SOL 18/31

"Why me mom! Oh god… Why me! No…No! Why me!"

I sit on the couch, doing nothing out of the ordinary. I'm watching TV with my mom. We are watching Color Splash with David Bromstad. It was a home design show where a designer would redo one room in someone's house. It wasn't particularly intertwining, but I had nothing else to do. I remember the designer saying:

"Let's see what happens next."

As the show cut to a commercial break. Almost at that very second, a loud knocking at the door. After a few seconds, we paused the TV to go get it. We answered the door, and standing there was a man. He asked my mom if she had a teenage son. She answered yes, thinking of my older brother Alex, who was at the park with Daniel. He ran down the steps and led him to the door. Alex was a bloody mess. His face was dirty and coved in scratches. Blood seeped from his mouth. He didn't act like his normal self.

"He was just out there, wandering in the bark. He was barely able to ride the bike. I asked where he lived, and helped him back."

My mom collected Alex who was openly crying, and she asked him what happened. He told us that he had had a bike accident at the skate park. Daniel had him ride back to safety with the only bike, and walked back himself. She took him into the bathroom to clean him up. I took his bike around back, my mind racing. When I came back inside, I heard him yelling.

"Why me mom! Oh god… Why me! No…No! Why me!"

As he was getting cleaned up, I saw a glimpse of him. His mouth appeared to be full of blood. My heart skipped a beat. Alex also acted differently - he was yelling and was delirious. Finally Daniel came home and we rushed to the car and went to the hospital. Once there, they did some initial clean up and did a cat scan. Daniel told us that Alex face planted after crashing his bike, and several onlookers just stared as Daniel struggled to get Alex out of the skating bowl he had crashed in. Daniel was very shoo ken up. When alex got back, we must have had the same conversation fifteen times. He asked the same questions over and over.

"Was I wearing a helmet?"

"Where's dad?"

"What happened?"

"Was I wearing a helmet?"

"Where's dad?"

"What happened?"

Each time he would forget the answer due to a mild concussion. He would use tissues, and then see the pile and forget that he used the tissues. He cried for much of the time there. He didn't know the date, and he didn't know what he'd done earlier that day. The doctors told us he had broken the bone between his jaw and nose. We went home that night tired and worried. My mom stayed up all night checking on Alex.