I spent one reckless moment trying to recall if disconnected phones still called the cops or not.
And then, well, it was all just… happening.
A car pulled out in front of me.
I couldn’t stop.
And I saw a damn baby seat in the back.
I couldn’t use that car to stop mine.
“Fuck,” I hissed, yanking the wheel to the side, my entire body tensing hard as I veered right toward a massive tree.
I didn’t even know if the fucking airbags in my piece of shit car worked.
But, not more than two seconds later, I had an answer to my question.
Yes, there was an airbag in the steering wheel.
But that was it.
It wasn’t like those fancy newer cars where the whole cabin ballooned up, protecting you from all the glass.
Nope.
I face-planted into the air bag which snapped my head back and to the side slightly, making my head smash into the side window.
Then, well, everything went a little black for a couple of minutes.
When I came to again, someone was yanking my driver’s door open, making my body fall to the side, held up only by my seatbelt.
“Jesus, are you okay?” a soft, feminine voice asked, making me think of the mom in the van and her baby in the backseat.
At least they were okay, I thought as pain shot through my head.
“Oh, you’re bleeding. Oh, it’s a lot,” she said, voice rising, getting a little hysterical.
“Mmok,” I mumbled. “I’m okay,” I tried again, trying to think past the pain and the disorientation from getting knocked out.
“I don’t think you are. This is… this is not good,” she said. “I called the police, okay. But, um, I think we need to get something to press to that wound,” she said, retreating only to yank open the backseat door, grabbing one of the many articles of clothing I’d discarded back there over the past few weeks.
“Head wounds bleed a lot,” I told her, but my voice sounded weird, like it was coming from far away instead of inside my own skull. “Dramatic like that,” I added, pretty sure I was missing a word or two in there somewhere.
“Okay. Well, I’m going to put some pressure on it anyway,” she said, and when I slow-blinked at her, she looked a little green.
“I’ll do…” I started, trying to lift the arm, but my shoulder screamed. “You’ll do it,” I corrected.
“It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay. I’m right here,” she assured me, trying to be reassuring even through her own hysteria.
But then we both heard it.
Her baby screaming.
“Go,” I said, reaching with my good arm to grab the sweatshirt she was pressing to my head. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” I assured her.
But I’d prove just a moment or so later that I wasn’t quite that great.
Because I passed right the fuck back out again.
It was the paramedic who fully jerked me awake, pulling open my eyes to flash a light in, probing my head.
“Her shoulder too,” the woman’s voice said, and I looked past the paramedic crouched by my door to find her standing there with a baby pressed to her shoulder, bopping it up and down even though it had settled.
“Can you tell me your name?” the paramedic asked.
We went through the whole spiel before they moved me, shuffling me into the back of the ambulance, and driving me to the hospital.
I should have objected.
I wasn’t sure if my insurance had kicked in at work yet.
Ambulance rides could cost thousands. Not to mention what the hospital was going to cost me.
But, well, when I got an eyeful of the hoodie that was almost soaked through with my blood, yeah, I figured I couldn’t exactly take a chance on not getting it checked out.
“Well, Theo,” the doctor said what seemed like endless hours later. “You’re good to go. You’re going to need to get those stitches out in ten to fourteen days. And that headache and shoulder are likely going to give you an issue for a while, so you need to fill that script I gave you in the morning. I’m also going to need you to keep an eye for any of those concussion symptoms I’d mentioned earlier. And if your shoulder doesn’t feel better in a few days, you might want to follow up with an ortho. But I don’t have any good reason to keep you.”
Thank God.
I imagined the bill was insane enough already.
And I still had to get to work.
Migraine and bum shoulder and all.
They hadn’t seen anything wrong in the scans of the shoulder, so they were assuming it was just the slam that was making it hurt so much. They gave me a sling in case I needed it, but I was going to avoid it if at all possible.
About an hour later, I was getting out of the backseat of my ride, wincing at the idea of having spent even more money than I had on it, but knowing there was no other choice.