Different After 30 Minutes

The story contains graphic depictions of a fatal accident, and emotional trauma.



“I’m sorry.”

11:32 PM.

My eyes can’t move away from the scene as a high school boy stands in shock, unblinking.

“What have you done!” screams a man in the middle of the road, grabbing the root of his brown hair, letting out a cry so loud with anger and loss—I can never forget a voice like that, even if I wanted to.

“I am sorry,” repeats The Boy.

“What have you done! What have you done!” repeats The Man.

“I am sorry,” The Boy repeats again.

The horror continues in a loop, both in unbearable pain, unable to say anything other than "I’m sorry—What have you done!"

Nobody could. Every car stopped. It was thirty past eleven at night, and I had never seen so much blood splattered on the ground, visible even in the dark. It felt disrespectful to even stare—a pregnant woman, probably in her 30s, close to her due date—laying on the ground, her imprint left on the fast-moving car. Was it a Lamborghini? I don’t remember, but it looked expensive.

Her long blonde hair was covered in her own blood, but you could still see the light blue highlights. Such beautiful hair. She had that soft beauty that looks like art from any angle.

The Man, screaming in horror, I think he thought the same. Slowly, he approached her, touching her hair with such gentleness, now crying silently. Her husband. He had been in a late-night virtual meeting with investors from Singapore and couldn’t accompany his wife to the supermarket, where she desperately craved matcha ice cream.

“You don’t even like matcha,” he says loudly enough for me to hear, still touching her hair, her face, then her belly.

I could’ve sworn I saw movement. I mean, I was quite close to the... scene. I don’t want to call it that, no. It takes away the humanity of it. They were dead humans...maybe it was just my hope making me hallucinate.

11: 39 PM

The ambulance and police arrived. The look on their faces… trying so hard to stay professional.

Lifting the body with the gentleness you’d use to lift a newborn baby, a scared kitten, or a small bird with broken wings.

Something wet was going down my cheeks. I was crying? And it wasn’t until the lady’s hands and head dropped when she was lifted.

That’s when it hit me. I had never witnessed someone die so cruelly. This stranger shifted the trajectory of my life, just like that.

The Man was left there on his knees with a numb look on his face. His attention shifted when the police asked The Boy, “Have you been drinking tonight?”

The Boy started crying like a baby. Snot and tears mixing together. Then, in the next 30 seconds, I swear it felt like slow motion; The Man fisted his hands and punched The Boy, and The Boy just let it happen. Even the two police officers interrogating The Boy didn’t do much to stop it.

“It should have been you! How many times have I told you to stop driving so fast? I should have never bought you that car!” The Man shouted.

Everyone was in shock. What just happened? Did they know each other?

“And she told me—a car so fast as a gift for graduation is never appropriate,” now both of them crying out loud.

I know that, just like me, everyone who had the misfortune of being there was thinking the same thing:

“Please don’t be brothers, please don’t be brothers, please don’t be brothers,” I repeated in my mind, and I am certain I wasn’t the only one.

What the hell am I witnessing? Did I step into some alternate universe? I don’t even watch action movies because they stress me out—I can’t handle them. I’ve never even seen an animal die, always avoiding anything remotely gory. And now... I’ve just seen a pregnant woman hit by a speeding car so hard it threw her six feet away...by a family member!

Eventually, the police stopped The Man from punching The Boy. He took a deep breath, sat on the ground, and lit a cigarette from the small pocket of his brown jacket—he wore it because it was a cold fall night. It’s eerie to think that when he bought that jacket, he never imagined it would be covered in his wife’s blood. His cold, bruised hands were shaking, but he still inhaled deeply, staring ahead.

After a moment, he continued, “Tonight I lost my family. I lost my wife, my twins, and my only sibling.”

Apparently, their parents had died two years ago, and since then, The Man and his wife had been taking care of their family and their business, which had done well last year.

Almost 12 in the morning.

The police took The Boy and The Man. Both in separate cars, both staring into the abyss without blinking.

The next day came, but how was I supposed to continue my life as if nothing happened?

—

“Twins. She was carrying twins, the news says,” my mom says to me while reading the local newspaper on her old Samsung, holding it at arm’s length with her glasses on. “And the suspect was speeding, heading from a high school graduation party to another one that would start at 12,” she continues.

I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. I don’t want to drive anymore.

A family, just like that, destroyed, gone. And I can’t help but feel bad for everyone involved, and I hate it because the only people who deserved to be mourned were the mother and the little bodies who got buried six feet under, who didn’t get to be a family, who didn’t get to have a birthday—only a passing day.

I wondered if the twins would have been identical or fraternal. And The Man—didn’t he do research on pregnancy? A pregnant woman’s cravings should be taken seriously, and oh—if only he had said, ‘Let’s go together, the meeting is important, but not as much as your matcha ice cream.’

I don’t know for sure, but maybe if he had gone with her, he would have seen the car and pulled her aside. I don’t know… The supermarket was so close after all. Yes, I know he left the meeting early and chased after her, but it was too late.

If only… but what was the point in wondering? None of this would bring them back. Still, I suppose it’s only human nature to hope desperately, even when irreversible damage has been done.

And The Boy—some of my colleagues from my undergrad knew him, and he wasn’t a bad kid. Apparently, he was valedictorian, and he planned to study computer science because he wasn’t interested in taking a place in their family business. He was probably waiting for responses from all the Ivy League schools he had applied to—I assume he did.

Such a promising future…

He pleaded guilty, charged with 20 years in prison.

The sentencing day was all this town talked about—gossiping, theorizing. But as a witness during the hearing, I remember The Boy’s only words besides ‘guilty’:

“I am sorry for ending our family.”