Hannah stood on the shoulder of the road, right on the white line that separates danger and safety. It was July 24th. Months have passed, yet I still don’t remember how I got out of the car. I just know that one second I was screaming behind the wheel, and the next I was on the side of the road, crying into Hannah’s hair.

“Call Mom. I’m going to call 911!”

All the cars had stopped, and some people had even gotten out to help. A family was comforting Hannah. The mother, with dark hair and eyes, held Hannah and said, “Tranquilino, tranquilino,” until she relaxed.

Somehow, after driving on that road for a year and a half, I still didn’t know its name. I always confused Route 340 and Route 303. While Hannah called my mom, I called 911 and went from car to car, looking for someone to help. I finally spotted Mrs. Roth, who teaches in my school’s computer lab, in a red minivan.

“Is this 303 or 340?” I cried out to her.

“It’s 303, honey! Do you want me to pull over and help?”

“Yes, please! My mom isn’t here yet.”

So while the kind family comforted Hannah and Mrs. Roth comforted me, my mom sped to the scene of the accident. I didn’t know it, but my dad was on his way too.

Exactly 24 hours before the accident, I had gotten a black 2007 Nissan Sentra. It was shiny, scratchless, and smelled like the elderly woman who had owned it before me. Twenty-three hours later, Hannah decided to come along on my first drive to the mall parentless. It was also the first time in a while that Hannah put on her seat belt properly.

I was singing along to “All Too Well,” my favorite Taylor Swift song, while Hannah played on her phone. One second, I was driving and singing, and the next thing I remember, the airbags had exploded and the awful smell of burnt rubber filled the car with charcoal gray smoke. Every time I think about the accident, that awful smell is the first thing I remember. I’ll be on my deathbed and I will still be able to recall that smell.

I rear-ended the person in front of me.

The front of my car was completely gone. Pieces of glass littered the asphalt like red and white confetti. The red sedan I hit was destroyed, crushed from behind. I called my boyfriend and hysterically tried to explain what had happened. He later told me that he hadn’t been able to understand me at all.

Three policemen were the first to arrive on the scene. Then my mom, then my dad, then the ambulance.

“License and registration, Miss!”

“It’s in the car, sir.”

“Well, you’d better go get it then.”

The policeman was about eight feet tall and three hundred pounds, or at least he seemed to be. His insensitive attitude added to my emotional distress. I went over to the car and opened the door. That scent overpowered me again. I couldn’t open the glove compartment because of the airbags. I told the officer about my registration and the glove compartment and the airbag and he said, “Well, that’s too bad.”

My mom arrived, and I ran across the street and jumped into her arms and cried, “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!”

Her voice had never sounded so calming and reassuring. “It’s okay, honey. Are you hurt?” I didn’t notice any pain until she said that, but my face was red because the airbag had hit me and crushed my glasses onto my nose. My arms were scratched. My shoulder had been burned by the seat belt. But I didn’t have any serious injuries, and neither did Hannah.

When my dad arrived, the process repeated. I cried, he asked if I was okay, and I apologized again and again. Over the past few months I have apologized no less than three million times for crashing my first car on the first day I owned it.

The man in the red sedan I hit was in his late sixties. He remained in his car until the paramedics moved him. The first and only time I saw him, he was lying on a stretcher with his neck in a brace.

Terrified, I looked at my mom and whispered, “Oh God, did I kill him?”

“No, honey. He’ll be okay.”

After the paramedics put him in the ambulance, they checked Hannah, then me. We were both okay physically. A very friendly police officer calmed me down. I was finally able to leave the scene.

I remember crying a lot during the next few hours, until I fell asleep. For two weeks, my life had a pattern. I would work at a preschool camp in the morning, then spend the rest of the day lying on the couch with frozen vegetables under my neck and my eyes filled with tears.

It has been four months since the accident, and I still don’t drive. My therapist says I have post traumatic stress disorder. I’m sure that’s true, because every time I get in a car my palms sweat, my right foot hits the imaginary passenger seat brake, and my nose fills with the acrid smell of colliding cars.