Growing Up and Other Tall Tales

Chapter 9

I get the call later that day.

Not the call I am expecting, not from Diana, but from a woman. Her voice is shaking, a very blatant underlying French accent that she used to suppress overpowering the Cali drawl. She is talking fast, sobs hacking into coherence as her words stumble over each other.

The tip of my pen pauses on the paper and I scrunch my face up in confusion.

"Wrong number," I say finally and move to put the phone down

I can hear sirens going off in the background, muffled screeches of ambulances, people screaming and cars honking.

"Wait," she quickly blurts, "Am I talking to an Aiden?"

I put the pen down and lean back on my seat.

"Who's asking?"

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry," she starts crying again and I look up at the ceiling, exasperated. I close my eyes and in a softer but a very poorly masked annoyed voice,

"Look, ma'am—"

"There has been a car accident," she tries harder, "Oh I'm so sorry. There's a lot of blood. They just took her in an ambulance."

I inhale deeply pained and then, "What?"

"Lyra. The nice girl from the café. I was just outside. Everyone's out on a lunch break, there's nobody. She had a number on her arm—"

I pause.

Number on her arm.

Suddenly visions of unruly black hair and angry grey eyes erupt behind the back of my mind and I groan.

I stand up pulling my coat off the rack. I cushion the phone under my ear and shoulder and close the files. I gesture at Sandy, who is about to walk into my office with another armful of paperwork, that I am going to go out. He raises his eyebrows and I wave dismissively.

"Where did they take her?" I ask quietly brushing past him

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Feeling like I was the one who ran her over and sad that I didn't, I walk fast towards the hospital reception desk,

"Car accident. A girl. Lyra—" I pause realizing that I did not know her last name, "Just Lyra."

The nurse looks at me unimpressed.

He leads me to the ward where they keep recovering patients and he leaves me with a reassuring pat on my back, one of many he has to for too many, at the foot of a yellow sheathed bed.

Not-Diana's-girlfriend-but-sure-as-hell-acts-like-it has a long gash running along the side of her face, her lips are yellow from the cream applied on the cuts and there are splotches of plasters running down her arms.

I wince a little at the sight.

"Never trust a caffeine addict," I mutter quietly because had I been a little less lazy, I wouldn't have asked her to make Diana call and I wouldn't be stuck here.

But helping her is probably the best way to get through to Diana.

Resignedly, I pull up a chair and sit by her bed. Picking up her phone with a scar splitting the screen in half making it useless, I toss it back on the shelf. Her hand stirs and knocks against my knuckles.

I look at her. Eyelashes flutter and stormy grey eyes blink open. She looks a little disoriented and the lights don't help so I dim them a little. She turns her head weakly to the side.