4:54 pm

I thought Chloe’s habit of singing at the top of her lungs was to blame. She would tell you my complaining was “distracting” her. But in all honesty, the deer was the real culprit.

At the time of the accident, Chloe was, of course, making my ears bleed with her version of The Hollies’ The Air That I Breathe. Just as I was telling her to quiet down—or at least play a Christmas song—she turned up the volume. The bastard appeared between the fat, feathery snowflakes in the middle of the road. Chloe gripped the wheel, swerving left as the deer stupidly stood there gaping at us. The tires screamed, our bodies thrashing and colliding with the headliner multiple times. I felt the seat belt carving into my skin but all I could think about was whether the airbag had broken Chloe’s nose.

Minutes passed. Maybe hours. The eternity that also felt like time had stopped. Strange feeling. When the car finally decided three overturns was enough, we settled between two giant trees. The first sight I saw when I opened my eyes was the sky, red and yellow with the setting Sun, a shade darker than before. We’d been unconscious for a while.

Chloe coughed a little, wiping some blood from her busted lip. Our eyes locked, and as the relief of seeing one another alive washed over us, we burst out laughing. Much like the time when we were kids and Mom marched into our room at night to yell at us for making too much noise.

Laughing in our bruised state was too much, so it turned into loud coughs until we calmed down.

“Are you okay? All bones intact?” Chloe asked.

“Fine. You?”

“Sprained wrist, I think?” She held up her right arm to reveal a pinkish-red bruise, her wrist appearing rounded and swollen.

I winced at the sight.

“We need to call for help.” I began to unbuckle my seat belt, planning to reach for the phone that was in the backseat. The buckle protested against my pulls, and I panicked. I pulled at it harshly, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Chloe, my seat belt is stuck,” I squealed. Even though the merciless December wind blew through the car, the air felt thick.

I became the nine-year-old girl stuck in an elevator for five hours again. I’ve been taking the stairs ever since.

Chloe’s voice was grounding. “Breathe, Blair. It’s just a seat belt. We’ll cut it off or something,” she suggested, unbuckling herself, and all I could do was watch in jealousy. “Maybe it’s better if you don’t move at all. If you have a spinal injury or something.”

“Don’t say that! What if I really have a spinal injury? I’ll be a paraplegic. My legs feel a little numb. Oh my God, I’ll never run again—OW!” Chloe threw a water bottle from the cup holder at my leg and gave me that annoyed look of hers before she reached for the phone in the backseat.

The phone trembled in her hands, her shaky fingers unable to tap the screen properly. I knew Chloe was rather calm despite the situation, but she couldn’t control all of her body’s responses. I, on the other hand, was somehow more bothered with the suffocating seat belt than with the fact we had just survived a major car crash.

“Gimme the phone, Chlo,” I demanded in my big-sister voice. I reached to grab it, but the phone slipped and fell, lost in the cracks between the seats.

“Crap, Blair,” Chloe groaned. A series of curse words followed frantic attempts to fish the phone from underneath the seat.

“Calm down, Chloe—”

“Shut up!” She stopped and forcibly closed her eyes. “Okay, okay. Breeeathee,” she told herself. “I need to balance my crown chakra now.”

“I think your solar plexus is for the stress.”

“No, it’s the crown! Or maybe it’s root chakra—”

A loud noise coming from the roof cut me off. Our simultaneous scream made the little squirrel that had landed on our roof hop down on the snow beside the driver’s window. It shot us a judgmental look before it turned around and ran away. Chloe and I burst into laughter once again.

I gripped the seat belt, trying to push it away.

“This freaking thing is digging into my boobs,” I said, panting between laughs.

“Of course it is when they’re the size of entire planets.”

The extremely unelegant laughs drove some birds away, their powerful flaps erupting from the trees. Chloe’s hands slightly calmed down, and she was determined to fetch the phone from underneath the seat.

“Bingo!” She said with the phone in her hands, immediately turning it on. That’s when I realized how dark it’s gotten—all this time, Chloe’s face has partly been a shadow. The phone screen illuminated her scarlet cheeks and the gash on her forehead.

“Signal?” I urged.

“One line. And, like, twenty percent battery.”

“Call! Now!”

“Hello, 911? Uh, so my sister and I were in a crash. A deer appeared out of nowhere—No, just us, the one car—yes, I’m the driver, we’re both fine, mild injuries maybe—road, uh, I have no idea—”

“Otter Creek Road.” I said.

“Otter Creek Road. We swerved right into the forest. Just the two of us. Okay, thank you.”

“They’re coming?”

“They’re coming."

The darkness came gradually, but the cold wind came in one intense wave and never settled down. Trees above lost their protective charm and now they were just an ominous presence, lurking above us. It felt like the forest reminded us we hadn’t belonged there in our wrecked car.

Chloe and I grew too weary to talk. My mind was freely wandering, in a state akin to sleep but never quite reaching that comfort. A train of thoughts brought me to the memory of my college graduation. That suddenly reminded me—I was wearing a Cartier watch that my parents had gifted me as a graduation gift. During the accident, I had slammed my left hand into the headliner a few times. Worried, I asked Chloe to illuminate the wristwatch with the phone only to find all three pointers staying fixed in one spot. I felt a twinge in my heart about the beautiful gift that had fallen victim to the accident.

“We’ll get it fixed when we get back home,” Chloe comforted me. “But look at my hair. It’s a disaster.” She tapped feverishly at her once perfect, voluminous waves now resembling a bird’s nest. It felt like a lifetime passed between Chloe’s bathroom meltdowns about her hair and us sitting in a freezing car in some forest.

