Romeyns Service lot in Zeeland was just one of those buildings that had always been there, inconspicuously sitting on the corner across from the high school. I’d never bothered to take a good look at the sign and see what purpose it served. Kind of like that funeral parlor right next to the Burger King, it seemed like something I would never need to know.

We pulled up in the mint green minivan, the vehicle that was temporarily mine when I felt good and ready to try driving again. I walked up to the front office and swayed slightly.

“How can I help you?” a bearded man came out of the shop with a dirty rag in his hands, wiping the grease off before he shook ours.

“We’re here to look at the Corolla.”

I stood next to my mom and smiled blankly as she spoke; her voice was tight. The bearded man gave me a look.

“That your car?”

I nodded.

His eyes widened, “We thought for sure the driver was dead. That things a mess,” He tilted his head towards me, “You’re lucky.”

I smiled.

He unlocked the gate to the back of the lot and there to the right was my car. For some reason I had held on to the idea that it might be drivable again, but the way the car was bent into a V and the roof dented in, windshield shattered. She was destroyed,  like a stomped pop can.

I walked a slow circle around it, camera dangling off my arm.

“Oh, Goh (Mom never quite said “God”) Lu…” She backed away from the car, arms folded.

I ran my hand along the passengers side door handle, completely smashed into the metal and cracked. Glass was everywhere. I looked on to the roof and saw that it was dented in, too. My car flipped in the collision and I got to dangle upside down, unconscious, from the seat belt,  arms dragging on the ceiling until help came. I only woke up once to some “upside down” people peering in, not being able to cut me down.

I circled around to the drivers side.

“Mom, it looks good over here.”

She nodded and stayed put, not wanting to see for herself. Her mouth formed a thin line.

“There isn’t a scratch on this side, seriously! Its amazing. There’s not even blood on the wheel.” The spot where I had been sitting looked eerily untouched.

“You would never know anything ever happened in here,” I said. And then I looked up at the ceiling…

I stared at the stain for a long time, trying to picture what it would look like to have my head  swaying like a sand pendulum. I only slept for a few minutes in the space between life, and what looked like the stain of a painful death. From the minute I woke up, I’ve never stopped wondering why I was allowed to.