“I won’t be a minute. Matthews is right outside. He’ll keep an eye on you.” He slips out of the room, shooting me a smile that’s meant to be reassuring but doesn’t touch his eyes.
Flexing my fingers, I breathe through my mouth. He’ll come back. He won’t leave me here alone... it’s absurd that the thought even entered my mind.
I’m fine. In pain, butfine.I can wait.
Angling my head, I watch the door slide shut. Blinds are drawn along the entire glass wall, but I can make out Dad outside my room, gesticulating at someone.
Probably this Matthews guy. He’s tall and broad, his posture stiff as he nods along to whatever Dad’s saying. I don’t recognizehis silhouette or surname, so he must be new. Though maybe not... I don’t know most of Dad’s colleagues.
I wonder why there’s a cop stationed at my door.
Maybe he’s here to ask questions about the accident.
A soft, unamused laugh bubbles in my chest. He can ask away, but it’ll be melooking for answers given that he must know more than I do.
With a frustrated huff, I fall back on the pillows, regretting it when the top of my head threatens to pop off.
Shouldn’t I be pumped full of painkillers?
Where’s the nurse call button?
With my eyes shut, I distract myself from the pain, focusing on clearing the blackness coating my mind.
What’s the last thing I remember?
College.
Rain.
A car... blue, small. Yes, my stormy-blue Golf. My parents leased it out for my seventeenth birthday and Dad chose that color because it matches my eyes.
I chuckle at the memory and how Mom and I teased Dad afterward that his black Ford didn’t match his eyes.
What else do I remember?
Taking the wheel. The rain pelted against the windscreen so hard the wipers couldn’t keep up. I cursed Climate Change as I gathered my hair into a ponytail.
It hardly ever rains in Florida in December.
I remember backing out of the parking space, joining the traffic, and...
My head throbs harder the more I push my brain for answers. I can’t find anything beyond seeing Tampa’s streets blurred by the unlikely rain. Whenever I grasp another detail, it slips through my fingers like sand.
I think my phone rang in my purse.
Did I reach for it? Is that why I crashed?
No... I remember pulling over to answer. The rain was falling in sheets, so I veered as far onto the side of the road as possible, switched on the hazard and the fog lights to make my little blue car more visible.
Maybe it didn’t work.
Maybe someone clocked the rear end...
No, Dad said my tire blew. I must’ve crashed after the phone call. Though a blown tire could be both the cause of an accident and the symptom.
Urgh!
Who called?
