Page 92 of The Fool
As soon as the car makes impact with her body, she’s flung forward. In the brief moment before she hits the ground, my world caves in, and I stop breathing, feeling impotent as I watch on without being able to move. It isn’t until she lands with a thump on the road and the car screeches to a halt that any sound returns to my ears.
“Fuck! Bea!” I scream, finally forcing my feet to move so I can run to her side, right alongside Ben who is now yelling for her to wake up, to say something.
“Bea?” I say to her as I gently rub my thumb over the back of her hand. “Say something. Can you move?”
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” a woman cries, sounding hysterical. “Is she ok? Please say she’s ok. She just stepped out in front of me…Oh, my God!”
“Bea, please say something,” I whimper, beginning to reach my own form of hysteria the longer she doesn’t answer me. “Please, baby, you have to say something!”
Her eyelashes flutter for but a moment, stilling whatever breath I have left, along with the tiny squeeze she gives my hand.
“Is…is… she ok?” she murmurs, sounding barely audible. “T-t-tell her I’m s-s-sorry…”
“She’s fine, babe,” I tell her, rubbing her hand reassuringly. “I think you scared the shit out of her though.”
I try to laugh, and she smiles but it’s soon wiped away to reveal her neutral expression, as if she is simply falling asleep. I don’t know much about casualties of head trauma, but I’m pretty sure you’re not meant to let them fall asleep, so I start to nudge her, with my panic returning tenfold.
“No, no, no, don’t sleep, baby, stay with me!” I cry through grief, panic, and anger.
“Don’t move her!” Ben says with warning in his voice. Seemingly having brushed away his relationship to her, he snaps into pilot mode and grabs her wrist, and tries to find her pulse. “It’s faint, but it’s there.”
“B-Ben…Ben, is she going to be ok? Please tell me she’s going to be ok!” Her mother is crying beside her father, looking distraught. Dean, the asshole, is standing to the side like a limp dick with his hands over his mouth. Emma, however, is on the phone, jumping into action like her brother.
“I’ve called an ambulance, should be five minutes,” she says with determination. “They said to keep her still and to keep talking to her.”
Bea moans again, her eyelids fluttering once more. I’m about to lose it, to give into despair and panic, but when I hear the sirens in the distance, I force myself to be who she needs right now.
“Hear that, baby,” I say to her, “they’re coming, they’re coming; you’re going to be fine.”
By the time the paramedics arrive, Bea has well and truly lost consciousness and Ben is having to fight me off and away from her. They say things that I don’t understand, all the while they rush out medical equipment.
“Who’s coming with her?” one of them asks. “I only have space for one and it has to be now.”
“I am,” Ben and I say in unison. I glare at him and, surprisingly, he backs down, almost straight away. Before I step up onto the back of the ambulance, Emma shoves one of her rings at me.
“Tell them you’re her fiancé,” she explains, “otherwise, you won’t be seen as close family and will have limited access.”
I nod and take it before jumping into the back of the ambulance.
“What’s your relationship to the patient?” the paramedic asks.
“She’s my fiancée,” I lie, though, I’ll admit, it feels good to say it.
“She’s not good, so you will need to back off and let us do our job,” he warns me.
“Is she…will she…?” I can’t even finish that question.
The other paramedic grabs my shoulder and looks at me as I feel the prickled heat of a tear escaping down my cheek.
“We will do all we can,” she says, “she’s in the best place.” I’m then gifted with a pitying smile that she must have given a thousand other poor bastards in her lifetime.
By the time we reach the hospital, Bea has crashed twice, and each time I’ve been given a bowl so I can physically throw up. Before we even come to a complete stop, they shove the doors open and there’s a small team of doctors and nurses ready to receive her. I follow at the back of them, not being able to comprehend a single thing they’re saying. However, I only get so far before a nurse holds me back, telling me I can go no further, to trust them, and to wait for more news. Without anything else to do, to settle my stomach over what is happening to the woman I just declared my love for, I collapse on the floor and watch them wheel her away.
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Nate
What feels like hours of pacing later, Ben and his parents arrive, all looking frantic and not at all sure how they got here. None of us can comprehend how we got here, waiting to hear news that will tell us if our girl will live. I shake that thought away as a pang of intense pain hits me in the chest over the thought of them coming out to tell us that she’s gone.