Make Me (Editing)

forty

Despite my years of running for leisure, adrenaline was the only thing fuelling me as I sprinted through the doors of the emergency room. I'd hardly stopped to take a breath ever since getting the call from Zoey. After grabbing my absolute essentials and rushing downstairs to hail a cab, I'd taken the excruciatingly long ride to the hospital where Tyler was at. It was nearing midnight when I finally arrived, and was eerily quiet in the brightly lit waiting room.

"Can I help you, Miss?" the receptionist called me over to the front desk.

"Yes um.. I'm here to see Tyler Gray," I replied, not really sure what to say in such a circumstance.

"He's actually in the intensive care ward at the moment, and our visitation hours are over," my heart dropped as her words sunk in. "So I'm sorry, but unless you're directly related to the patient, you'll have to wait until the morning."

"She's family," another voice called from beside me, causing both the receptionist and myself to turn towards its source.

"Zoey," I jogged over to where she was, thanking her quietly as we left the rather frazzled receptionist behind. "How is he?"

"Still unconscious. The doctors haven't told us much yet, but it's not looking great."

I had no idea what to expect as she opened the door to his room, knowing only that he'd been in a pretty brutal crash and was showing few obvious signs of life.

Walking into the rather spacious suite, I was first met with a middle-aged man and woman who were sat at the end of the hospital bed. Anxiety was clear in their expressions as they watched the man, who I assumed to be their son, lying unconscious, relying on machines to keep him breathing. As for Tyler, he was far less battered and bruised than I'd assumed he would be, and would have looked almost completely normal if it weren't for all of the pipes and chords running around his face and body. He lay completely still, completely silent, the only sound in the room coming from the life-support machine which indicated his rather slow but steady heartbeat.

"Mum, dad, this is Ally," Zoey was first to break the silence, confirming my suspicion about their identities. "And Ally these are our parents."

"It's a pleasure to meet you Mrs Gray," I leaned down to give her a hug, "and Mr Gray," I shook his hand firmly.

"You too dear," Mrs Gray smiled warmly. "But please call me Pam."

The room fell back into a sort of silence as everyone focused on the only one who couldn't make a noise.

"So what actually happened?" I finally asked.

"We aren't really sure of all the details," Zoey replied, "but they found another car crashed into his at an intersection on 47th. The other guy was pretty unharmed, but he'd hit Tyler's side of the car, so Tyler was a lot worse off."

It was in that moment that it dawned on me how close he'd been to my apartment at the time. I'd literally heard the ambulance sirens attending to the scene, but had thought nothing of it.

"Well thank you so much for calling me," I smiled. "I'm not sure if he told you before, but we weren't really speaking these last few weeks."

"He certainly told us, sweetie," his mum now piped up, nodding her head as she smiled up at me. "But we could all see straight through him when he said he wasn't hurting. I was only just discharged from hospital myself, and told him to go get you back, which was what he was on his way to do when he was involved in the collision."

"Wait, actually?" I shook my head in disbelief, although the story did line up with his location at the time.

"Yep," Zoey confirmed. "They even found your contact open on his phone. It's the only way I found your number."