I wake up to a loud banging on my door. I sigh and look down. The empty space where my legs once were, glares up at me. And believe me when I say I glare back down.

I role over and into my wheel chair. It doesn’t hurt. I can’t feel anything. I haven’t been able to feel anything where my legs used to be in a long time. In fact, I don’t remember a time when I could. That’s okay though, it gets me a lot of sympathy. One time, a man gave $600 just because he felt bad. I don’t know why though. I don’t even feel bad. Just indifferent. It’s easy to feel indifferent about something you’ve been experiencing your whole life.

The only thing that bothers me about it is that when I got into the accident that cost me my legs, my parents car was totaled. I was supposed to get that car when I turned 16. Instead I got some big van that I can role my wheel chair into. My parents say it’s a blessing because it has hand gas and break pedals, but I don’t really care. I’d rather be driven around anyway. Maybe if I whine about it enough, someone will feel bad and buy me a personal chauffeur. But I don’t really care enough to try. That’s what happens when you lose your legs. You start to not really care about much. Or at least, that’s what happened to me.

I start to open my door to go to the living room. An uncaring look on my face until I role into the room and see my parents. They’re crying. I start to plaster a smile on my face, thinking I’m the reason for their tears. But when they see me, they start to cry even more. My mother walks over to me and hugs me.

“Mom, I need to get to school. Can you get the keys for me?” I say, pushing myself towards the door.

“I can’t,” she says, tears streaming down her face. “There’s been a crash. Your car was totaled.” Not again, I think, grabbing her hand to comfort her.

“Who lost their legs this time? Was it Jess?” I ask. My brother is always driving my van because he thinks it’s funny. I guess this is karma.

“He didn’t lose his legs. He lost something else.”

“What? His arms. That’d be funny. Then you could make a circus with us. The girl without legs and the boy without arms.” I start to laugh at my joke but my smile is quickly wiped from my face when my mother utters her next sentence.

“No. He lost his life.”