It was almost eleven at night and we were driving through New Haven. Emma asked me if I saw smoke coming from the back of the car. I turned around to check. Dense orange. Fire. We had to pull over, I told Emma. She said we couldn\u2019t because we were on a bridge. I hadn\u2019t thought about the bridge part, which seemed irrational. I said the car was on fire. It might explode. I felt more annoyed at my cousin, who doesn’t like to do be told what to do. She and I are the same age. When we were younger, she\u2019d steal chocolate mints from a wicker basket at our family\u2019s favorite restaurant and eat them in the bathroom before dinner. I did it too, sometimes, but only so she\u2019d like me. We\u2019d giggle together in one stall and let the mints dissolve in our mouths. When skirts pooled around high heels in the stall next to us, we\u2019d shush and listen to the muffled shake of a purse or the unwrapping of plastic that signaled something adult.<\/p>\n
Emma gave in, and we pulled over and jumped out. Time gets tricky here because fire makes everything go faster. A twenty-something guy, James, had been driving right behind us. He swerved his Ford F450 pickup to a stop behind our car, scrambled out, and ran to us with a fire extinguisher in his hand. He told us later he\u2019d been trying to get our attention for miles.<\/p>\n
At the time, this made sense. There was a fire, and James put it out. I don\u2019t remember relief; I was focused on the tow we needed, that call to AAA, and God knows how long that\u2019d take. James was tattooed, like the men I admire from afar. He had that big truck and he\u2019d just gotten off work doing something that sounded like construction. How convenient, I thought, if I\u2019m meeting my future husband.<\/p>\n
James told Emma to call the cops. After she hung up, I remember her stating that she never wanted to see her little red Subaru again. She\u2019d bought it from a family friend for one dollar, and it had taken us all over the Northeast. It felt sad leaving the car on the side of the bridge.<\/p>\n
We stood as close to the side of the bridge as we could, backed up against the barrier in a straight line: black truck, me, James, Emma, red Subaru. Emma and I made small talk with James while we waited for the police. He lived close enough to my dad\u2019s house that I almost asked him for a ride. I thought about what that would be like, the three of us jammed in that truck. I figured he\u2019d probably fall for Emma since guys always do. When I flirt, I get too eager, and can\u2019t help lying. I\u2019ve seen the guy\u2019s favorite movie or I turn my one mushroom trip into a dayslong adventure. While we waited, Emma said one word to James for each of my twenty. I don’t remember any shouting, but there were lots of cars passing us in the left lane. The right lane had cleared out.<\/p>\n
I only realized something bad was about to happen when I saw James\u2019s face. He was lit by the headlights of his own truck, and his eyes grew huge. When I call it back into my mind, there\u2019s something cartoonish about that face he made. Like his head was about to explode. I turned to see what he was looking at: the driverless F450 was moving toward me. Mostly I saw the headlights, the way the bright started to drown out the rest of the night.<\/p>\n
The doctors say that my left side was hurt more than my right because of the way I tried to shield myself from the impact. Given the fact that Jack was going fifty-five when he hit James’s truck with his SUV, it\u2019s ridiculous to imagine I\u2019d have been able to help myself in any way. But I tried, and that\u2019s why, in surgery, they went in on my left side. It was Emma\u2019s left, too. Her whole leg crushed by the front bumper of the truck.<\/p>\n
James ended up fine, a fact that later made painkiller-stoned me almost believe in a higher power. James had saved us from a burning car and never suffered physically for it. He later told Emma he\u2019d be hesitant to stop to help anyone on the side of the road again, though, so I didn\u2019t end up worshipping in anything new. Sometimes I wonder whether James would refer to this night as traumatizing.<\/p>\n
I know Jack, the kid who hit us, considers himself traumatized because his lawyers talked about it during the trial. All I have of him in my mind is Young Guy\u2014turns out he was nineteen. I couldn\u2019t see him because I was crushed between the guardrail and the passenger-side door of James\u2019s truck. I was sliding down very slowly. Jack was on his phone. Emma and I both remember him saying \u201cDad\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s so bad\u201d over and over. No one made any eye contact. My attention first fixed on Emma, because I half-thought she could save me from whatever had just happened. But I kept looking at her because her face had contorted into something impossible. She looked pale in the headlights and her eyes were full of terror. She was stuck, which I didn\u2019t realize. Stuck and yelling like a wounded, furious beast: pure, disembodied rage. She wasn\u2019t looking at me, though I said her name, I think. I reached a hand out for her.<\/p>\n
