The deeper you dig into the documents, on and off over the next few days as you try to find a balance between all this new information, and also begin preparing to start your new job, the more confused you become.
You're still not sure how everything fits in with everything else. The timing, for one – you remember it being daytime. But then again, you were in a coma for almost an entire month.
Some part of you still wants to be angry, too, but it doesn't work that way.
You're not really sure how you feel anymore.
At least Sven had been stoked when you rang him back, telling him you'd be delighted to work for him. You start on Wednesday, and honestly... you kind of can't wait.
But the confusion with the documents pervades most of your thoughts, whenever you're thinking about anything that isn't work. Why was there no fault – and, by extension, why has Elsa felt guilty for so long if she wasn't to blame? Why were you even up there, and why was she?
It takes two days, but you finally gather the courage to look at the photos of the accident. They'd said your parents had been killed on impact. No pain, nothing. Looking at the picture of the front of your car, crumpled beyond belief, you're glad for that. Somehow it had hit Elsa's car before plowing into a tree. By comparison, her car had barely a scratch on it.
Another question then: how? How had you survived such a crash, and how had she come away with no physical injuries? Because she hadn't, you know. Perhaps the scars on her legs... but no. They were the wrong sort. You'd seen plenty on the arms and legs of the other foster kids.
The insurance documents are... not what you'd expected. They don't answer why there were no legal proceedings. Only that they had to pay out for some things – your parent's life support – but the medical care for you made up only a fraction.
It would have covered your hospital bills. It wouldn't have covered your wheelchair, your medicine. It wouldn't have covered the months of physical therapy and rehabilitation as you tried to walk again.
So, where had that money come from?
The thought drags up other uncomfortable truths. Mrs Arendelle had seemed so nice when you met, and yet she would know. She had to. Elsa was just a kid, too.
Just... a kid. A kid in a horrific accident who had somehow survived.
You have to lean back, away from the box and the documents, when you have that thought. Yes, you'd been a kid, too, but all this time, you really had thought it had been some old drunk. But it hadn't. It had been a kid, only a few years older than yourself.
It's strange, because while yes, you'd absolutely had flashes of survivor's guilt, especially in those early days: why had you survived? Why couldn't the accident have just kept you all together? You didn't deserve to live while your parents had died. But those thoughts, they hadn't stuck around. Not after a few months, maybe a year, of therapy and rehabilitation. There was nothing you could have done, after all, and life isn't fair.
But Elsa? It doesn't seem like she ever overcame that guilt. She might be right – she might have killed your parents. She might have been the cause of the accident, of everything. It's just that... no one seemed to think that except her. The police, the insurance – God probably even the tow truck company that took your car away – they all seemed to think that no one was at fault. Everyone except her.
There's still one little piece of information missing, and you find it at the very bottom of the box. A handwritten, though obviously photocopied, statement from the only survivor who could remember what happened.
It's hard to read. It's painful to read, because you can see where Elsa's hand starts to shake, where the tears start to fall. And as much as you don't want to believe parts of what she says... Elsa's never lied to you. Not directly. Perhaps by omission, when she kept things from you, but she never lied to you.
She was driving back to the city from her family's holiday home in the mountains. It was drizzling, a light shower that was hardly worth turning the wipers on for.
She'd forgotten her scarf, so she'd turned around to get it. She shouldn't have been driving that late, alone; she wasn't allowed to.
And then the other car had come out of nowhere, crossing the lanes, clipping her car before crashing into a tree.
She'd called 911. There'd been a kid in the other car, unconscious but breathing. She'd stayed with her until the ambulances arrived.
"It's my fault," the last line reads. "It's all my fault."
And you're wondering if, just maybe, it isn't.
