If Only

   I understand that we as human beings are not perfect and we make mistakes but the error I had made was a costly one, one I wish I could go back in time and change, one that has haunted me since that fateful Wednesday and since then I had promised to do everything to try to atone for my sins even if it drove me to the brink of insanity, it was a cross that I had to bear. I had been trying to make it up to Aisha and Megan her daughter since I had gotten Darryl her husband and my best friend killed she had forbidden me from attending his funeral which felt like a stab in my heart but I understood her reasons so I watched and observed from a distance not to be discovered and when the crowd had dispersed and had gone back to the house I made my way to his grave site and cried uncontrollably begging in vain for God to bring him back or for all this to be a very horrible and long nightmare but even after 2 hours of sitting in front of his gravestone not a sound, not a miracle happened eventually I gathered myself together and left vowing to him to make up for the mistake that had cost his life no matter what and to look out for his wife. 

    It was a sunny Wednesday in the middle of July the summer was exceptionally harsh on us but this time the heat was unbearable so it was only normal that air conditioners were constantly running to maintain a bit of sanity, Darryl my childhood best friend had stopped by my house to cool off since he had just finished his morning cycling and was dripping in sweat he was too tired to cycle back home so he asked me to drive him back to which I agreed to on the condition that he had to order dinner over to my house later that evening which he agreed to, I was driving him home with the radio on full blast playing our favorite childhood song Thong Song by Sisqo we were singing at the top of our voices when out of nowhere a truck collided into my car from the passenger side and sent the car tumbling three times before it had finally made a stop upside down, I was conscious and I could hear a ringing in my ear but Darryl was quiet which got me scared I called out his name and tried to shake him a little but he still didn’t move so I slowly tried to take off my seat belt but I was in so much pain I was bleeding from my nose and my forehead and it felt like my left arm was broken because it felt like someone had dropped a tree on it but somehow I managed to take it off and crawl out of the car using my right had to crawl, I asked a bystander to please call for help then I managed to limp over to Darryl then I and another by stander managed to drag him out of the car it felt like we were dragging ten bags of coal because he was so heavy and I was doing this with my one good arm when we had successfully brought him out if the car I kept shaking him and screaming his name he still wasn’t responding, and as I had discovered he wasn’t breathing either so without thinking I decided to make the mistake that had led me here I give him very slow CPR I was 20 counts into the compressions with my one good hand and trying to brace through the pain of using my broken arm when I heard a crack in his chest it sounded like I snapped a twig so I stopped out of shock and shook him again but since he didn’t respond I decided to continue with the compressions but still no response no breaths I started panicking I could literally hear my heart beating and I felt the blood rushing to my heart, I started shaking him even more aggressively ignoring the ringing in my ear I was so disoriented that I didn’t notice that an ambulance had gotten to our location. 

“Miss are you okay?” I looked at the paramedic very confused “What?” and that was the last thing I remembered before I woke up in the hospital. 

“Nurse she has woken up” my sister called out to the nurse as soon as I opened my eyes. 

“Where am I?” 

“In the hospital, you had an accident this morning” my sister replied. 

The nurse approached me “How do you feel? miss Adriana”  

“Darryl, Darryl” I kept whispering “Where is Darryl, the man in the car with me?”, My sister was about to respond.

Just then like a badly scripted movie Aisha barged into my room “How could you be so stupid, you killed him” I slowly tried to sit up on my bed while the nurse tried to hold her off and my sister stood in front of me in a bid to prevent her from getting to me.

“What are you talking about? The driver came out of nowhere, how you could even say something so horrible?”

“Not that, you; stupid fool the accident didn’t kill him the CPR you gave him did” she had stopped trying to charge at me after the nurse threatened to call the hospital security, but I told her that would not be necessary, so she let her go. 

“What? I was trying to save him, he wasn’t breathing” 

“The doctor said your compressions cracked his ribs, he was still alive the paramedics could have resuscitated him, you killed your best friend, how could you?”

“I…. I didn’t mean to Aisha I thought I was saving his life it was a mistake”

“That mistake cost him his life, I will never forgive you for this” she finally seemed to gain some composure stared daggers at me with tears in her eyes then she walked out. 

I looked at my sister in dismay and utter confusion “I was only trying to help him you have to believe me” and then the tears started to flow from my eyes like I had just realized that Aisha told me Darryl was dead my sister came to my side to give me a hug and comfort me. 

   After the funeral I had made every effort to reach Aisha but it proved futile she wouldn’t see me or talk to me I had made an honest mistake but still a mistake a very costly one that had deprived a woman and her child of a husband and father I had wired some money to Aisha and told her that if she wouldn’t see me but at least she should accept the money to take care of them for the mean time I mean it was the least I could do but she returned the money and got a restraining order against me I didn’t hold it against her so in a desperate attempt I went to check on Megan in school to see if she was okay, I didn’t plan on going inside the school building because I figured Aisha told the school I wasn’t allowed to visit her anymore, she was just five years old and I couldn’t imagine how she was feeling. I was a bit nervous about seeing her because I figured her mum might have told her considering how angry she was with me but when she saw me across the street of her school playing ground she smiled and waved at me it warmed my heart and I started crying I couldn’t go back in time and change the outcome of that day, I couldn’t bring him back but I would find a way to try to make up for it if that was possible some way, somehow. Since the incidence I wasn’t sleeping properly, I wasn’t eating, I cried all the time, I couldn’t concentrate on work and I had started trying to drink the pain away I just kept wondering how to make it right, how to make Aisha forgive me, my sister told me to give her some time that she would reach out when she was ready but after the restraining order I knew it would take a lot more effort to fix what I had done. So, at eleven pm intoxicated with about 3,000 dollars in my bag I took a taxi over to Aisha’s house I did not care about the restraining order or what the consequences of disobeying it was, I marched to her door and knocked aggressively, she opened the door and before she could say anything, I opened then dropped my bag in front of her and dropped to my knees in tears 

“Please I didn’t mean to, I wasn’t trying to kill him please let me help in any way I can please let me at least try to make up for what I did I haven’t been able to forgive myself please”. 

She looked at me with a certain coldness in her eyes

“All your tears and money won’t bring him back; you should have gone not him. Now my daughter, your god daughter does not have a father because you tried to be a hero, if you want to help us stay away from us, now leave before I call the police and take your worthless money with you”. With that she slammed the door in my face, rejected, dejected and defeated I stood up and kept walking and crying till my feet hurt, she was right no matter what I did, said or what my intentions where I killed Darryl and I would have to live with that for the rest of my life.