I groan, rubbing my head. I opened my eyes, my vision blurry. It took me a minute to realise what had happened. Closing my eyes again, I sat back and inhaled deeply. Slowly opening them again everything started to focus. The 4×4 that rammed into the front of the car was completely totalled but empty. I pressed my fingers to my forehead and felt wetness. Looking at my fingers, I noticed they were covered in blood. My skin erupted in a blanket of shivers when I turned to see Skylar slumped in the seat.
“Sky…” I panicked, unstrapping myself and rubbing my thumb across her cheeks. “Baby,” I called again. Nothing.
She had blood coming from her ears and nose. My eyes scanned over her perfect face when I saw she had blood around her hairline too. Pressing my fingers to her neck, I felt a soft pulse.
“Shit,” I cried, fishing in my pocket for my phone and calling 999. We weren’t waiting long before the emergency services arrived, removing her gently and safely from the car before putting us both into the back of the ambulance.
The paramedics were all over her and checking her vitals throughout the journey. They had the baby hooked up to a monitor too, it brought me comfort hearing his steady heartbeat.
All I wanted to do was scoop her up and never let her go. How had this happened? I was looking, I was paying attention. I didn’t veer over; I know I didn’t. This wasn’t my fault but it didn’t help appease the guilt.
Sighing, all the noise and the chatter was blurring around me. I couldn’t focus, everything was just too much. My mind was chaotic and all I wanted to know was that she was going to be okay.
She needed to be okay.
They both did.
Sitting in the nurse’s room, my head was being glued. The sting was bearable, but the ache in my gut wasn’t. I hated not knowing. I hated being pulled away from her. I wanted to go with her, begged in fact to go with her but I wasn’t allowed.
The nurse was trying to make small talk but I wasn’t listening. I was zoning out, my eyes constantly searching for the doctor that whisked Skylar away. My head thumped, my eyes felt heavy but I ignored the feeling, pushing it further down into my gut.
My mind drifted back to when Skylar was still pissed at me, her little frown line that creased in her perfect skin forming right between her eyebrows as the rage of hormones overtook her tiny body.
“Why are you being so over the top?” I scoffed, placing her decaf americano on the side alongside her all butter croissant.
“I am not being over the top,” she scowled at me. “I didn’t want decaf. I am exhausted, I am nauseous and I am sick of drinking tea!! I just want a fucking coffee and an almond croissant, but no, you couldn’t even do that right…” storming over to her cup and the bag with her food in, she grabbed it and shoved it into my chest.
“Take your shit food with you and don’t forget to close the door on your way out.”
I sighed loudly at the memory, she was like a ticking time bomb. I never knew when the detonator would slip and send her into explosive mode.
Then we had the sad hormones.
“Sky, baby…” I rushed to her side where she was knelt on the floor with hot tears rolling down her reddened cheeks. “What’s happened? Are you in pain? Is it the baby?”
She shook her head from side to side, then finally tilted her head back to look at me.
“Then what?” my brows pinched before I quickly smoothed them out, not wanting to upset her even more.
“We didn’t have any brown toast, you know, that’s fine… no big deal. I’ll just have white…” she choked, “but then, I saw this leaf on the floor,” she stopped, picking up a green plant leaf and holding it up for me to see.”
“Right…” I had no fucking idea where she was going with this but I wasn’t about to ask and risk pissing her off.
“Well, before I had my toast, I wanted to clean the leaves, give Pam a little wash,” her glassy eyes locked on my plant in the corner of the room. Pam!?!?
I nibbled the inside of my lip, laughter wanting to roll out of me but I contained myself.
“So, I wiped her leaves down, she was a bit dusty. Then I topped her soil up with water and somehow I must have broken or snapped one of her leaves… and I feel awful,” she fell into me, my arms wrapping round her as I let her cry.
It took everything in me not to burst into laughter, but to her, this was a big deal. It was Pam.
“All done,” the nurse chirped, pulling me from my flashback.
I nodded, standing from the chair.
“We will get you some pain killers to ease the dull ache, but your vitals are good and we couldn’t see any signs of concussion from the crash.” She smiled softly as she grabbed the clipboard with my notes on it and began scribbling down on it.
“And Skylar? My girlfriend? Where is she?” I could hear the desperation in my voice, the sheer panic that something bad had happened and I wasn’t there to hold her hand and reassure her that everything was going to be okay. Of course it was going to be okay, more importantly, of course she was going to be okay.
“We have no news at the moment, if you take a seat in the waiting room just to the left of the corridor and a doctor will come and find you shortly.”
I nodded, I felt the rage consuming me but I had to keep my cool. This was not the place to lose my shit.
Sitting in the cold and dark waiting room, I rubbed my head, wincing as the dull ache continued to thrash over my skull. Closing my eyes, I replayed the moments of the crash in my head. I recognised that 4×4, I just didn’t know why. The back lanes are normally pretty quiet during the day, the odd car flies down there, but this car veered over like he was aiming for us.
Was he aiming for us?
Fisting my hand into the inside pocket of my coat jacket, I pull my phone out and start scrolling down the names till I see Tabitha. Clicking her name, she answers almost instantly.
“Hello,” her voice is low as I hear a door click behind her.
“Tab,” I stand, steadying myself as a dizzy spell crashes over me. “Where are you?”
“The hotel, I came looking for you. Where are you?”
“At the fucking hospital,” I grit out, pushing my hand through my hair, my teeth clenched as I tried to not let the rage consume me. This was not the place.
“Are you okay? Is Sky okay?” I can hear the apparent panic in her voice.
“I’m fine, Skylar, well… I don’t know,” my voice falters for a moment, a burning lump lodging itself into my throat. It doesn’t matter how much I try to swallow it down, it wouldn’t budge. Coughing softly, I clear my throat. “I need you to stay clear of me, of us for a while. I need to keep us all safe, you included…”
“What the fuck has happened?” her voice grows louder, the panic evident.
“I don’t know, well, I do, but I don’t.” I groan as I rub my head again, black dots forming in my eyes. I blink them away.
“A car crashed into us, down the back lanes from the city to Lowdells. I wanted to take her to the country house for the weekend. That lane is pretty private, it only leads to Lowdells and a couple of the warehouses. Sure, it’s used as a cut through but it’s not a common road.”
“Shit,” I heard her whisper.
“But the thing is, I recognised the 4×4, it was blue with silver trim but I can’t for the life of me remember the badge.” I groaned in frustration, why was everything so hazy and blurry. Nothing was making sense; confusing was clouding over me. My fingers pressed to my temple as I tried to ease the thump that was slicing through my head like a knife. I honestly felt like it was splitting in two.
“I know whose car…” Tab’s voice began to fade out.
“What?” I questioned, stumbling towards the nurse’s station. I needed help.
“Preston?” I heard Tab’s voice, but it sounded far away.
“Skylar,” I cried out, “I need to tell her I love her,” my words were slurring. I continued trying to get to the counter, my legs feeling heavy, my head pounding.
“Nurse…” I mumbled before I fell to the floor. My phone slipping out of my hands, my knees hitting the ground before my upper body followed, my head bouncing off the tiles before it all went black.
