Twenty minutes later, Ryan descended the creaking wooden stairs that led from his bedroom to the main floor of their modest two-story house. Each step groaned softly under his weight. His school clothes hung loosely on his frame - a faded gray hoodie that had seen better days and jeans that were probably due for a wash but would have to suffice for another day.
His backpack, loaded with textbooks he rarely opened and assignments he'd completed with the bare minimum effort required, hung from one shoulder as he moved through the hallway with the determined stride of someone eager to escape. The walls around him were decorated with family photos from happier times - images of birthdays, holidays, and ordinary moments that now felt like artifacts from another lifetime, another family that had ceased to exist the moment his father's car had collided with that guardrail.
As he passed the kitchen doorway, the warm scent of bacon and eggs wafted toward him, mingling with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. It was a smell that should have been comforting, should have reminded him of Saturday mornings when his father would make elaborate breakfasts while humming off-key songs from the radio. Instead, it only served to highlight the emptiness that had settled into their morning routine.
His mother sat at the small dining table adjacent to the kitchen, her auburn hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, dressed in the navy-blue scrubs that marked her as a nurse at the local hospital. She looked up as his footsteps approached, her green eyes - so much like his own - lighting up with a hope that he recognized and dreaded in equal measure.
"Hey... uh, Ryan, I um... made breakfast!" she called out, her voice carrying an awkward brightness. Her hands gestured toward the plate she'd prepared - eggs cooked just the way he used to like them, bacon crispy but not burnt, toast cut diagonally the way his father had always done it.
Ryan's march toward the front door stuttered to a halt. He stood there in the hallway, his back still turned to her, staring straight ahead at the wooden door. The silence stretched between them like a chasm, filled with all the conversations they no longer had, all the connections that had been severed in the aftermath of their shared tragedy.
Finally, in a voice so quiet it was barely more than a whisper, he spoke: "I'm okay."
The words fell flat in the space between them, carrying none of the warmth or gratitude she was hoping for. Without turning around, without even a glance back to see the effect his rejection had on her face, Ryan continued his path to the door, leaving his mother alone with her cooling breakfast and her growing worry.
Behind him, he heard the soft sound of her sigh. The light that had briefly appeared in her eyes dimmed visibly as she turned back to her own untouched plate, another morning's attempt at connection filed away with all the others that had come before.
At the front door, Ryan bent down to pull on his worn sneakers - black canvas shoes with fraying laces that had seen him through the better part of his junior year. The familiar motions of tying his laces gave his hands something to do while his mind wrestled with the guilt that always followed these morning encounters. He knew his mother was trying, knew she was hurting just as much as he was, but somehow that knowledge only made it harder to bridge the gap between them.
The morning air hit his face as he stepped outside, cool and crisp with the promise of another spring day. He pulled his hood up over his messy hair and began the familiar trek along the cracked sidewalk that would take him to his high school. The suburban neighborhood around him was coming to life - garage doors opening to reveal cars backing out of driveways, other students making their way to the same destination he was reluctantly approaching.
But Ryan paid little attention to the world awakening around him. His mind, as it so often did during these solitary walks, turned inward. His thoughts drifted like smoke, touching on homework he hadn't finished, classes he was barely passing, and the growing certainty that he was letting everyone down simply by continuing to exist in this half-alive state.
His eyes remained fixed on the concrete ahead of his feet, watching the rhythmic pattern of sidewalk squares pass beneath him. The sounds of morning traffic became background noise to the constant chatter of his own self-doubt, the honking of car horns and rumble of engines fading into a meaningless soundtrack to his internal monologue.
This inward focus, this habit of retreating into the landscape of his own troubled thoughts, had become second nature over the years. It was a coping mechanism that allowed him to navigate the world without having to fully engage with it, a way of being present in body while remaining safely distant in spirit.
But this morning, this retreat into his own mind was about to cost him everything.
