
The sound of the bike tires screeching.The feel of a liquid covering my foot. The feel of pain. Everything was in slow motion. As I crashed my bike with my cousin, all I saw was the scared face my cousin had. Right before we crashed, everything was still in slow motion as I tried to stop the bike and my cousin trying to go the other way. As we crashed everything came back to me. 
The crying from the pain sounded like someone had died. Why was I crying? As if I haven’t ever been hurt before. The answer is because this pain was different. My little 10 year old self didn’t think that anything could go wrong so I was crying because I was surprised. Everything hurt as we bonked heads. I believe that pain makes you stronger, that pain makes you overcome fears.
 I didn’t realise that I was bleeding at first but then I felt something cold but hot at the same time touch my foot. I looked down and saw a pool of red surrounding my toe.  The pain felt like someone had cut my toe open with nothing but a sharp razor blade. At the time I was wearing flip flops because I didn’t have any tennis shoes. But my cousin wanted to ride bikes so I didn’t care. When we crashed, my toe got stuck between the wheels of our bikes so that’s why I was bleeding. My cousin wasn’t bleeding or anything, all he had was a scratch on his nose.
At the time it was just my uncle, me and two cousins. When my uncle found out I was bleeding, all he was saying was, “Are you okay?!?”. While my older cousin was saying , “You’re going to be fine. Does it hurt?” I just got a wet paper towel and cleaned up. I just put a band aid on but it still hurt. My cousin I crashed with was just saying over and over in between crying sobs. “It HURTS!!!”.  I wasn’t crying as much but it still really hurt.
After that day I never wanted to touch a bike. Or even go outside. I was so scared that I might get hurt like this again. Then after some time of being bored I went outside to play with my dog. My dog always calmed me down and helped me take my mind off things.
I realised that I was over reacting, and for nothing! My toe healed pretty fast and I wasn’t scared anymore. All I wanted to do was ride my bike, so that’s what I did. Getting into this accident helped me learn not to be scared of things. This accident helped me become the person I am today. I’m glad this happened. In conclusion, I believe that pain makes you stronger.



Yamile Sera - THM Student