When we were little and Emma\u2019s family came down to Rhode Island from Vermont, we often dressed up as twins. Our grandmother bought us the same clothes from froofy catalogs: floral jumpers, bibbed tops. Emma was lanky and athletic; I was plump and disheveled. But we did our best to convince any stranger who\u2019d look that we were identical. We spent hours poring over teen magazines together, picking out hot boys and gaping at embarrassing anecdotes about first dates.<\/p>\n
In the headlights, I didn\u2019t know her. When I held out my hand, she held hers out too, but we couldn\u2019t reach. Not only could I not move my body, but I was sliding down, toward a seated position on the street. As my hand stayed in the air between us, I was getting farther away from Emma, and she needed me. It took three years for me to realize that, maybe, I reached for her with such urgency because I needed her, too.<\/p>\n
We briefly grazed fingertips. I told her I couldn\u2019t breathe. I began to feel the blood running warm between my thighs. No pain, just warm, fast blood. Way too fast. I was having a lot of trouble with breath. My chest started to compress and I tried to push myself away from the truck, but my body had no hope. I thought something along the lines of, well, this is how it goes in movies. This is the bad thing and it\u2019s happening to me.<\/i><\/p>\n
The police showed up. The sirens and flashing lights announced their presence long before I could see any of them. They\u2019d been coming to help with the Subaru when Jack plowed into the truck. I was annoyed it was taking them so long to pay attention to me. I found out later from a news story that they couldn\u2019t even see me. I was almost flat on the pavement by then.<\/p>\n
They took Emma right away. She was there one second and then she was gone. James was gone, too. How deserted I felt\u2014the outrage of it. That the universe had the audacity to spring this on me was appalling. I called out for help. Then I saw my sneaker in the street. My brain took a few cautious steps forward to put it all together: I couldn\u2019t feel my right foot.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d worn my new neon running shoes on that car ride. Hadn\u2019t wanted to cram them into my backpack with all the dirty laundry I planned to do at my mom\u2019s house. I\u2019d just recently moved into my own apartment sans roommates and, despite its lack of a washing machine, I loved it\u2014a tiny studio with folding chairs crammed into the closet for company.<\/p>\n
Running had become part of my daily routine when I was in college. As a social person, it was my source of alone time. I was an anxious type, and it was a means of meditation. The thought of never being able to run again, I\u2019d once thought, would surely ruin my life. I\u2019d become fat and unhappy, and all-around unpleasant. Running was mandatory, and the loss of it would be akin to losing one of my senses.<\/p>\n
Pinned there, I yelled. Eventually, a guy came over, but I could only see his hazy outline in the headlights. He asked what I needed and I asked him whether I still had a right foot. He told me he had more important things to deal with, implying that he was trying to keep me alive. But I wasn\u2019t having it. I needed to know right then. Told him I couldn\u2019t feel my foot, and my sneaker was in the middle of the road, for Christ\u2019s sakes. It was one of the few things I could see besides the passenger door and all that light from the headlights and cop cars.<\/p>\n
The policeman finally got down on his hands and knees and looked under the front of the truck. He stood back up, brushed his hands off.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have a foot,\u201d he said it as if he\u2019d just bestowed one on me. I felt momentary relief, but my mind wasn\u2019t going to let me settle into any one feeling. My brain ping-ponged to the next thing: breath. The cop walked away, and I started yelling up into the light that I couldn\u2019t breathe. I still felt my own blood pouring into the street. Later, they told me I lost half the blood in my body that night.<\/p>\n
I now wonder why I didn\u2019t think to ask anyone about Emma. The way she tells it, she asked about me during her ambulance ride and, when no one would answer, she assumed I had died. Emma wasn\u2019t on my mind, though. Survival mode, I guess. A young cop came around the front of the truck. He told me help was on the way. They were trying to figure how to get me out. I told him I couldn\u2019t breathe and I asked him to hold my hand. Actually I stated it like a command\u2014I know because he wrote me a Facebook message months later and made a joke about all the orders I\u2019d barked.<\/p>\n
