An accident.
She’s been running around town telling people that I do seances or that she knows I lured Mike Sheep to my house on purpose that night and she’s calling it an accident? Like I spilled a carton of milk on the sidewalk or fell off my ladder.
“Fuck off, Mrs. Bernaden,” I tell her and get into my car. I pull away from the curb, only feeling half woozy. Looks like telling someone off is good for my health. I drive as carefully as I can, but it’s difficult with blood filling my boot and glass digging into my skin with every move I have to make. Of course it was my right fucking leg that got hurt.
“You’re lucky it wasn’t both,” I mutter to the silent car. Wait a minute. Why wasn’t it both? I didn’t have any warning before the explosion. It’s not like I knew but…oh my god.
“The door.” The door hit me hard enough to mostly knock me down and out of the way so that even the pieces of glass that bounced and ricocheted missed me. “The door saved me.” And if the door saved me, that means the house saved me. I slow to a stop at a red light and grip the steering wheel trying to process the fact that I was saved by my house. The force behind the door felt like someone much bigger than me slammed into it from the other side. There’s no way I accidentally bumped into it or lost my footing and fallen just right from the crouch I’d been in. I touch my collarbone. It’s still sore. I think I bruised it.
“The fucking house saved me.” I laugh in disbelief. Does that mean the house is alive? Is it spirits? Fuck. Was it the person I saw floating outside the windows? How does a house save someone? I’m thinking this over when I see a crowd gathering ahead of me on the sidewalk. I slow down like everyone else that’s driving past does. There’s about a dozen people standing in a circle and the closer I get, I realize why.
There’s someone passed out on the ground. I don’t have to wonder who it is for long. Not when someone moves out of the way and I see Billy’s body lying there. He’s sprawled on his backin the middle of the sidewalk and Minnie stands over him crying. Why is he on the ground? Did he pass out?
“Whatever.” I look away and focus on the road. Whatever happens to Billy and Minnie has fuck all to do with me on a good day, least of all today. I drive through town and right to the infamous Hwy 80. It’s interesting. I have to take this road anytime I go north to Seattle. I’ve come to think of this road as just a road. I’ve forced myself to do it. It’s not my parents’ final resting place or the place my life fell apart. It’s just a fucking road, or at least it is until someone else brings it up in that sad pitying way.
I grip the steering wheel and grit my teeth. Spite and anger burn in my veins. I feel stronger now. I’m going to get to that damn hospital and not pass out. I swear to god I’ll be livid if I do and go off the road.
“Found him wandering Hwy 80. It’s…well, you know the road.”
The road.
That’s what it is to everyone else in town. It’s where Lucia and Dylan Martinez went off the road, got washed right off and carried out to sea. I step on the gas when I see the curve in the road up ahead. The guardrail here is newer. It’s not as dull and weathered as the rest of the iron guardrails that lead up this way. My hands start to shake the closer I get. Someone painted a red cross on the semi-shiny guardrail. I take the curve going 80, way too fast but I don’t stop. I keep driving with shaking hands and my aching, bloody leg until I see the hospital up ahead. It doesn’t look busy at all. Good.
I fly into the parking lot and slam the brakes on a touch too late. My front wheels screech as they come to a stop on the sidewalk. I don’t pay attention to the attendant outside smoking that sees the whole thing. I hobble into the hospital, trailingblood the whole way. I look down at my leg and it looks worse than it was before I drove here. Shit.
“Maris, what are you doing here?” Donna asks me with a barely veiled sneer. This lady hates me. She’s Billy’s aunt so I’ll give her points for loyalty. She’s known me since I was a kid though, so one would think she would have a tiny bit of sympathy but family’s thicker than water around here.
“I need to see a doctor,” I tell her, gesturing to my leg.
She looks down and gasps, pressing her hand to her chest like I’m a horror movie slasher coming to take her head off and stumbles back. “Maris, what did you do?”
“Drop the act, Donna. You know I didn’t do this to myself,” I snap. I’ve seen this lady suck back those cocktails in a can so fast that she threw up in the pool at the family Fourth of July party. “You might hate me because of Billy and that’s fine, but you took an oath to take care of folks, right?”
Donna purses her lips. “Come with me,” she says and grabs a clipboard off her desk. “You’re going to need to fill this out before anyone sees you.”
“Donna, I’m fucking bleeding out here. Fuck that paperwork and get me a doctor.”
She turns and glares at me. “If you think hurting yourself and showing up here,” she pauses to make air quotes, “‘needing a doctor’ to seduce Julian is going to work then I’ve got news for you, missy. It’s not going to fucking work. He’s already dating Liz.”
I make a face and snatch the clipboard from her. “Liz has gonorrhea from fucking the entire fleet when they’re home,” I tell her and hold out my hand, “I need a pen if I’m going to do this, unless you want me to use my own fucking blood,” I say, gesturing at my bloody leg with the clipboard.
“You shut your mouth about Liz. She’s a good girl. Not like you. I never knew what Billy saw in you. You were never good enough for him.”
I sigh and cross my arms over the clipboard. “I thought we were going somewhere and where the fuck is my pen?”
Donna practically launches a pen at me and then starts stomping down the hallway. I’m not going to give this hag the satisfaction of seeing me struggle so I do my best to keep up, even though I hear glass falling to the ground behind me. God. Did that come from me or was it my dress? I don’t know anymore. My leg is on fire, I wouldn’t be able to tell if something fell out of it or not.
Donna leads me to the ER and because she’s a cunt she leads me to the furthest bed in the corner of the room. “Sit here and wait. I’ll get Doctor Gavin for you.”
“Yeah, you do that,” I tell her, making a show of looking over the paperwork.
Donna lets out a disgruntled sound that can only be described as the start of a tantrum and jerks the curtain around the bed so hard that it rips off one of the clips that holds it to the track. The second I’m sure she’s really gone, I sag against the bed and drop the clipboard and pen on the bed with a whimper.
The burning is white hot. Everytime I flex my foot it’s like my muscles are being shredded. No doubt there’s glass buried in my calf. At the force the windows exploded there’s got to be pieces embedded in me pretty deep.
“Shit shit shit, shittttt,” I whisper and take a deep breath. “You can do this. You’ve done harder.”
It’s true but fuck this hurts. The wound is so specific and centralized to below my knee that it’s almost impossible to function. It’s agony. I have to practically throw myself on the bed because of how tall it is and muffle the cry from the jolt. I reach down and grab my injured leg to help lift it and ease it downonto the mattress. I’m getting blood everywhere. The crimson of it is stark against the white of the hospital bed sheets. I wonder if whoever washes them will know how to get the blood out like Julian did. I’m sure they will, this is a hospital after all.
