I wanted to puke.

The cold linoleum felt so good against my cheek.

Pain shot through my body in waves as I realized I could no longer move my legs. This was it, I wasn't going much further. I was just glad no one had died. But if I stayed here much longer on the hospital floor by the water fountain between the two bathrooms in the emergency room I was going to get caught. Someone was going to realize that I needed medical assistance, that I was covered in blood.

They'd wonder how I got there and eventually put two and two together and I would wake up handcuffed to a hospital bed.

Not again.

Not this time.

I inhaled as deeply as I could, the pain in my chest burned diagonally from where the seat belt had cut through my skin. A seat belt I never wear but this time it happened to save my life.

Sitting up was so intensely painful that I almost passed out.

Almost.

And I laughed.

I laughed because no one was around.

Because the hospital was undergoing renovations and through the construction tape and building materials there was a way out. There was a place for me to hide and sober up and try to stay one step ahead of trouble.

Clean off the blood, compose myself.

I'd worry about how to walk later.

Sliding across the floor, pulling myself with palms spread flat against the raw concrete floor, I worried about getting my jeans dirty, I wondered how in the fuck I got myself into this situation.

The obvious answer was that I had been drinking and driving.

They were doing construction and the highway was closed down to a single lane. I didn't really notice, not until the back end of a tractor trailer came at the car, and brakes did no good on the wet pavement.

When I woke up we were in the middle of the road, the car next to us was honking his horn.

"Get out of the road!"

He was yelling, angry until he saw the front end of the car, gone.

My knees are inside the dash, the steering wheel is against my chest.

Luckily the girl in the passenger seat was breathing, though she didn't appear to be conscious.

Oh God, what have I done?

They are able to get her out of the car, the majority of the damage was on my side of the car from a last minute attempt to swerve. They'll have to cut me out with the jaws of life.

Instead I unclip the seat belt, pry my legs out of the dashboard and crawl out the passenger door. Sheer adrenaline gives me an unsteady walk to the ambulance where they are preparing to take her away.

"You're limping," The state trooper remarks.

"I always limped," I lie, trying to find a way out already.

Nobody is dead, the truck I hit had very little damage, I fucked up so very bad this time but survival mode has already kicked into place.

"I'll ride in the ambulance with her," I say to the state trooper, "I just want to make sure she is all right."

Which is true, besides which she is calling my name and being next to her helps calm her down.

"Don't worry, everything is going to be all right, these guys are here to help us."

I try to reassure her even as she is strapped into the gurney.

"You'll have to get checked out," The state trooper is telling me.

Blood test, breathalyzer.

"I'll get checked out as soon as we get to the hospital."

In the ambulance I'm trying not to pass out from the shock, trying not to let on about the waves of pain that feel like someone is baseball batting my knees repeatedly.

Trying not to vomit.

The back door opens and I can hardly get out of their way. They wheel her into the emergency room and I lean against a wall. It's all I can do, my body doesn't seem to want to function. I couldn't stand up straight if you paid me. All I wanted to do was collapse.

Instead I pulled on my jeans, moving my legs one at a time with my hands trying to keep my knees locked and sliding across the wall towards the entrance of the emergency room.

Act normal.

Slide around the door jamb and over to the bathrooms. Then into the area under construction where I slept and hid for hours before making my way back to the lobby. No one had been looking for me for a while and I sat there for several more hours trying not to be sick. Wishing for a glass of water from the water fountain only ten feet away but knowing that there was no way I could make it that far.

The girl that had been in the car was released and saw me on the way out of the hospital. She had a ride but I had no way of getting to it. Somehow I convinced a nurse to let us use a wheel chair to get me to the car without her asking if I was a patient or why it was that I couldn't use my legs but was leaving the hospital.

For more than a week I couldn't walk. Then I spent a couple of months walking with the assistance of two canes, then a couple with one. My knees still pop and crack and ache sometimes.

I stopped drinking after the accident. Figured I was wasting my life being intoxicated. For two months, no drinks. Then I got some mobility in my knees and what kills the pain more than alcohol? After a few drinks I didn't care if I have no legs or two, if I lived or if I died.

It wasn't just the alcohol that was my problem.

Something was seriously wrong with my life.

The accident that could have easily killed me, that could have resulted in the deaths of other people, caused me to look closely at my life. Why was I so unhappy? Why was it that I drank myself into oblivion almost every day?

I'd like to tell you that it was easy. That I turned my life around that very day and everything immediately got better.

But that's not true.

It took time. Figuring out what was wrong and changing my life was a struggle. A struggle that continues even now, several years later.

These days I'm more likely to be the sober person driving everyone home at the end of the night.

-Secret Writer

All gifs from giphy.com

Information about how to submit your secret to the Secret Writer Project here.