He said he couldn\u2019t reach me to hold my hand but I said it again. I only knew I needed human contact, which now makes objective sense. It was going to happen. He figured it out, manipulated himself and reached down from above. We held hands.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until I was getting briefed for the trial that I found out he\u2019d had a cop-buddy hold his belt while he stood on the guardrail of that massive bridge. He could\u2019ve fallen in. Having some agency\u2014being able to command him into that posture of comfort\u2014felt to me like progress. If I do this, then it will be okay. If he holds me, I can breathe. He asked me my name. After that, every time he turned his attention away from me, I\u2019d pretend to pass out, let my neck go slack, my head loll to the left, and I\u2019d wait to hear him say my name. \u201cMolly,\u201d he\u2019d say, \u201cStay with me, Molly.\u201d And I\u2019d act out a person blinking back into consciousness.<\/p>\n
His name was Aaron, I found out. I complained to him about how I couldn\u2019t breathe, and he told me that couldn\u2019t be true since I was speaking. It bothered me, how he was right, but I knew I needed more air than I was getting. Two years later, I tried to use his name in a poem. He goes by \u201cAir,\u201d and the students in my workshop agreed that it felt too heavy-handed. They liked the poem at the end, with the changed name. At least that\u2019s what they said. I cried when I read it aloud, and I think that had a lot to do with the fact that I hadn\u2019t written it right. Hadn\u2019t done Aaron justice. He saved my life.<\/p>\n
The blood kept occurring to me, too, but I didn\u2019t want to bring it up to anyone. It gushed out from between my legs in a forbidden way. Cops milled around, glancing over at me sometimes and then turning their backs. I spoke with what I wanted to be authority. \u201cSomeone needs to get me out,\u201d and, \u201cI don\u2019t understand why this is taking so long.\u201d Eventually, a man informed me that the plan was to roll the F450 off my body. The ambulance was waiting, doors open and glowing like a portal to another dimension. I told Aaron he couldn\u2019t allow that. They\u2019d crush my foot if they did that. Aaron told them not to do it. He explained to the other men that they\u2019d have to roll the wheels of the truck over my body, that there must be another way. They listened to him, which later occurred to me as remarkable. He was probably the youngest guy on the force, but he was respected. When he came to the hospital to visit me a few days later, I wasn\u2019t quite awake. I\u2019m told we spoke, but what I remember is the fact that he cried.<\/p>\n
They ended up getting a firetruck, or maybe the firetruck had been there all along. Either way, something was rigged up and they moved the truck off my body the wrong way: the way the wheels don\u2019t go. Into the empty road. There\u2019s something unnerving about the fact that I have no recollection of how I got onto the stretcher. It\u2019s the only gaping hole in my memory from that night. I\u2019d like to think I dictated the paramedics\u2019 every move like a puppet master. That would keep me in character. After my parents were confident I\u2019d stay alive, they sometimes allowed themselves to smile at the reports of my demeanor that night. \u201cThat\u2019s Molly,\u201d my mom would say.<\/p>\n
As a kid (and an older sister), I was often called \u201cbossy.\u201d I got \u201cclass pet\u201d a lot, too. My parents would tell you I\u2019ve been loud since the second I was born. I remember a need to make my voice heard over the loosening grasp of my parents\u2019 marriage.<\/p>\n
My mom and dad waited until I was eight to split up officially. I rarely saw them in the same place for years afterward. When I recall my childhood, they\u2019re only together on Christmas and for fighting. This is objectively false, given all the happy photographs, but I can\u2019t summon much else. Just a single snapshot: my dad combing my mom\u2019s hair in the kitchen. My mom had her eyes closed, and I asked for my dad to comb my hair, too. He was the one who took care of the snarls. They told me no, not now. I was incensed. The scene must stick out because I don\u2019t remember any other moments of tenderness between them.<\/p>\n
On the stretcher, before the ambulance, I knew not to look at my body\u2014had no urge to. I scanned myself with my mind and felt the gum in my mouth for the first time since Emma and I had pulled over.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s gum in my mouth,\u201d I looked directly into Aaron\u2019s eyes as I said it. Shouldn\u2019t I have been rushed into the ambulance? I thought so, but there we were, outside of it, and I needed to need so I could feel some power over my smashed state. I said it seemed like it was probably dangerous for me to be chewing gum and that it needed to be removed. I\u2019ll bet I used what my friends refer to as my teacher voice. Aaron looked down at me; the headlights were behind him now.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want me to take your gum?\u201d he asked. When I said yes, he held out his hand, and I spat. Then, as my memory plays it, I was inside the ambulance and we were moving fast.<\/p>\n
