It was an early winter morning, with temperatures well below freezing. Snow had kept the small town all but shut down the last few days, having only just melted enough to be able to chance driving on.
Justin Miles was driving his mother's Kia out to the store, his two younger brothers in the back seat. He didn't want to bring them, but he knew that after nearly a week of them being stuck at the house with nowhere to go, that his mother needed a break. So, that was how he ended up with Alan and Jared in the back seat, promising them candy if they would simply be quiet for at least five minutes.
They almost made the four minute mark when the two boys began bickering, and shoving at each other. Justin glanced at them in the rear-view mirror, telling them to knock it off. When they ignored him and continued to have their shoving match, Justin turned around, glaring at them.
"Will you two knock it off already?"
He turned around just in time to see the patch of black ice, but not soon enough to prevent the car from spinning out on the bridge. He tried to gain control, but to no avail, as his car went over the edge of the bridge and into the icy river below.
The two boys in the back seat began to panic, when familiar arms reached back, undoing their seatbelts and grabbing them by the arm. He ordered them to take a deep break, before to car filled with water, then opened the door, swimming out, grateful that he had taught both his younger brothers to swim, just as their father had taught him to do, and had planned to teach the younger boys had he not died before their first birthday. Alan and Jared remembered seeing the water's surface before their world went black.636Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPd7PK4xNI6
Alan woke up to flashing lights, as the paramedics moved him onto a stretcher. He shivered, attempting to sit up, looking around for his brothers in confusion.
"Wh-where's Jared and Justin?" he asked, as the paramedics urged him to lay back down, covering his shaking frame with a blanket. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Kia being drug out of the river. "Where are they?"
One paramedic, a friend of the Miles family, looked at Alan with a sad smile. "Jared is in the other ambulance; he's still unconscious."636Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡucbCsrEVMY
Alan sighed, glad to know Jared was ok. "And Justin? He's going to be ok, isn't he?"
"Justin never made it out of the car, sweetie."636Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrBE3fJbOfd
Alan shook his head, that wasn't possible. Justin had pulled them from the car, had helped them onto the land. He had seem his brother get out of the car, and vaguely remembered him speaking to him as their head's rose above the water, as his world was going dark.
"Remember back when I promised that I wouldn't let you drown. I meant it."
But, the paramedic was right, Justin's body was inside the car, his body caught under the crushed front end. But, how was it that Alan had remembered his brother undoing his seat belt and urging him to swim, to fight against the freezing river, his hand on him...
wait...Alan realized that while his brother's hand had urged him onward, he hadn't felt the familiar touch of his brother's hand at all.
"Thank you, Justin," Alan whispered. As the ambulance door shut, he saw his brother standing at the very spot where he had dragged himself out of the water, with a gentle smile on his face. He was only sixteen, still a child himself, but to Alan, and later to Jared, he would be remembered as only a hero. The black ice and freezing river may have taken a life, but a special angel saved two lives, preventing them from sharing his faith.
Yeats later, when asked how they had managed to pull themselves out of the water, Alan and Jared simply referred to a guardian angel that helped both of them. Once the angel had taught them to swim, and once he saved their lives, but once was more than enough.
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