Six months after a crash left me in a wheelchair, I went to prom expecting to be pitied, ignored, and forgotten in a corner. Then one person crossed the room, changed the entire night, and gave me a memory I carried for 30 years.
I never thought I’d see Marcus again.
When I was 17, a drunk driver ran a red light and changed everything. Six months before prom, I went from arguing about curfew and trying on dresses with my friends to waking up in a hospital bed with doctors talking around me like I wasn’t in it.
My legs were broken in three places. My spine was damaged. There were words like rehab and prognosis and maybe.
Before the crash, my life had been ordinary in the best way. I worried about grades. I worried about boys. I worried about prom pictures.
Afterward, I worried about being looked at.
By the time prom came, I told my mom I wasn’t going.
