The Accident –
They say that in the final moments of your life, the happiest memories flash before your eyes. For me, it was like reliving the best parts of my soul. I saw myself graduating college, feeling the weight of accomplishment and hope. I saw my first day of law school—the day I met Carson. She was radiant. That nose-crinkling grin of hers was the cutest, most enchanting thing I’d ever seen.
I remembered our first lunch date, the butterflies, and the way time seemed to bend around us. Our anniversaries, each one more beautiful than the last. The way she’d hold my hips as we danced in the kitchen to the tune of her soft humming. The gentle kisses on my forehead before we sleep.
These moments filled my mind as if my heart was trying to hold onto them, to her. But then came the present—a moment so vivid it overshadowed even the brightest of memories.
Carson was driving, her eyes sparkling as she smiled at me. She kissed my hand, the one now adorned with a diamond ring, promising me a lifetime of love and forever. It was the happiest moment of my life.
But beyond her radiant smile was something else—a blinding light. Headlights. A sight no one wants to see when the love of their life is sitting beside them.
It happened in an instant. The crash. My head snapped forward, pain exploding in my skull like firecrackers. And there she was—Carson. Her head rested against the steering wheel, blood trickling down her temple. She was motionless, her right hand pressed firmly against my chest as if even in unconsciousness, she was trying to protect me.
I wanted to scream, to shake her awake, to pull us out of this nightmare, but no sound came. My body betrayed me. My vision blurred, and the last thing I felt before my eyes shut was the warmth of her touch and the cold, cruel realization that everything might change.
And then, darkness.
After the 5-Year Coma – Andi’s POV
A sharp, throbbing pain greeted me as I opened my eyes. My head felt like it had been split open, but one thought pierced through the haze—Carson. Where was she?
I looked around, taking in the hospital room. Tubes and wires were attached to my body, machines beeping rhythmically beside me. I didn’t care about any of it. I had to find Carson. Desperation fueled me as I started yanking out the tubes. The sudden motion made my vision blur and my head spin, but I couldn’t stop.
Stumbling out of bed, I nearly collapsed but caught myself against the wall. The room was empty. She wasn’t here. My heart raced, the panic rising like a tidal wave.
I made my way out of the room, clinging to the walls for support. Each step felt heavier than the last, but I kept going. The sterile, white corridors seemed endless as I searched for her. My mind screamed Carson’s name, my lips trembling, too dry to speak.
When I reached the emergency room, I expected to see her there, waiting for me, but instead, I found nurses and doctors staring at me in shock. Their wide eyes followed my every move as though they were seeing a ghost.
One of the nurses rushed toward me, her voice urgent but soft, “Ma’am, please, you need to calm down. How did you even get out of your room?”
Her words barely registered. I pushed past her, scanning the faces around me. Carson wasn’t there. My legs gave out, and I dropped to my knees, shaking. My voice finally broke through the lump in my throat, trembling and desperate, “Where is Carson? Where’s my fiancée?”
The nurse’s face softened, but she looked at me like I was fragile, like I might shatter. “Miss, you need to rest. Please, let’s get you back to your room.”
“No!” I screamed, my voice echoing through the hall. Tears streamed down my face as I struggled against her and another nurse who had joined to help. “I need to find her! Where is she?”
I heard one of them call for someone—my mother. Moments later, she appeared, her face pale and drawn, like she’d aged a decade since I’d last seen her. She knelt beside me, her hands trembling as she gripped mine.
“Andi,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Please, calm down. We’ll explain everything.”
But I didn’t want explanations. I wanted Carson.
--
The nurses and doctors brought me back to my room, their hands steady but firm as I struggled against them. I couldn’t stop shouting, couldn’t stop calling out for Carson. The panic inside me was too much to contain.
They settled me into the bed, and that’s when I saw it—a mirror across the room. My reflection caught me off guard. I looked… fine. No bruises, no scars, nothing to show what had happened. I didn’t understand. How could I look this normal after the accident?
But the confusion didn’t stop the ache in my chest. I kept screaming, my voice cracking, “Where’s Carson? Tell me where she is!”
My mother was beside me, her face streaked with tears, her body trembling as she cried. I barely noticed the nurse leaning in until I felt the prick of a needle in my arm. Warmth spread through me, and my body started to feel heavy.
My mom’s voice broke through my haze, shaky and full of sorrow. “Andi… it’s been five years since the accident. You’ve been in a coma.”
Her words didn’t make sense. Five years? No, that couldn’t be true. My heart raced, my thoughts spinning, but the medication was pulling me under. She kept talking, but her voice grew faint, like it was coming from far away.
Tears streamed down my face as my eyes closed against my will. The last thing I heard was her voice, breaking with emotion, as darkness swallowed me.
