After my wife, my son, and I got in a serious accident, I texted the family chat. We were in the hospital. My wife was in the ICU. Nobody said anything. Then, my sister replied, “I hope she dies. She’s always been such a witch to me.” So, I made sure they regretted it.
This story is heavy, so settle in. I’m still not sure how I made it out the other side. My name is Paul, a thirty-six-year-old male. Before we get into the thick of it, let me give you a quick background. I grew up in Kansas City, worked my way through trade school, and landed a job as a logistics coordinator for a freight company. I met Darcy at a Chiefs tailgate about eleven years ago. She spilled her drink on my jacket, apologized way too many times, and then spent the next three hours making fun of my fantasy football picks. I married her a year later. Our son, Cole, came along two years after that. He’s seven years old now, obsessed with Marvel, and absolutely convinced he could beat me at arm wrestling if I wasn’t cheating—which I was, every time.
Life was good. We had a house in Gladstone with three bedrooms and a garage. Darcy worked as a dental hygienist, and Cole was in the second grade. We weren’t rich, but we weren’t struggling either. We’d found our rhythm. Then my family screwed it all up.
See, here’s the thing about being the responsible one in a dysfunctional family: You don’t get a trophy for it. You get a target on your back. My parents, Warren and Grace, had spent the last decade treating me like their personal emergency fund. My sister Haley, three years younger and somehow infinitely more entitled, had been riding that same wave since she figured out I’d bail her out every time. Three years ago, when my dad’s back surgery left him unable to work and my mom’s spending habits didn’t slow down, I started covering their mortgage. Temporarily, they said—just until things stabilized. But things never stabilize when you’re dealing with people who think the word “budget” is a personal attack.
So, I kept paying. When the bank started threatening foreclosure because they’d missed three payments before I got involved, I did something stupid. I refinanced the whole thing into my name and took over the mortgage entirely. My parents signed a quitclaim deed transferring ownership to me because their credit was destroyed, and it was the only way to save the house. They were supposed to pay me rent. They never did—not once. But I let them stay anyway because… family, right? That decision would come back to bite me. The best part was that while I was covering their mortgage, Haley always had money for spa weekends. My mom posted vacation photos three times that year, and my dad bought a new riding mower. Yet, rent money for me never happened. They just kept saying “next month” until next month stopped meaning anything.
But on that Sunday afternoon in October, I wasn’t thinking about mortgages, deeds, or my parasitic relatives. I was thinking about the pumpkin patch. Cole had been begging to go for weeks. One of his classmates had posted pictures, and suddenly it was all he could talk about. Darcy and I figured we’d make a day of it: drive out to the farm, let him pick a pumpkin, grab some cider, and maybe hit up a corn maze if we had the energy. It was supposed to be simple family stuff. Cole was in the backseat, already debating which pumpkin shape was superior, round or tall. Darcy was scrolling through her phone, looking up the farm’s hours. I was driving, half-listening to both of them, enjoying the lazy Sunday.
We never made it to the pumpkin patch.
The intersection was four blocks from our house. The light turned green, I pulled forward, and then everything went sideways. The SUV came from the left, ran the red light, doing at least fifty. I saw it for maybe a fraction of a second before impact. Metal screaming, glass shattering, the truck spinning sideways like we were nothing. I heard Darcy scream, heard Cole go silent, and then everything went dark.
When I opened my eyes, smoke was pouring through the cracked windshield. My door was crushed inward, pinning my left leg. The airbag had deployed and deflated, leaving a chemical smell that burned my throat. I turned my head and saw Darcy slumped against her door, blood running down the side of her face. She wasn’t moving. Cole was in the backseat, eyes open, staring at nothing. He wasn’t crying, wasn’t screaming—just frozen. I tried to reach for Darcy, but I couldn’t. My leg was pinned, and something in my chest felt wrong. Broken ribs, probably. I kept calling her name, but she didn’t answer.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page to discover the rest 🔎👇