The crosswalk at the intersection of Maple Street and Fourth Avenue was a familiar checkpoint on his daily journey. The white walking figure glowed steadily in the electronic display, giving him the clear signal he needed to proceed. His peripheral vision registered the familiar sight, and without lifting his gaze from the pavement, he stepped off the curb and into the crosswalk.
His mind was elsewhere, lost in a maze of guilty thoughts about his mother's disappointed face, when the screech of tires tore through the morning air like a knife through silk. The sound was sharp, urgent, and terrifyingly close.
Ryan's head snapped up, his eyes widening as they focused on the scene unfolding to his left. A delivery truck, its blue paint gleaming in the morning sunlight, was bearing down on him at an unprecedented speed. The driver's face was visible through the windshield - a middle-aged man with terror written across his features, his hands gripping the steering wheel as he stood on the brakes with everything he had.
But even as Ryan watched, even as his brain processed what was happening with crystal clarity, one thought cut through the chaos with grim certainty: 'The truck isn't going to stop in time.'
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Ryan stared at his approaching fate, now only mere feet away from impact. The truck filled his vision, growing larger with each millisecond, its chrome grille reflecting the morning sun like the teeth of some mechanical beast.
'I'm... I'm going to die.'
The thought came with strange calm, a sense of inevitability that felt almost peaceful after years of wondering why he was still alive. Perhaps this was the answer he'd been unconsciously seeking all along.
The impact, when it came, was like being hit by a meteor. Ryan's body was lifted from the asphalt and flung across the intersection like a discarded toy, his limbs ragdoll-limp as he sailed through the air before crashing down onto the unforgiving concrete with a sickening sound that seemed to echo in the sudden silence that followed.
Everything after that moment became a disjointed series of snapshots, consciousness flickering in and out like a faulty light bulb. He blinked once and found himself staring up at the sky, the familiar blue expanse now seeming impossibly distant and strange. His body felt disconnected from his mind, as if he were observing everything through a thick pane of glass.
Another blink, and suddenly the world was filled with flashing lights - red and blue strobes, chaotic colors. Paramedics in navy uniforms surrounded him, their voices reaching his ears as muffled sounds, like conversations heard through water. Hands moved over his body with professional efficiency, checking, prodding, assessing damage that he couldn't feel.
The next conscious moment found him strapped to a gurney, the ceiling of an ambulance passing overhead as emergency responders worked frantically around him. The mechanical beeping of monitors provided a steady rhythm to the controlled chaos, and through the small rear window, he could see the familiar streets of his neighborhood sliding past in reverse.
Then his eyes closed, and this time, unlike all the moments before, they didn't open again.
'I'm going to die such a pathetic person... Well, I guess it's better this way. What I was doing couldn't really be considered living anyway.'
The thought drifted through his fading consciousness like a leaf on the wind, carrying with it a strange sense of relief. Soon, his thoughts began to fade, his mind growing quiet as darkness crept in from the edges of his awareness. The beeping monitors became distant thunder, then whispers, then nothing at all.
And then there was only darkness... until, unimaginably and unbelievably, there was light once again.
His mind stirred first, consciousness returning like tide creeping up a beach, slow and tentative and impossible. Then his eyes opened, blinking against brightness that seemed to pierce straight through to his soul.
'What the hell...? What's going on? I thought I was dead. Is... is this the afterlife?'
The brilliant light gradually faded as his eyes adjusted, revealing not the sterile white ceiling of a hospital room, but an endless expanse of bright blue sky stretched out above him like a painted canvas. And with the return of his vision came sound - a rather annoying, ear-piercing sound that made him want to cover his ears.
'Where the hell am I?... And for the love of God, what is that ear-piercing sound? Is it... crying? It sounds like a baby crying…'
A/N: "Standing there in front of the mirror, that familiar question rose unbidden in his mind: 'Why am I still alive?'" bro WILL NOT be needing to ask that question anymore! He is very much NOT still alive!