The most traumatic day of school echoed back to Emma two years later as she sat at the counter of the Breakfast and Burger Club and Ms. Bass took a seat next to her.

  Two years prior in her high school Participation in Government class, Ms. Bass chose to use Emma as an example of a broken home, with less of a chance at success in life. The theory and argument was that the American dream does exist for everyone, and the only privilege is growing up in a home with both parents. Emma, having her parents divorced before she even became a teenager was targeted as Ms. Bass’ example. High school is difficult enough to manage emotions just from the other students, but the power of teachers over students made that particular class painful.

  For Emma, it was the only time she left a class in crisis. Filled with anger and embarrassment, she fled the classroom for the bathroom where she lost countless tears in the stall. Despite demands from Emma for an apology for being labeled as an “impending failure” regardless of her top grades up until that point, Ms. Bass refused, maintaining that her lesson was in no way inappropriate.

  The remainder of that school year was spent writing essays and speeches directly contradicting any biased lesson taught by Ms. Bass. Emma’s grades slipped as objective tests scheduled on the syllabus were cancelled and replaced by subjective essays. It was a war waged against a student by a teacher. Whether it was intentional or accident, the two were fully committed to it.

  Emma was halfway through cutting a wedge from her pancake when Ms. Bass insincerely greeted her. “Good morning Miss,” she paused for a second, “Green right? Emma Green. How has life been for you? You never made it out of town I see.”

  Was it meant to be a dig? A way to prove a point perhaps? Emma assumed the worst and gave no room to offer the benefit of the doubt. “And you can see I’m eating right?” she asked as she placed the forkful of pancake on her tongue.

  “Oh, but it’s so nice to see past students and see how far they managed to get, or not,” Ms. Bass continued to pry.

  Emma finished chewing before she asked Ms. Bass politely to leave her alone. “I’m trying to enjoy the best, fluffiest pancakes in Rockland before I go for a relaxing walk around a peaceful park. Please don’t disturb my day.”

  There was about thirty seconds of peace that followed which gave Emma the false hope that maybe her request would be respected.

  Ms. Bass turned her head quickly, whipping her hair towards Emma in her signature gesture as she prepared to insult someone. “You’re still picking fights with everyone you meet just like how your parents fight, right?”

  Emma pivoted on her seat to face Ms. Bass and began talking along with gesturing with her hands which still had a fork and knife in them.

  “Ok, this is the last I’ll speak to you, and you better not reply. First of all, you don’t even know if my parents fought or not, and you have no business knowing either. Second, you tried so hard to destroy me in high school and I don’t even care enough about you to want to know why, but the bullying and torment you caused can lead kids to suicide. So, I figured you wanted to ruin my educational prospects for college and make sure your theory would prove right, or you just wanted me dead. You don’t really deserve to walk this earth, but you know, I never wish bad things upon anyone. I just hope you have the life you deserve.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Emma immediately picked up her plate and carried it to a table towards the back of the diner. She turned around to go back to the counter stood and retrieve her sweatshirt to see Ms. Bass pointing in her direction about to spew some hatred. Before a single word could come out, a sedan came crashing through the floor to ceiling glass panel store front of the diner, completely crushing the counter along with trays of coffee mugs, Emma’s sweatshirt, and Ms. Bass.

  It was a moment of chaos and entropy. A gust of wind and debris ripped through the narrow diner. Emma’s eyes closed as her shoulders lifted and her neck and face tightened in reaction to the impending cascading violence of glass about to pepper her.

  Only, Emma’s expectations of thousands of lacerations and tremendous blood loss was not what followed.

  The glass impacted her skin. She felt the sharp jagged edges scrape against her body. The wind of force pushed her back, but she did not lose her footing.

  A sensation took over Emma, an urge of action. She bolted to the front of the car, placing one hand on the bumper and the other against what remained of the diner counter. In an attempt to find Ms. Bass, Emma pushed the car back. Without understanding or questioning that feat of strength, she uncovered her former teacher.

  The scene was gruesome, yet not of total devastation. Ms. Bass had her legs partially wedged underneath the car, mangled and facing directions that were not natural. Her jaw was visibly broken and blood was pouring from her nose. The aroma of gasoline began to reach Emma’s nose causing her nostrils to flare.

  “Ms. Bass, I have to get you out of here,” Emma said. Listening to the muffled humming and moaning from Ms. Bass, Emma accepted it as implied consent. She lifted the car enough to slide the broken legs from under the car and then carried the wounded teacher outside.

  The driver was a younger man who was shaken, and whether it was being under the influence or shock from the accident, he stumbled away from the scene and took off running up Main Street. Emma squeezed past the back of the car but looked back to see the servers and kitchen staff escape out the back door of the diner. As Emma made it out to the sidewalk, the car began to catch fire, so she made sure to carry Ms. Bass down farther away to safety. Ms. Bass lost consciousness shortly after.

  When the paramedics arrived, they quickly attended to Ms. Bass. Every first responder seemed to skip past Emma when assessing the scene. The one exception was a hed-haired ambulance driver who approached Emma. “Hey, I’m Ruby, do you know how this woman got out here? She couldn’t have crawled on her own.” she asked referring to Ms. Bass.

  “Oh,” Emma looked confused, “I carried her out from under the car.”

  Ruby ran her hands down Emma’s arms and tugged on her torn shirt. “Are you ok? You were in there?” Ruby asked.

  Emma looked herself over and realized she didn’t have a single cut upon her skin. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  Ruby held Emma by the shoulder, “You need to get checked out, just because you can’t see anything doesn’t mean it’s all good. I want to get one of the paramedics to see you, but I have to get this woman in the bus first. Don’t go anywhere ok?”

  A rush of anxiety overwhelmed Emma. She knew she couldn’t stick around, because something truly was wrong, or at least definitely not right. As soon as Ruby turned away, Emma jetted down the street and continued through the smaller back streets of Nyack, all the way up the hill to where she lived. What should have been a twenty minute walk took less than a minute for Emma to traverse.

  She stumbled inside, slightly dizzy from the panicked sprint home. The adrenaline flushed through her system and she was beginning to crash. “I have to lay down,” she told herself. Emma collapsed onto her bed without closing her bedroom door. Her body was simply spent. Her arms and legs wrapped around one of her pillows, and she fell asleep.

  It wasn’t until her father called out for her that dinner was ready that she woke up. Before she even processed the 6 hours of time that disappeared from her day, and what had happened earlier, she checked her phone to see a strange text from her friend Valeri.

  Are you ok? I feel like you were calling out to me. Need a hug?

  Emma couldn’t hold back the tears. Staring at the screen of her phone she whispered, “what the hell happened?”

  Her balance was still off, but as she shuffled down the hall towards the kitchen, she was very aware of her exhaustion, but complete lack of pain. Emma had no clue what happened, but decided the next day to test some theories and limits to what she had always accepted as physical boundaries.