I don’t know why, but somehow I’m still here.
The doctors say I’m lucky to be alive, that I must have some purpose to my life, since I was the only one in my family who survived the fire. They joke about it in that dry doctorly way, like the fire that killed the people closest to me is just another incident that will be stripped off the headlines and forgotten in the next month, like neglected leftovers in the back of the refrigerator.
I know the doctors are just kidding, but something about me is different than before. I feel different. I think differently. Everything is dull, my aspirations and ambitions gone, now with no one to turn to and nobody to talk to. No parents to scold me when I don’t put my dishes in the dishwasher. No sisters to tease about their fantastical crushes and wild clothing styles. Everything is gone, ripped away from me so suddenly I can’t process it.
I woke up one morning, a couple of days ago, to the hospital lights and sounds, and screamed my mother’s name in a panic until my throat was raw. The nurse who took care of me informed me that I had awoken the entire hospital wing, and that my mother was dead, along with my father and twin sisters.
I haven’t spoken since that dreadful day, which scares the doctors and makes them think that the head injury I received was more than a severe concussion.
I can speak. I know I can speak. I just have to need to. I have no purpose now, no need to express my feelings and thoughts if no one cares about them. They were wrong-I am nothing without my family. I am completely and utterly alone, something that no human being should have to go through. What’s the point of continuing on if there is nothing to strive for?
Weeks pass, and I am still in the hospital, my ears ringing constantly with the monotonous beep of the heart monitor next to me. I don’t know why they won’t let me out into the world. I’m feeling better now. I have a job, and a car, a sweet sixteen birthday present from my father. What are they waiting for? I lie awake at night thinking of my parents, grasping every detail I remember about them, replaying every memory in my mind over and over again. I think that if I remember them enough I will bring them back, and everything will be normal again.
The memories are spinning in my head repeatedly all the time now, like a camera playing back a roll of film. The doctors take tests upon tests upon tests until I feel drained of energy and blood. Maybe, I think in an almost happy manner, they know what I am thinking somehow and are trying to end me so that I won’t have to suffer anymore.
But they are not. They are conducting the tests to see if I am in perfect health, and on October 16th, two months after the fire, I am released into the heart of New York City. I have nothing to accompany me on my travel except for a suitcase with the few possessions I have that weren’t charred or incinerated by the fire and my car keys.
I sit in the driver’s seat of my car for the first time in months and am suddenly engulfed with an overwhelming mix of emotions. I feel hot tears welling in my eyes, and I close them tight, and suddenly I’m back there, in the fire.
Smoke is all around me, the hot air making me sweat and cough. The orange glow of flames lights up my bedroom and contrasts the night sky, a beautiful horror filling my vision. My bedroom is on the second floor, and, without thinking, I hurl myself out of the nearest window, wincing at the pricking feeling of the screen digging into my skin as I break through it. I do not scream as I plummet to the ground. I simply watch as my house, my home, explodes into an amorphous red and orange blaze of fire, smoke, and ash.
I hit the ground headfirst, a cracking sound erupting in my ears, and my vision begins to redden and fade. The last thing I see are my twin sisters, aged nine, also throwing themselves out of the window and tumbling to the ground, never to move again. The last thing I hear is my parents shrieking, two ineffable sounds piercing the night and ripping through it like daggers slicing through a thin cloth.
I am brought back instantaneously to my car, tears sliding slowly and silently down my cheeks. I need to get out of this place, find somewhere new, make a new life for myself, forget my past, or the pain will be too great and take me over.
I need to say good-bye.
On my way out of New York City, I drive past all of the places where we used to go. The ice cream and pizza shop we always had dinner at. The movie theater where I’d had my first kiss. It’s all there, just the same as it always had been. The only thing that changed was me.
The house was located in the outskirts of the city, and I stop the car when I reach the lot where it had been. The remains of the house have been cleaned up, and new grass is sprouting in the soil where it had been.
I get out of the car and lean against it, taking in the sight before me. Memories of my childhood flood my mind, and I release them. They drift away on the wind, their colors fading and the voices in them becoming distorted.
I watch them float down on the empty lot. The rest there, building my old house and filling it with recollections of the past, and soon it is complete, a restored home with a family inside.
I smile sadly and turn away, getting into my car and driving away from the ghostly paradise I had created to only God knows where.
Once, I had thought that remembering my family would be enough to bring them back. But I learned that it was not holding on, but letting go that would set them free. Someday I will join them, when it is my time.
Maybe the doctors were right after all. Maybe I do have a purpose in life.
I smile again, but this time the sorrow has vanished. This smile is full of hope, of ambition, and I drive into a new world, a new life.
And I am ready.