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Dance and music were the only things that ever mattered to me.
I still remember when I was young and my mother, Mrs. Johnson, would put on my favorite songs. I'd sway to the rhythm, letting the melody wrap around me like a warm embrace, singing every word as if the lyrics were stitched into my very soul. That was five years ago—before a stranger decided my dream was meaningless and struck me down with his car while I ran errands for my father.
Perhaps part of it was my fault. I had my earphones on, drowning out the world, oblivious to the dangers around me. But he hit me from behind, a sudden force hurling me through the air, my body colliding with the pavement. Pain seared across my face and chest, leaving a scar not only on my skin but etched deep into my life.
I remember the accident as if it happened yesterday. Perhaps because I relive it every time I close my eyes, trapped in a loop where the world refuses to forgive me.
That day, I had been lounging in my room, music vibrating in my ears as usual, when Dad called. He needed me to fetch something from his workshop down the street—a street that had once seemed safe, ordinary. It was just a block away. Taking the car felt unnecessary, my first mistake.
The second was turning the volume all the way up, letting the bass drown out everything else.
The third—the one that sealed my fate—was not stopping to greet Miss Vender as she waved. Maybe if I had, the car would've passed. But I know better now; nothing could have saved me that day.
One instant I was running; the next, I was airborne, slammed into the asphalt, my face scraping against unforgiving concrete. My earphones smashed into my ears, a final, cruel punctuation before the darkness swallowed me whole.
People said it was a hit-and-run, but I remember nothing after the impact. When I came back, machines hummed and beeped around me, tubes threading in and out of my veins, and my parents' tear-streaked faces blurred through the haze.
Mama later wrote that I had been in a coma for almost two weeks. The accident had destroyed my eardrums, leaving me deaf. My leg, "temporarily crippled," as they called it, has remained lifeless for five long years, stubbornly refusing to move.
To go from hearing the world and singing in it, to silence and stillness… it feels like punishment. The doctors say I can still speak, but my mind has sealed my voice. They call it selective mutism, a delicate term for the brain's defense against trauma. Perhaps it's right. Perhaps I am protecting myself from the world I can no longer navigate.
I have tried to escape this prison more times than I can count. Mama never leaves me alone, her presence a constant tether, both a comfort and an irritant I cannot escape. Watching your child attempt to die again and again… I cannot imagine the weight it places on her, and so, reluctantly, I forgive her for staying.
And here I am again. Another therapy session. Another round of hollow promises. I read the doctor's lips as he talks to Mama, his words smooth and practiced: "Keep working hard… you'll walk again soon." I have been hearing that for years, and I know it is a lie.
A tap on my shoulder pulls me back from the edges of my mind. Mama smiles, eyes shining as she writes in her notepad:
"You hear that, Ruby? Your legs have started responding to the therapy!"
I nod, glance at her, and force a smile. A smile that tastes of ash and defeat.
Hope abandoned me long ago, leaving only the shadow of who I once was.
Mama's smile lingers, bright and warm, like sunlight through a cracked window. And yet, all I feel is a hollow echo where happiness should be. I know she hopes. She always hopes. And I… I can't.
Music used to be my sanctuary, the one place where nothing could touch me, where my body and soul moved as one. But now… the silence is louder than any song. Sometimes, I press my hands to my ears, half-expecting the music to come back, and it doesn't. Even when I hum quietly, no sound escapes, only vibrations I can barely feel. Dance feels the same—my body remembers the steps, the rhythms, but it does not obey me. It is a cruel reminder of what I lost: control, freedom, the simple joy of moving without fear.
Mama writes something again.
"Try to move your toes, Ruby. Just a little."
I glance at her, and for a moment, her hope is contagious. But the effort is exhausting. My toes twitch, almost imperceptibly, and I feel a spark—a faint, fragile spark—of what might have once been ambition, or life, or something in between.
I hate her for forcing me to try. I hate the therapy that never works. I hate the doctors who smile and lie. But somewhere under that hate, a deeper part of me—the part that remembers dancing in the sun, singing like the world was listening—wants to reach for it. Wants to believe. Wants to feel alive again, even if only for a heartbeat.
I close my eyes and imagine the music, the beats pounding through me, the rhythm flowing like water through my veins. And for a split second, I remember. I remember the joy. I remember being free.
Then reality crashes back—the deafness, the paralysis, the weight of five years. My heart aches, but something tiny, stubborn, refuses to give up. Maybe it is hope, or maybe it is revenge against the life that stole everything from me. Either way, it pulses in me, faint but undeniable.
Mama smiles again, tears in her eyes, and I wonder if she knows that what she sees as progress is nothing more than a flicker. I nod, because I cannot hurt her, cannot crush her hope. And yet… inside, I feel the spark, fragile and flickering, whispering that maybe, just maybe, life is not done with me yet.