By Nicole Pasia
I opened my eyes and saw blood. Bright, crimson ribbons, so fresh it made the skin underneath seem translucent. It wasn’t my blood. No, my blood was rushing through my veins, spurred on by adrenaline as my body fought for homeostasis. I tried to look around me, but the hard, unforgiving walls around me tunneled my vision. The only thing I could see was that boy’s pale, bloody face, eyes glazed over in shock.
As far as I was concerned, the only thing that lies in between Seattle and Spokane is a narrow strip of highway winding through miles upon miles of farmland. I’d grown used to the charter buses that shepherded us band kids around from stadium to stadium, and while I would spend my Thanksgiving evening on a five and a half hour ride through the Evergreen state’s ironically treeless plains, at least I could pretend I was riding in luxury.
Noelle slid into the seat next to me, murmuring about how us roommates had to stick together. I had rather selfishly claimed the window seat — motion sickness was no joke, and there was no way I was puking on my purple uniform.
This trip was a rite of passage. The Apple Cup rotated between Seattle and Pullman every year, and this would be my first time sizing up the WSU campus. I pulled my fleece jacket more snuggly around me and focused on the movies playing on the tiny screen above my seat.
Somewhere past hour three on the road, the sky grew dark. The deep rumble of the bus and my bandmate’s muted chatter had lulled me into a light sleep. I imagined the bus swerving slightly to the right, eliciting a few “whoas” and laughs from the passengers. We served again, and this time it was more noticeable. The “whoas” sounded a bit more apprehensive this time.
Seconds later, a sickening lurch and screams of alarm filled the air. I was jolted out of my seat as the bus crashed onto its side and began rolling over itself. My glasses flew off my face, and I tried to snatch them out of the air, to no avail. Instinctively I threw my arms over my head as the bus tossed me around like a washing machine.
After an eternity, the rolling stopped, and gravity pulled me headfirst into a crevice. For a moment, there was absolute silence, a stark contrast to the chaos just seconds earlier. Then, as if our conductor signalled the band to start its piece, a cacophony of cries, moans, and anguished screams filled the air once more.
Someone’s dead, I thought. I’m going to see dead bodies.
On cue, a blood-streaked face appeared in my narrow field of vision, illuminated by the streetlamps outside. Somehow I recognized Andrew, a rookie who had just put on his travelling uniform for the first time earlier that day. It was only after my soul left my body that I realized he was still alive.
The grim reaper was playing a cruel joke on me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone else standing over me, a shadow a shade lighter than the darkness.
“I need to get up,” I said, stretching the arm that wasn’t pinned under me towards the shadow. “Noelle, grab my hand.”
Wordlessly, my roommate grasped my arm and extracted me from what I guessed were the overhead cabinets. At first glance, she didn’t seem seriously injured. I let out a silent sigh of relief.
My roommates and I settled on a name for ourselves earlier that year—the first year we lived together—in the spider-infested basement of the (newly renovated) McCarty Hall. Room 221 would be known as the Picc Reject’s room, after our initial Husky Band instrument of choice. Yet, Noelle and I ended up with neckstrap burns in the saxophone section. Elizabeth, having picked up French horn on a whim, ended up with its marching band sister, the mellophone.
That prefix difference felt like a chasm now, as Elizabeth anxiously sat on her own bus, the rest of the band realizing the who, the what, the how.
“Our instruments were on that bus,” her section leader said.
Elizabeth eyed him incredulously. “My roommates were on that bus.”
—
The next hour was a blur. We crawled out of the wreckage through the busted front windshield. Some had to drag others out and lay them in the snow-filled ditch where the bus had landed. I told someone in a uniform that my neck hurt and was ushered into an ambulance. At the hospital, they tested me for a concussion and picked shards of glass out of my bloodied hands.
That night, as I sat in the Moses Lake hotel that the band had taken over, I scrolled through the headlines. A few of my bandmates were still in surgery, but miraculously, we all lived. Someone’s photo went Twitter viral, showing the residents of George graciously sharing their dinners with over 200 college kids. They were Thanksgiving dinners, I belatedly remembered.
It was a scene out of a Hallmark movie. As those in the hospital reunited with friends and family, many broke down in tears. Yet I remained silent.
—
Why didn’t I scream and cry, utterly traumatized? Why did other people who weren’t even in the accident seem more affected than me?
There isn’t much of that night left to remember. A few scars, a couple lawsuits, a petition to mandate seat belts in charter buses. Even as I write this now, years later, the paralyzing fear I expected to wash over me never announced itself. Was it really possible that I had no emotional trauma? Perhaps it exists in some unexplored corner of my mind, hiding for years until it appears one day far in the future, if at all.
So many secrets were left buried in the snow, among the broken glass and rubble. I couldn’t even find that same spot on the highway if I tried. In the times I’ve driven over the pass since, I always wondered if every hill, every tree, every mile of farmland held the answers I was looking for.
—
I will never set foot in Martin Stadium as an active member of the Husky Marching Band. In fact, I had already marched my last field show and worn my uniform for the last time, a year later at the Las Vegas Bowl. That trip ended triumphantly, with UW’s first bowl game win in four years. I couldn’t wait to relive that glory in 2020.
I waited and waited for that feeling, even as COVID-19 came and my senior season slipped out of my scarred hands. With every passing day, the part of my life that had defined me for years slipped closer and closer to oblivion. If only I had a seat belt to hold me down.