Don't Burn The Car

Sarah woke to the loud slamming of Justin trying his best to be quiet. Sarah slowly shuffled to her feet looking at her husband, David, still sound asleep. Sarah headed into the kitchen to find Justin swallowing his meds. 

Sarah was still confused why David wanted a child so badly. She never realized how it was just going to be worse when they become teenagers. Especially a Bipolar, superstitious teenager.  

“Hi mom.” Justin said, putting the pill bottles back in the cupboard. 

“Did you take all of them?” Sarah asked taking a sip of coffee. 

“Yeah.” Justin said taking a bite of toast. “Guess what day it is?” 

“What?” Sarah asked. 

“New Years Eve. Obviously.” Justin said. 

“Obviously.” Sarah said. Even though she forgot. She had been having trouble keeping track of the days. She thought one kid was enough and then she went and had three more. And keeping track of things such as what day it was, was a tricky thing. 

“I have the entire day planned.” Justin said. “I researched a ton of other countries New Year’s Eve traditions. Did you know that in Puerto Rico they throw buckets of water out their windows to drive away evil spirits?”

“I did not know that.” Sarah said checking her watch to make sure David wasn’t late to work. 

“Yeah, and in Denmark they save all of their unused dishes and shatter them right when the countdown ends.” 

“You will not be doing that.” Sarah said putting her glass in the sink and heading up the stairs to wake the rest of her kids. 

Miriam, her oldest, was already awake and texting away on her phone. “Hi mom.” Miriam said blankly still staring at her phone. 

“Sweetie can you drive Justin to the doctors today?” Sarah asked making Miriam’s bed, messy rooms bothered her. 

“Mom I have a lot going on.” Miriam said. “I have to go meet with Tyler for New Years.” 

“Of course.” Sarah said trying not to take it to heart. She decided to ask Lilian. 

“Good morning Lilian.” Sarah said walking into her room. Lilian was sitting on the ground with her new boyfriend. 

“Hi Michael.” Sarah said absentmindedly.” 

“Hi Mrs.Coltof.” Micheal said wrapping his hand tighter around Lilian’s. 

Teenagers. 

“What do you need mom?” Lilian asked rolling her eyes at Sarah. 

“Oh yeah. Can you take Justin to the doctor’s today?” 

“You can see I’m busy.” Lilian said glancing her eyes at Sarah and then at Micheal. 

“Oh.” Sarah said. “I’ll let you two go back to what you were doing.” But she made sure to eye Lilian to make sure there would be no that at her house. Lilian just shook her head and Sarah sighed, but closed the door anyway.

“Good morning Oliver.” Sarah said giving a slight knock on his door. 

“Come in.” He said. Sarah opened to door to find Oliver sitting on his bed with an array of medical machines and medicines. 

Again, Sara always assumed having kids would be easy. And it was. Until she had more than one. David worked all of the time giving no help to Sarah. And she understood that he had to deal with nagging coworkers and his unreliable boss, but it was hard having no support. And it wasn’t just David that made it hard. When Oliver was fifteen months old he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, which diminished any thought of Sarah going back to work. 

Now Sarah was stuck dealing with a sick teenage son, a mentally ill teenage son, and two hormonal teenage girls who thought it was a great idea to wear revealing clothes and have fun with their boyfriends all the time. 

Oliver was on his bed with his nebulizer in his mouth. He was reading some book. Oliver looked just like any other teenage boy really. He went to school when he wasn’t in the hospital and he played basketball on his high school team.

“Hi mom.” Oliver said, his voice muffled from the nebuliser. Many parents with a sick child are very protective, but Sarah found it easiest to treat him like everyone else. 

“Can you drive Justin to the doctors today?” Sarah asked. Oliver was kind of her last chance. 

“Sure.” Oliver said simply. “What time? Because I’m meeting up with Julia later.”

“Soon.” Sarah said. “And you have a doctors appointment later.”

“Is it just for antibiotics?” Oliver asked. 

