Undone

Chapter 1

The call came ten minutes after I heard the sirens go by. In retrospect, I should have known something was wrong. Penelope always made a habit of being early, yet she was ten minutes late to dinner when my phone rang. A fuzzy voice at the end of the line spoke softly, and I struggled to make out the words over the noisy restaurant. "Penelope...accident...really bad...come now..." I hung up quickly, rushing to grab my jacket and keys, and headed straight to the hospital.

When I walked into the room, shock was the first thing I felt. Then the absolute despair washed over me. I tried to keep a straight face as my eyes lingered over the torn flesh of the right side of her face, and the way her legs twisted underneath her. Those legs once danced so beautifully, I thought. A small voice in the back of my mind told me they never would again.

I stood and watched her chest rise and fall. When I grabbed her hand, the monitors beeped loudly, and I smiled at the way she reacted to my touch. Wherever her mind was then, it still recognized me. An older nurse, maybe about my mother's age, came rushing in a few seconds later. "Everything okay?" she asked quickly in a strong southern accent. She paused as she realized her mistake, "Well. As okay as it can be, at least. You must be Reed." "What happened?" I responded, trying to comfort her awkwardness. "There was a semi truck. Slid on the ice and drove straight into her. She's got a severe concussion, collapsed lung, and quite possibly paralyzed from the waist down. She's gonna have a hell of a time if she wakes up," the nurse, whose name-tag read Sarah, spoke sadly. "But her heart's still going yet. She's a fighter, that one," Sarah sighed. She looked at me for the first time. "Let me know if I can do anything for you, sweetie," she drawled softly as she left the room.

The shock was fading now, and the tears began coming. Once they started, they didn't stop. Another nurse, Lydia came in a while later, and she simply clucked her tongue sadly and left. Even I, with no medical experience and a degree in journalism, could tell that Penelope's odds were low. I stroked her hands, her arms, the left side of her face, where her pale skin had turned into blue bruises that flowered across her chin and neck. My hands wandered to her stomach, down her beautiful, strong legs, now beyond repair. When I reached her ankles, I felt a tiny shift below me. Her eyes fluttered slightly.

"Penelope?" I whispered excitedly. "Penelope, baby, can you hear me?" Her eyes fluttered a second more in response, and then stilled once more. I couldn't help but feel hopeful. I continued murmuring her name and stroking her pale, bruised skin. At 3 am, the exhaustion hit me, and I fell asleep, my head on her stomach, until morning.