We were supposed to get ready at my house and leave for Mom and Dad’s Christmas party. Chloe’s hair hadn’t been cooperating, and she had occupied the bathroom for two hours until I had practically forced her out. Rushing out of the house, I threw my coat in the trunk and the cookies in the backseat while Chloe prepared her road trip playlist. I knew she would be screaming at the top of her lungs, and she knew that I would be complaining.

“I should’ve driven,” I muttered, staring at my feet. Now the car was in complete darkness, and Chloe was just a shadow with wild hair.

She scoffed, insulted. “The deer would have been there whoever was driving. What’s your point?”

“I don’t throw a karaoke party when I drive, for starters.”

“Please give me a break! You only know how to complain.”

The familiar rage related to having a little sister bubbled up inside of me. “The statistics say that if you listen to your favorite songs while driving, you’re more prone to accidents. But you never had to worry about safety, not when I’m in charge. And look what happens when I’m not in charge!”

“Even if you were driving, you would have found a way to blame it on me. Typical!” She crossed her arms over her chest and stubbornly turned her back on me. Well, at least attempted to, being in the confined space.

I shivered for the thousandth time.

“What do you mean, typical? When have I ever blamed something on y—”

“Summer last year,” Chloe deadpanned. “When you got food poisoning from that restaurant and were mad at me because I was the one who picked it! And when we lost in tennis that one time, you blamed me even though you knew I had a bad knee! And for Mom’s birthday, it was somehow my fault that the baker had misspelled her name! Oh my, God, I could think of a million other examples.” She breathed out sharply after the avalanche of words she had been sitting on for too long and massaged her temples.

I paused for a moment, watching Chloe angrily pulling her coat tighter to herself.

I could argue with her or tell her that she was insane for holding grudges. But if all those silly situations hadn’t truly hurt her, she wouldn’t have remembered them. It was more than just a tennis match or a restaurant choice. I had made her feel guilty for situations she had not been responsible for. What made me feel the worst was that if I had been the one driving, Chloe would never have blamed it on me. In fact, she wouldn’t be blaming me even if I had made a catastrophical mistake. That’s just who my sister was.

My voice came in a whisper. “I’m sorry about all those things.”

Silence fell between us and I heard a weak sound of a stream somewhere in the distance. Chloe started sniffling and breathing out sharply.

“Chloe…”

“It was my fault!” She said, sobbing. “It really was. I’m just a fucking idiot. Dad should have never given me the Honda.”

“Stop it! You did everything you could. And honestly, I don’t even feel bad about this junk pile of a car,” I shrugged.

Chloe giggled. I followed, and I felt a little warmer.

“Maybe you’ll get a new one.”

“And I’ll buy you a new watch.”

“Deal.”

Sudden rustling of leaves and a faint sound of an engine made us exchange hopeful looks. Chloe slammed the seat belt buckle against the metal of the car.

“Here!” She screamed with as much energy she could force in.

The rustling sound grew closer and faster, voices along with it. Finally, I would be free of this suffocating seat belt, Chloe and I would get checked at the hospital, get home and eat Christmas dinner. I saw a circular ray of light dancing between the trees, as if someone was walking with a flashlight.

Soon enough, reflective stripes on a thick yellow jacket appeared in Chloe’s window. The paramedic wore a beard, and a hat pulled low with a somewhat stern expression on his face.

“Evening, miss,” he greeted Chloe. “My name is Jason. Can you tell me first if the car is stable?”

“I think so,” Chloe quivered.

“Alright. Kara here will help you out.”

Kara, another paramedic was younger than Jason and wearing a polite smile. She placed a bright red first aid bag on the snow and opened Chloe’s car door, her moves swift and firm. Then, she gave a quick glance at me but soon turned to Chloe again.

“You said your sister was with you?”

“Yes, she’s right here.” Confusion lingered in Chloe’s voice.

“Where?” Kara demanded and the polite smile had faded from her face.

“Kara.” Jason’s careful voice came from above the car. “Look at the windshield.”

Jason pointed the flashlight at the car, and the image revealed itself under the beam of light for the first time. The gap in the windshield, with little pieces of glass all over the hood along with a thick trail of blood, gave away what had actually happened.

The memory was clear as day, and Chloe was too much of a stubborn grudge holder not to remember it.

“Sooometimesss,” Chloe wailed, “ALL I NEED IS THE AIR—”

“I’m starving,” I whined.

“You put the cookies in the backseat.”

I smiled widely like a child.“I did!” I unbuckled my seat belt carelessly, turning around toward the massive Tupperware box filled with Christmas magic.

As I grabbed the soft-baked cinnamon cookie, Chloe turned up the volume, but hadn’t sung another verse. Chloe’s scream, The Hollies, the deer, the brakes screeching. The glass breaking at the impact of my body. Me flying over the hood, limp and helpless, becoming nothing more than a carcass on the side of the road.

I had never buckled my seat belt back, but I was still confined to that passenger seat. In a way.

“Blair? Blair?!” Chloe tapped the seat desperately.

She kept grabbing at the air, closing her eyes as if that would make her forget about my absence.

“Miss, you need to calm down, okay—”

The realization hit Chloe like a ton of bricks.

“NO!” A primal scream erupted from her throat. “BLAIR!”

For a second, I could swear I had grabbed her hand. Her fingers broke the barrier between us for a mere moment, and I felt an electric spark on my skin, which might have been imagined. But it felt real.

“No! Please, Blair! Don’t leave me! You were right here, you are right here! You can’t go! You can’t go,” she sobbed. “You were right here. My sister… My sister...” Chloe repeated the words until they mixed with the sobs to the point of incoherence.

If I were alive, Chloe’s undying cries would tear me apart piece by piece. The shivering from my imaginary hypothermia had diminished, warmth spreading through my hand—the hand that had grazed Chloe’s—and I was warm again.

The wristwatch had stopped at 4:54 pm. I finally felt free of my seat belt.