See You Around~ Grester (completed)

Chapter Fifty-Six

Grace's POV

My eyes opened, slowly my vision was filled with a blinding light but all I could see was danger.

Everything ached. Everything hurt and it was a struggle to breathe, my lungs felt heavy and I was coughing for breath, it was hard to keep breathing and my body was weak. I could hear people outside, loud piercing sirens and the mumble of deep voices.

The door was ripped from what was once my car and cold soothing air flustered through the empty space. A hand reached through and someone in a bright yellow jacket joined me in the car. Her presence was soothing next to me, reminding me that I was still in this world.

"We're going to get you out okay?" Her voice was reassuring but travelled through my ears in a harsh manner, as if that was the first thing I had ever heard.

I instinctively attempted to reach my stomach, to hold the ever-growing bump but I was my greatest enemy. I couldn't move my hands, I couldn't move my legs, something was holding them down, something stopping me.

"Right, this may hurt, but we'll get you out in as soon as we can."

Other men joined her and in a daze of sharp pain I was taken away from the death trap, removed from the metal and the soon I was standing surrounded by police cars and ambulances- wishing I could close my eyes and disappear.

I was shaken up, my heart still beating scarily fast and my mind a wild mess. I tried to focus on getting my breathing back to normal but two thoughts controlled my mind but I couldn't shake them.

Sirens filled the air around me and I stumbled to find my balance as cars drove past, without a care in the world. I wanted everything else to stop around me as I had. I wanted the cars to come to a halt and the noise around me to fade. I wanted the clocks to stop ticking, the sun to go down, the tide to go in and the world to stop spinning. Because in that exact moment, that was the life I was living.

Everything was silent and yet so loud. The engines burnt my ears and the sun blinded my eyes and yet everything was dark and empty. My hand slowly reached my stomach and I laid my palm flat across it, feeling the roundness of the being inside of me and finding comfort in its firm presence. As if it was the only thing that wasn't falling away from me.

A doctor was talking to me but the words weren't functioning, all I knew was that we were slowly walking towards an ambulance and she told me to stay positive, that my baby still has a chance. A chance. What good is that in this world, a chance is nothing but the expectations of an optimist and right now, I was the most pessimistic of them all.

I clung onto that chance like my world depended on it, and perhaps it did but I didn't want to own up to the reality of this wretched car-crash and how maybe it had torn my baby's life away from me. I closed my eyes and pretended I was back at home, with everyone I loved beside me. But when I opened them, I was faced with the explicit realisation that I was alone with nothing but a fighting chance.

From then everything seemed to flash by, within seconds everything had suddenly happened but I couldn't process it all.

They had got him out. They had got Chester out but I couldn't see him walk, or hear him talk, I couldn't see him at all. They wheeled a man by me, taking him into the back of an ambulance and rushing frantically around him; as if he was dying.

I didn't recognise Chester's face, I didn't recognise my own husband's face and that pain was worse than any other. The blood and bruising which covered him made his features unrecognisable and they rushed him off in seconds; I could not stand up quick enough before he was out of my reach.

I was dumbfounded by reality that I couldn't get up to face him, I didn't know if I could handle seeing him like this. It might push me over the edge and I wanted to stay grounded; for the unrecognisable man close by and the baby growing inside of me.

I could overhear the doctor's conversation slightly, picking up the odd word. I felt tears automatically stream down my face as I finally understood but I couldn't fathom any thoughts, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't speak. I was lifeless.

"Severe spinal damage." Was the first sentence that hit me and from then on it just got worse. I could not be hearing this about Chester. It had to be another man, who could be this cruel?

I picked up a few more words before collapsing into the bed and burying myself, trying to hide away. Trying to transfer me and Chester someplace else but it didn't work, I was still broken and I was still crumbling. My life was still falling down around me and there was no way to reach Chester.

The doctor's words scared me, not only for what they were saying but for what the future entailed, could I live a life like this? Was that selfish and will it get better?

I had watched enough medical dramas to know that these next three words were never good.

"Paralysed. Waist down."