Near Touch

Chapter 9: Blackout

Amy swerved blindly and hit the brakes, the blaring horn from the truck rushing past her. The Corolla came to a halt at an odd angle on the asphalt, the smell of burnt rubber curling from the point of contact. Her head was throbbing where it banged against the steering wheel due to the force of the sudden deceleration. A sonorous whistling had filled her ears. Amy's eyes were blind to everything except the afterimages of a harsh light. Death had come for her and she had escaped its grasp by the skin of her teeth. Her numb fingers pulled at the handle of the car door until finally Amy lifelessly collapsed onto the hard, cold road. She crawled away from the car and started shaking uncontrollably.

Wave upon wave of shock coursed through her veins. At that moment, the heavens opened and tears that Amy couldn't shed, rained upon her. The cacophony of the heavy downpour and the rumbling of thunder suddenly brought the volume back in her ears. She gasped for breath as the slanting showers pricked at her scalp. It was hard to drag the misty air inside her lungs. Something had an iron grip on her windpipe.

Amy rested her cheek against the bitumen, letting the waters chill her bones and numb the shock. She thanked the heavens that she could feel the bullet-like raindrops smarting her body. Amy vowed to rise but there was comfort in the cold, blinding darkness. For one exuberant moment, the shudders ceased but in the next they began anew, the sheer cold forcing her body to retaliate.

She had no idea how long she stayed praying on the road, her lips moving soundlessly or shuddering from the cold – Amy could never be sure. She smelled the musty, earthly vapors that were set free by the showers accompanied by the internalized heat from the tarmac. Amy tasted each drop that fell against her lips and she tasted blood from a cut somewhere on her face. Lazily, she caressed the surface that was upholding her, unable to do much else.

Someone is keen on keeping me alive...

And with that thought, Amy passed out.

✧

Somewhere along the lost minutes her thoughts altered, replaced by a fanatical admiration for being the biggest moron on earth since the beginning of time. Amy's nose alerted her regarding the nature of her whereabouts. She inhaled the sterile tang of disinfectants.

Amy unwillingly squinted her eyes open.

Her parents were hovering just in her field of vision, two brown-haired figures against a horribly white background. She groaned, her worst fears confirmed.

"Not the damn hospital again," Amy said, hiding her face in her hands.

Anne exchanged a nervous glance with her husband, beckoning him to speak. But Leigh cut in –

"You were hugging the road," she said, wondering if this act would earn her sister a place in therapy too. Leigh handed Amy a tiny cup of water.

"The mailman brought you here. He found you unconscious on Route 36," her father said, his words meant for Amy but his tone sternly reprimanding Leigh. "Ames, is there anything you would like to tell us?"

"What do you guys wanna know?" she sipped the cool, clear water. Amy immediately stopped sounding like a grumpy toad. Her throat felt much better.

"Uh, I don't know. Maybe you could start around the point where you were lying unconscious in the middle of the road during a storm?" Anne interjected. She had always been the democratic one in the household.

Or how about we discuss when I get to leave this place, Amy thought petulantly. Hospitals were the stars of her 'Places-I-don't-ever-want-to-end-up-in' list but somehow she managed to land in them anyway. Every new city they had visited had been incomplete without at least one of Amy's visits to the land of scrubs and critical eyes. Even Disneyland was a total disaster because of some idiot who had slipped on the ice-skating ring and punched her in the nose with his fat arm.