To the person who broke me 8 years ago
CHAPTER 2
To the person who broke me 8 years ago…
I say broke me because, 8 years ago I was recovering from a severe brain injury due to falling 25 feet while skiing. I was no longer allowed to participate in sports so I was taking down the score of your basketball game. You made the decision to kick a basketball aimed straight at the back of my head. You struck me, congratulations, you got it, great aim. But I suppose it’s your turn to thank me because for 7 years, I’ve been dying and living every day in extreme pain and I never told you. You should thank me because the day you ruined my life and took it away, I spared you yours. We were friends and still are, and while you’re following your dreams at college, I’m up at 4 am on a daily basis because I can’t sleep and I think about how lucky my parents are that I haven’t ended my life.
I’m just now realizing that I didn’t tell you how much you hurt me, because I know you, I know that you’re a good person and I know that this would have killed you. But now, not out of spite or anger, I need to be selfish because I’ve been holding this in for too long and it’s time for me to take back the life you took. I was only 14. I had a dream of becoming an Olympian, like my mom, being a champion. I dreamed of high school, going to college. Here’s how my life has been going instead, 2 weeks before my 15th birthday, you broke me. Since that day, I’ve lost all of my friends because no one understands what it’s like to live with what I have. I’m never allowed to play sports again. I was forced to drop out of college, they didn’t believe I was sick because I didn’t have a physical cast on my body proving it to them. I don’t have any proof, other than, every morning my whole-body aches, my head has been hurting for the past 8 years, I can’t read because the letters get blurry, I pass out because the pain is too overwhelming. Emotionally, I’m broken because I’ve been reduced to being a doctor’s next patient and my friends are the nurses and doctors trying to fix what you’ve broken.
Here’s the part that no one knows, as soon as the ball hit me I could hear my doctors say “if you get hit again, you could die”. So, as soon as that ball hit me, instead of crying, instead of yelling at you, I pulled myself together and walked to the locker room. I kept quiet and seemingly didn’t react because I felt that I either had enough time to cry or make it to the locker room. My first thought was, ‘I’m gonna die’. I wanted to spare you and the kids in our class the trauma of a classmate dying in front of them, in their Friday afternoon gym class. I thought that the best quiet place for me to die was the locker room so I slowly got up and walked out. As I walked out the door a former student had come back to visit and she hugged me, even though we were never friends, but it took the attention off of me and all I could think is ‘let go or this hug is gonna be a lot longer than you think’. I kept walking, made it to the locker room and sat on the floor, next to my bag and waited. After about 10 minutes I realized that maybe the doctors were wrong and maybe I wasn’t going to die, so I grabbed all of my stuff and walked right out of school, called my mom to pick me up cause ‘it had happened again’ and I needed to go get an MRI.
Here’s another fun fact for you, still to this day I fight with my parents because they wanted and still want to sue you, and when I tell people this story they encourage me to sue you. And for some crazy reason, even knowing all I know and feeling everything I feel, I use up what little energy I have on you. I’m still protecting you. You probably don’t even know what day I’m talking about. You probably didn’t even think anything of it. You probably kept playing basketball. But that day, I remember everything, down to who you were playing with and the fact that your team was winning. All this reminiscing makes me sound bitter, and I want to assure you that I’m not, I’m just tired. Keeping this secret, your secret isn’t just protecting you, it’s killing me. I do hope you get everything you wish for. I truly wish you the best.
Your friend,
The one you broke 8 years ago