In the quiet of my mind, only one thought remained. Carson. Where was she?
----
When I woke up, the first thing I felt was warmth—a hand holding mine. My heart skipped a beat when I saw her. Carson. She was there, sitting beside me.
“Carson,” I whispered softly, my voice hoarse but full of relief.
Her head shot up, and her eyes filled with tears the moment they met mine. “Andi,” she said, her voice trembling as she leaned in, wrapping her arms around me. She cried against my shoulder, her sobs shaking her small frame.
She kissed my forehead, her lips lingering as though she was afraid to let go. “I’ve waited so long for this moment,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “Five years, Andi. I’ve been waiting five years for you to wake up.”
Her words hit me like a wave, and my mom’s earlier revelation rushed back to me. Five years. I’d been in a coma for five years.
I looked at Carson, studying her face. She looked fine—no bruises, no signs of the accident. But there was something in her eyes, something she wasn’t saying. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, and I knew her too well to miss it.
“Carson,” I said gently, reaching out to touch her face. “Is there something wrong, love?”
She hesitated, her expression flickering with conflict. Finally, she sighed, her hand trembling as she brushed her fingers through my hair. “Andi… I owe you an explanation,” she said, her voice low and filled with guilt.
My heart clenched. Something wasn’t right. Whatever she was about to say, I knew it was going to change everything.
---
Stay a little longer, take a little longer…
To pack up your bags, you're movin' too fast…
Make me wanna hate you, so I don't have to miss you…
Oh, make a mistake, so someone's to blame…
The moment Carson spoke, it felt like the ground beneath me was crumbling. Every word she said twisted the knife deeper into my chest, each sentence breaking me a little more.
“Andi,” she said, her voice shaking as she took my hand, her grip tight but trembling. “I waited for you. I really did. I thought about you every day… but after five years, I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on. I couldn’t keep living in this space between hope and grief.”
Her words made my heart ache, but I couldn’t understand how it was possible. “Carson, please,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “What are you saying?”
She swallowed hard, tears falling from her eyes, but she kept going. “Jamie was there for me. She was the one who stayed by my side when I felt like I was losing everything. And somewhere along the way… we fell in love.”
My chest tightened at the mention of Jamie. My best friend. My closest confidante. The person I trusted more than anyone else in the world.
“Carson, no,” I gasped, shaking my head in disbelief. “Not Jamie. You…”
I can't stand these four walls without you inside them…
Build us a castle, then leave me in silence…
What if I tangled some rope round your feet…
Into the ocean? 'Cause I'm in too deep…
“I didn’t want it to happen,” she said, her voice breaking. “But it did. And now… now we’re expecting a baby, Andi. Jamie and I… we’re having a child.”
The words hit me like a sucker punch, and I gasped for air, my vision blurring with tears. Jamie—my Jamie—the one person I thought would never hurt me—was having a baby with the woman I loved.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. It was like the world stopped spinning, and I was frozen in this painful reality that didn’t feel like mine.
I turned away from them, my hands trembling as I pressed them to my face. The tears came faster now, uncontrollable, each one a reminder of everything I had lost. Everything I thought I could come back to.
The love of my life, and my best friend—both gone from me in ways I never imagined. It felt like the world was collapsing around me, and I was drowning in the weight of it all.
I wanted to scream, to ask why, to demand answers. But the words wouldn’t come. All I could do was sit there, broken and empty, as the two people I trusted most in the world stood in front of me—together, with a future I could never be part of.
Please, won't you stay, stay a little longer, babe?..
Don't walk away when I'm here callin' your name..
I'm fragile, I'm speechlеss, don't leave me in piеces..
Already havin' enough trouble breathin'..
Please, won't you stay, stay a little longer, babe?..
I never imagined I’d come to this. The future I had planned with Carson—the life I dreamed of building for her, for us—was slipping away right before my eyes. And what hurt more than anything was that she wasn’t building it with me. She was building it with Jamie, my best friend, the person I trusted with my life.
The pain inside me was unbearable, as if my heart was being torn apart from the inside. I could feel it—every beat, every throb, a constant reminder of what I had lost. I thought the accident was the worst thing that could happen to me, but this—this was far worse. The thought of Carson, the woman I loved, moving on from me, it felt like a stab in my chest.
It didn’t feel real. To me, it was still yesterday. It felt like I had just closed my eyes, waiting to wake up to a world where Carson and I could finally be together. But instead, I was waking up to a nightmare—a life I never chose, a life I didn’t understand.
The two of them were standing there, crying, and I could see the guilt in their eyes. They kept saying they were sorry, over and over again, as if those words could make any of this right. But it didn’t. It didn’t fix the hollow feeling that was consuming me, didn’t take away the ache that I couldn’t escape.