I told the paramedics to call my dad. I recited his number over and over. They promised they\u2019d contact him, and then someone asked for my social security number. I remember saying it as if bored. I didn\u2019t want them to know how impressed I was with myself for remembering it while my body bled out. They cut off my clothes, which seemed nonsensical because I was wearing a zip-up hoodie with only a sports bra underneath. The sweatshirt had been my dad\u2019s in college, and it was the softest thing I owned. I chastised them for their carelessness and mourned the loss of my clothes. It was then the pain hit.<\/p>\n
When I tell this story, I often liken the sudden onset of pain to getting a tattoo. I have one on my left bicep, a branch of a raspberry bush to remind me of the house my family lived in for those years when we were whole. I\u2019m not sure the artwork is botanically accurate, but the woman who designed it convinced me without much effort. As she needled it on, I sucked a lollipop and chatted with a friend who was stationed in the corner. When the artist was almost finished, she informed me, \u201cJust ten minutes left!\u201d and that chunk of time felt like a series of days full of pain. This is why we all walk around hunched into ourselves, clenched jaws and tight fists. If we let ourselves relax, we start to feel.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
It\u2019s difficult to define where \u201cthe accident\u201d stops in my life. Sometimes, when I refer to it, all I mean is the exact moment I was hit. But it can also be the months leading up to my release from the hospital. Or until I could walk again.<\/p>\n
Once in a while, I describe a phase in my life as \u201cthe accident time.\u201d When I say this, I mean the months when I was still dealing, on a daily basis, with the fact that I had been hit by a truck. And by \u201cdealing with,\u201d I do not simply mean experiencing PTSD, although that\u2019s certainly part of it. I mean actively completing tasks\u2014going to physical therapy, picking up opioid prescriptions, buying new compression shorts\u2014associated with the fact that I was crushed by a truck. One thing that remained a weekly constant on my calendar during \u201cthe accident time\u201d was therapy.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d already been seeing a therapist before I was hit, but our weekly meetings turned into sporadic phone calls whenever I could find privacy. I\u2019d request that friends leave my overpacked hospital room or, months later, I\u2019d wheel myself out to the stone patio of the handicap-friendly condo where I lived with family while I waited to walk again. It wasn\u2019t until two years later, long after I moved back to my studio in Brooklyn, that my therapist proposed EMDR treatment for my PTSD.<\/p>\n
When we met for our first session, all I knew was the goal: to weaken the effect of my traumatic memories with the help of a machine. She pulled a postcard-sized pouch from under her chair. I\u2019d been expecting something wheeled-in and flashing.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d Joan said, \u201cplease hold out your hands.\u201d Her tone was more formal than usual, but I didn\u2019t hesitate. Overtime I have realized I not only trust her, I also have an ingrained desire to please. That\u2019s something she and I have talked about a lot, actually.<\/p>\n
Joan placed a plastic object in each of my upturned palms\u2014smooth and flat, designed to be grasped, shaped like oversized kidney beans. One grey, one black. My nerves made me fidgety; I moved a few of the overstuffed pillows to the opposite end of the couch. Sunlight shot through the picture window and heated the side of my face. I hadn\u2019t been hooked-up to a machine in a while. Maybe this will cure me<\/i>, I thought. The problem was, I couldn\u2019t articulate what was broken.<\/p>\n
It has been over a year since I started weekly EMDR sessions. Each time, I close my eyes and tell Joan when I feel ready. But I still don\u2019t really know what \u201cready\u201d means in this context, so I always just hope I\u2019ve waited a believable amount of time. While I\u2019m waiting, I listen to the city traffic and try not to wonder where the sirens are headed. Then I give the signal\u2014a nod, or an \u201cOkay\u201d\u2014and Joan turns a small dial on something that looks like an outdated TV remote. A pulse travels through it, up two wires, and into the kidney-bean-things I\u2019m clenching. Back and forth. Short, gentle vibrations that make my bones hum. The whole thing has something to do with my frontal lobes. Left and right. We wait a moment before she tells me to begin remembering.<\/p>\n
The first time Joan and I did this together, I began my \u201cprivate movie,\u201d as she calls it, with the moment I got into the car. Nothing traumatic there. I played my boring movie through the Brooklyn traffic, the break for iced coffee, the last-minute planning for Kelly\u2019s bachelorette party. The fire stopped me.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d I said. \u201cGot it.\u201d I opened my eyes; Joan had been scribbling on a notepad. How could she have something to write down already?<\/p>\n
\u201cGood,\u201d she smiled. I\u2019d pleased her. \u201cWe can begin desensitization.\u201d I felt like I was in a SciFi film.<\/p>\n