“I think so.” Sarah said. She hated seeing Oliver hooked up to all of those machines and IVs, but she knew it was keeping him alive. 

Sarah was going to check in with him when Sarah heard a crash from down the stairs. Sarah ran down the stairs.

“What happened, did anything break?” Sarah asked rushing into the room and she gasped when her feet landed on the shards of glass on the floor. 

“Justin?” Sarah shouted. “What happened?” She slowly sat in a chair and examined her feet. She looked at the shards embedded in her feet. 

“I guess you can take me to the doctor too Oliver.” Sarah said. She didn’t know if she should pull out the glass shards, because she didn’t want to make it worse. David came rushing out of the bedroom. 

“What is going on here- Sarah! What happened?” He asked going over to examine her feet. 

“Justin, what happened?” Sarah asked. 

“I was starting New Year’s Traditions early.” Justin mumbled. 

“Are you taking your meds?” David asked looking closer at Sarah’s foot. “Should we pull out the glass?” He mumbled grabbing ahold of a piece of glass, but Oliver stopped him.

“That just makes things worse.” He said grabbing ahold of David’s wrist. “You have to wait for the doctors to do it.”

“You should totally be a doctor.” Miriam said coming down the stairs mindlessly avoiding the glass.

“Yeah, like I’m going to live that long.” Oliver mumbled.

“Don’t talk that way and get me to the hospital before my foot falls off.” Sarah said.

“Drama queen.” Oliver said doing a little bow as David picked her up and walked her out to the car. 

“I want to come!” Justin said running out as David layed Sarah in the front seat. 

“And what New Year's Tradition does this involve?” Oliver asked getting into the driver’s seat and starting the car.

“Well, in Paris they burn cars-” Justin started. 

“Absolutely not.” Sarah said, making a mental note to hide the matches. 

“Are you taking your meds or are they just not working?” Oliver asked sarcastically. “We are not burning my car.” 

“Fine,” Justin groaned. 

“Whatever, get in.” Oliver said. Justin hopped into the backseat as Oliver pulled out of the driveway. 

“Wait!” Lilian shouted from the driveway. She was running out with Micheal. 

“Now what?” Oliver groaned stopping the car with a jerk. He rolled down the window to let Lilian to talk. 

“Micheal doesn’t believe your dying.” Lilian said between gasps. “I want to prove him wrong.” 

“He is not dying.” Sarah said rubbing her foot. 

“He kind of is.” Justin said from the back seat. 

“Shut it.” Sarah said.  

“Get in.” Oliver said unlocking the doors. Lilian and Micheal piled into the back with Justin. 

“Are you really dying man?” Micheal asked as Oliver pulled out of the driveway for the second time. 

“No.” Sarah said before Oliver could respond.

“See, I told you.” Micheal said with a look of satisfaction on his face. 

“No, she’s just saying that to be positive.” Lilian said. 

“Very true.” Oliver said. 

This was one of those times where Sarah was very glad to live so close to the hospital. They’ve had too many close calls with Oliver,so they moved closer to the hospital. They were there in less than fifteen minutes and Oliver helped her limp into the hospital. 

“What’s going on?” Dr.Morito, Oliver’s doctor, asked going over to examine him. 

“Not me, my mom.” Oliver said pointing to Sarah. 

“My, now what happened here?” Dr.Morito asked bringing Sarah over to the closest room and everyone else followed. 

“I just stepped on some glass.” Sarah said trying to convince herself that it didn’t hurt. 

“We are going to have to pull them out.” Dr.Morito said. “Do you want a pain killer?” Sarah looked at her kids sitting in the room with her. She thought about all of the times her sons have been poked and prodded. She thought about all of the pain everyone else went through. 

“Yeah.” Sarah said. A nurse came in rolling in an IV. She waved at Oliver and then she rolled it over to Sarah. 

“You’re going to feel a slight poke.” The nurse said. Sarah nodded. She flinched at the needle and slowly felt the darkness inclose around her. 

“Don’t burn the car.” Sarah whispered to Justin before the darkness pulled her under.