Page 130 of Collision

A hand wraps around mine.

“Sir, that’s helping you to breathe. You need to keep that on. Can you tell me your name?”

“Ben.” My throat rasps. “My name is Ben.”

“Okay, Ben.” Her voice is soothing. Calming. “My name’s Alyssa. We’re on our way to the hospital. You’ve been in an accident.”

That feels familiar. An accident. I was driving. I’d stopped at the stop sign, hadn’t I?

“Ben, I need you to stay with us now, okay? Talk to me. Tell me who we need to call for you, okay?”

My eyes are heavy and my chest is still burning.

“Ben. Stay with me. Is this your phone?”

Alyssa holds up a shattered screen as my head rolls to the side. I can’t speak again. I can’t.

“Just blink for me, once is no, twice is yes. Ben, is this your phone?”

One blink. Then another.

“Okay,” she breathes. “You’re doing great, Ben. We’re almost there. Just stay with me.”

“No.”

I know the voice above the water.

“I don’t know. Half an hour ago maybe?”

Hysteria. That’s the sound of hysteria. The pitch that sits just above acceptable, the pace that’s too rushed. Everything suggests pain and panic.

“Haston. Yes. Benjamin Haston.”

Someone else responds; telling her what she needs to know.

Her voice is so distant. “Thank you.”

Mikaela

“Hey.” I brush his knuckles with my thumbs as I look up at him. His skin is dry and pale and cracked. Dark circles hang like shadows beneath his eyes. Those eyes are still closed; so closed. “I’m so sorry, Ben.”

Every single part of me is dying with each and every beep and whir of machinery that he’s hooked up to. Wires and tubes and bruises spatter his skin. He’s had stitches under his left eye and over his lip and the black marks of the collision are spreading over his face.

My eyes run over his chest, moving in even breaths, and I feel the rise of nausea.

Three.

That’s how many ribs are broken.

Three.

And then there’s his leg.

His leg is lifted in some contraption that keeps it elevated; the cast that has been wrapped around it is still drying.

The pain of it all hits me like a brick to the chest and the air is stripped from my lungs as I bury my head in the sheets beside him.

I cling to his hand as I cry, my chest heaving and my words tumbling out of me between each broken sob.