Joan pulled a crumpled piece of paper from between the pages of her notebook, placed her glasses up on her forehead, and squinted down toward her lap. Her nose almost touched the page as she read a series of questions aloud.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow does this memory make you feel?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fire?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. Just seeing the flames.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cConfused?\u201d If there was a right answer, this probably wasn\u2019t it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd how traumatic, on a scale of one to ten, would you say this memory is? One being totally fine, and ten being the worst thing in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUm. Eight and a half.\u201d The \u201chalf\u201d felt like wiggle room.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat. Okay. And what negative belief about yourself do you associate with this memory?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat I shouldn\u2019t have been inside a burning car.\u201d Easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not quite a negative belief about yourself. You had no choice.\u201d Damn. \u201cTry to articulate how you feel inside this memory,\u201d Joan said. She crossed her legs and balanced her notebook on one knee, pen aimed at the page.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt unsafe.\u201d I said. \u201cI mean, I believe I am unsafe.\u201d Joan nodded, scribbled, gave a quick hum of approval. Then she sat back upright and pulled her glasses down her forehead.<\/p>\n
Every week, I play through as many of these memory patches as I can in sixty minutes and, together, we try to figure out how I can best calm my mind. She asks where in my body I\u2019m feeling the trauma. My chest, I usually tell her, though it feels more like every hair on my skin is being magnetically attracted to something far outside of that corner office in Manhattan. Chest is easier.<\/p>\n
I always wonder if I\u2019m cheating. The problem is, we\u2019ve only got a single, pricey hour. If I\u2019m going to be cured of this thing, I\u2019m going to do it as efficiently as possible. Sometimes, when she asks if I feel like I\u2019ve found the right mantra to repeat\u2014\u201cI\u2019m safe\u201d or \u201cHelp is on the way\u201d\u2014I say yes just to keep us moving. I often do start to feel better in the moment, but I still can\u2019t differentiate this kind of \u201cbetter\u201d from the \u201cbetter\u201d I feel after I\u2019ve listened to a siren for a full minute. I\u2019ve become pretty good at shutting off my mind. And doing that, blocking traumatic memories out, is a perfect example of cheating.<\/p>\n
The memories are mostly tied up in little packages now. In fact, that\u2019s something she and I do together. If we haven\u2019t quite gotten through a memory before her next patient buzzes to be let in, she tells me to close my eyes and put the scene in a jar with a tight lid.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d she continues, \u201cnow put that jar somewhere safe for now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDone,\u201d I say, glancing at the clock. I declare, for example, that the sight of Emma being crushed between the guardrail of the bridge and the front of the truck is tucked away in a closet for next time. In truth, I still can\u2019t write those words without feeling like my intestines are unraveling. But if Emma\u2019s in a jar in a closet, if the image of my blood running thick on black pavement has become safe, then what?<\/p>\n
I heard on a TV show once that the pain of loss is sacred because it\u2019s all we have left of the person or lost thing. It makes sense, then, that I feel compelled to write it all down. I still feel the reflexive gut-wrench of near-death every time I walk in front of a black F450 pickup. I have dutifully turned the events of that night into my own private movie: a construction intended to aid erasure. At the same time, I cling to my story with teeth bared. There\u2019s a thick black line at the center of my memory. Before and after. I don\u2019t want to do the work of reconsidering myself. After months of these sessions, my almost-safe, familiar fear is backlit by something new. Yes, I can look straight-on at ambulances again, but the movie\u2019s still playing and I\u2019m gripping my armrests at what\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was almost eleven at night and we were driving through New Haven. Emma asked me if I saw smoke coming from the back of the car. I turned around to check. Dense orange. Fire. We had to pull over, I told Emma. She said we couldn\u2019t because we were on a bridge. I hadn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2041,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[59],"tags":[24],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-41t","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2041"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15467"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15491,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15467\/revisions\/15491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}