They had moved on. They had built a life without me, without even considering that I was still here, still in love with Carson. And the worst part was that Carson had moved on from me. She had somehow found a future with Jamie, and that truth stung more than any accident, more than any injury could.
I felt like I was drowning in the realization that everything I thought we were building had been a dream, a dream I would never get to live.
--
When Carson and Jamie finally left the room, the silence that followed was suffocating. I felt the emptiness settle in, and the tears continued to spill down my face. I couldn’t make sense of any of it—the pain, the betrayal, the life that was now so far out of my reach. But as the door creaked open again, I wasn’t prepared for what came next.
My mother walked in, her eyes red from crying. She didn’t need to say a word. I could see it in her face—the sorrow, the guilt. She walked slowly toward me, taking a seat beside the bed, her hand resting gently on mine.
“Mom,” I whispered, my voice barely audible through the weight of my grief.
“I’m so sorry, Andi,” she choked out, her voice thick with emotion. “This is all my fault.”
I felt the confusion rise again, my heart pounding in my chest. What did she mean?
She continued, her eyes avoiding mine as she spoke, the words spilling out in a rush. “Carson was here for you. She never left your side for four years. After the accident, she was with you every single day. She would visit after work, sleep here in your room… she did it all, hoping one day you’d wake up.”
The weight of her words hit me like a tidal wave. Carson, my Carson, had been there. Every single day. She hadn’t moved on, not until it had destroyed her.
“She didn’t leave you, Andi,” my mother said, her voice trembling. “But after four years of that, her body couldn’t take it anymore. She was hospitalized. Stress, exhaustion… it all caught up to her.”
My heart clenched, the reality of what Carson had sacrificed sinking deep into my chest.
My mother’s voice cracked as she recalled the conversation with Carson, the one that broke both of their hearts. “Carson, we all knew how much you loved my daughter. We saw how hard you fought for her. But you need to rest too. You need to take care of yourself. Your body is giving up on you, and we don’t want to lose you too. We consider you a daughter, Carson. You’ve given everything for us. But please, accept it. Let go.”
The words my mom had said to Carson echoed in my ears, each one more painful than the last. “Andi may not wake up anytime soon… kami na ang bahala sa kanya anak, palayain mo na siya, ayaw naming makita kang ganyan.”
It shattered me. Carson had been there all along, pouring herself into me, hoping against hope that I would wake up, only to have the weight of it all break her. She had done everything she could, and still, I had been the one to wake up too late.
The realization settled in like a heavy fog—I hadn’t just lost Carson to the passage of time. I had lost her to the exhaustion, to the weight of waiting for me. And now, I was the one who couldn’t fix it.
The pain in my chest grew unbearable. Carson was there for me. She loved me. And I had never even known it.
--
I woke up with a jolt, my heart racing in my chest. My surroundings were blurry, but the familiar weight of my mother's hand on mine grounded me. Her eyes were red and swollen, as if she’d been crying for hours. She had been by my side, just like always, but something felt different. I could feel it in the air. Something was wrong.
“Mom?” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “Where’s Carson? Is she okay?”
My mother looked at me, confusion and fear in her eyes. “What do you mean, Andi?”
I struggled to sit up, the reality of the moment starting to slip away from me. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t know. I looked at her with desperation. “Ma, please… tell her I’m sorry. Please tell Carson I’m sorry. I need to say it to her.”
My mom’s face faltered. Her confusion deepened, and I could see the worry building in her eyes. “Andi, what are you talking about? Carson isn’t here.”
“No, Ma,” I said, my voice shaking. “I was talking to her just now. She was here, with Jamie.” My heart pounded as I searched my mother's face for some kind of recognition. “You don’t understand. I just spoke to her, she was right here.”
But my mother’s face crumpled as soon as I said those words. Her eyes filled with tears once again, and she clutched my hand tightly, as if trying to anchor both of us in this unbearable moment. I felt like I was falling, spiraling, as everything around me started to crumble.
Through her tears, my mother managed to speak the most painful words I had ever heard in my life. “Anak…” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I don’t know how to say this to you… but Carson… Carson died the day of your accident. She… she was gone five years ago, Andi.”
Time froze.
The room, the world, everything became silent. I couldn’t process what I had just heard. Carson, the woman I loved, the one I thought I had just spoken to… she had been gone for five years.
I closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them again, it would all be a bad dream. But when I opened them, the truth was still there, staring me in the face. Carson was gone. And I had missed it all.
I felt like I was drowning, my chest tight and my throat raw, but no sound came out. All I could do was sit there, my heart breaking, as my mother held me—trying to comfort me when she was just as broken as I was. Carson had waited for me, fought for me, loved me—and in the end, I was the one who couldn’t save her.
-end-