle now stands next to him with her hand covering her mouth. She almost falls to her knees but my dad holds her upright.

“Mr. James,” the doctor stops speaking when he looks at Elle.

“This is Peyton’s twin.”

He nods. “I’m Dr. Stevens. I operated on your daughter when she was brought in by ambulance.”

“Is she going to be okay?” my dad asks, but the doctor shakes his head.

“As we said on the phone, we don’t expect her to make it through the night. She suffered severe trauma when the truck collided with her side of the car. We’ve operated, but the damage was extensive. I’m sorry,” he says, resting his hand on my dad’s shoulder.

My sister collapses even though Quinn tries to catch her he’s unable to. She cries loudly while my brother tries to console her.

“Just like our father,” she screams loudly in between sobs. “Just like our father.”