I try to remember a time I’ve felt this much pain, and I can’t. I’m not bleeding, but maybe it would hurt less if I was. The band-aid isn’t helping at all. The worst part of it all is that I can’t scream or cry.

I’m getting in the car to get to dance class. It’s December, and I have my big puffy coat on. My mom starts the car, checking once again if I’m okay, but I lie and tell her that I am. I actually feel like I’m going to die, though. Or maybe I’m just not in my right mind, I’m not exactly sure.

Right before it happened, I was outside in front of the opened front door of my house, waiting for my mom. I was playing around with the little amount of snow that had piled up on the ground. I put my small, chubby left hand on the door frame to fix my brand new pink boots when I heard my mom walking towards me. She put her shoes on and closed the door on my short little middle finger. At that moment, it felt like a shark was biting my finger off. The door swung back open after getting stuck on my finger. I almost cried, but I remembered that we had finally gotten my sister to sleep after an hour of trying so I really didn’t want to wake her up. I held it in with all the strength that I had. I still think I was a very good girl not to scream, it would have been terrible for my aunt if my 2-year-old sister had woken up.

Being the big girl I meant to be, I ended up not making a sound at all, but that caused my mom to not realize what had happened. My mom tried to close the door again, but slammed it this time. I was sure that my finger had broken by then. I couldn’t help it anymore and started sobbing softly, which startled my mom. She immediately looked my way to find me holding my left hand with my right, trying to soothe the pain. She observed my hand and realized what happened, and told me to try and move my finger. I slowly bent it and straightened it. It worked fine, but now it was big and fat, and it was turning into a bluish purple. She kicked off her shoes and ran back into the house, bringing back a band-aid and a small tube of ointment. She put them on the finger, which was now swollen to twice its original size. Apologizing over and over again, she told me that she didn’t think it was broken, thank goodness. It hurt even more now that the band-aid was on the bruise, but I wasn’t crying anymore. I really really wanted to go to dance class.

We’re finally on our way to dance now, and I keep telling myself over and over that I can’t cry or I’ll have to skip it. When I get to dance class, I pretend everything is okay, even though it still hurts like crazy. I barely survive through the whole class, but when my mom comes to pick me up, she tells me that we’re going to the hospital, just in case anything happened to my finger. I kick and cry, telling her I don’t want to, that I don’t need to, and that it doesn’t even hurt anymore (which is clearly a lie). I finally succeed in convincing my mom that my finger is okay, and we head straight home. As soon as I walk in the door, the same front door that squashed my finger, I collapse and fall asleep on the couch, worn out from all the pain.