Our Human Mate

Chapter Two

After dinner and a quick shower, I hear a light knock on my bedroom door. “Come in.”

“Help me with my math homework,” Sia whines.

“Sia, I have my homework to do,” I reply bluntly.

“Ari, please,” Sia begs.

“What do you need help with?”

“I don’t understand this problem,” Sia says, pointing to her homework.

“That's because you’re too busy sucking face with Chase.” I tease.

“I mean, you’re not wrong, but to be fair, Mr. Hamilton is so monotone I can barely keep my eyes open,” Sia replies.

“Sia!”

“Don’t be mean, he’s old,” I say.

“Old and boring,” Sia replies with a fake yawn.

I am confident in helping Sia with calculus as I am in advanced placement. I take pride in my school work to impress on my college applications. Sia, however, couldn’t care less as she has no plans to attend college. Sia softens her almond-shaped eyes, pouts, and flutters her butterfly lashes at me. I roll my eyes in annoyance at her and push my homework aside to help her. She wants me to do the work for her, but I refuse. I show her how to do it with an example and watch as she struggles to understand. Math is not Sia’s strong suit, which is fine, but sometimes she isn’t trying.

“Sia, you're not even trying,” I say, annoyed.

“I am Ari, and I just don’t understand calculus,” Sia sighs.

“Fine.”

I show her the problem on the homework again, and she is paying attention this time. She slowly figures it out, and after about forty-five minutes, her homework was complete. I still have mine to do, and my essay is due in two days, which I still need to make a dent in. I am up until midnight writing and double-checking the flow of the essay. My eyes feel like sandpaper, and I cannot stop yawning around 12:15 a.m. I finally brush my teeth and head to bed.

>>-----------♥-----------The smell of burnt rubber and fire fills the air around me. I have a sharp pain radiating from my right wrist up to my shoulder. I can feel something slowly trickling down my temple and landing on my cheek. It’s dark when I realize I don’t know where I am or what has happened. The darkness is illuminated by white lights that surround me.

“We are going to get you out; just hang on.” A deep voice yells.

“Are you injured?” A female voice echoes around me.

I am trying to reply, but no sound is leaving my lips. Panic starts to set in, and my heart races as I do not know what is happening. The sound of metal grinding against metal pierces me like a lightning bolt hitting a tree. A loud screech and pop follow as what I believe to be a door is opened.

“She’s alive!” A man yells.

“Hang on, honey, we will get you out of here.” He says softly.

My mind is racing as I try to figure out what is happening. I last remember leaving my dance recital to head home with my Mom and Dad. I am slowly opening my eyes, and the light is blinding, as if I have been asleep for hours. I see a man, no, not a man, a medic climbing in. It hits me that I am in our car but lying against something cold and sharp. I open my eyes to see where I am and what is happening. The man stands over me with his feet spread to either side of my body and looks down at me.

“We will need a stretcher and a neck brace, stat.” He yells.

“I am going to cut your seatbelt, okay, hun.” He says.

“Okay.” I can barely recognize the sound of my voice.

“Everything is going to be okay. Can you tell me what your name is?” He asks.

“Uhm…uh… Ari, my name is Ari.” I reply softly.

“Good, Ari, my name is Mike, and I am going to help get you out of here, okay?” He says.

“Where am I? What happened?”

“You were in an accident, but you’re okay; we will get you out of here.” He replies.

My mind starts racing again, and I can feel the tears forming in the corners of my eyes.

“My Mom and Dad.” I plead.

“Let's just focus on getting you out of here, okay?” Mike asks.

He cuts my seatbelt and wraps the neck brace around my neck. He quickly checks my pupils and makes sure I can feel my hands, fingers, feet, and toes. They decided to get me out through the trunk rather than trying to lift me through the open door. As they’re laying the back seat down, I realize I am lying where the rear driver-side window used to be. I can feel sharp shards of glass pressing deep into my skin. I am trying to look up to the front to see my Mom and Dad, but the neck brace is restricting me from turning my head.

“Okay, hunny, we are going to gently put you on the stretcher,” Mike says.

“Okay,” I stammer out through tears.

Mike and another medic slowly lifted me, lay me onto the stretcher, and adjusted the restraints so that I was safe during the ride. As they are pulling the stretcher out, I can slightly turn my head just enough to see a white sheet laid over something on the side of the road. Five medics are standing around, and three of them specifically are lingering around the white sheet. The wind is slightly gusty as storms came through earlier in the evening. The wind catches the corner of the sheet, and it blows down slightly, revealing what is underneath. My brain cannot believe what my eyes are seeing.

“Mom!” I scream.

“Fix that damn sheet,” Mike yells.

The tears stream down my cheeks, which are warm on my chilled cheeks.

“Mom!” I scream again.

The stretcher that I am on begins to shake, and I can hear Sia, but I don’t understand what she is saying.

“Ari, wake up,” Sia says.

“Wake up!” She repeats herself.

“Sia?” I say groggily.

“You were screaming. Are you okay?”

I am not fully awake and trying to process what just happened. I slowly open my eyes and see Sia standing next to my bed.

“I had a nightmare.”

“You were screaming ‘Mom’,” Sia says.

“Did you have another nightmare about the wreck?” Sia asks.

I immediately burst into tears, and Sia climbs into the bed and hugs me tightly. I nuzzle my head into the crook of her neck and sob. I will never forget that night; it will likely haunt me for the rest of my life. It’s been three years since my parents passed away in a tragic accident that took both of their lives. A drunk driver crossed the center line and hit our car head-on, which caused our car to roll three times, throwing my mom out of the car. My Dad was killed instantly on impact; according to the corner, that night had been so perfect as we had gone to dinner after my dance recital. We were heading home like any normal night, and one selfish person took the only family I had ever known from me. Sia’s parents insisted I live with them. This has been my home for the last three years, and Sia’s parents adopted me. I was only fourteen when my parents were killed in a senseless accident. I often wonder why I am still here and the only one who survived.

I am a nobody.

Sia softly rubs my shoulder with her right hand and hugs me tightly with her left.

“Do you want me to stay here with you?”

I lightly nod yes, as I do not want to be alone.

“Okay, let me grab my phone, and I will be right back.”.

I lay back down, and once Sia walks back in, she turns the light on the nightstand off and climbs into my bed. I feel safe knowing Sia is right here beside me, and some would say I have codependency issues. They might be right.