Call Me Hurt

Chapter 12 - Hurt

When EJ gasped awake, the rest of us followed. My vision was hazy. For a while, all I could make out were flashing red and blue lights, and faceless silhouettes surrounding a mangled EJ lying on the road. I stumbled over to her, praying that my vision would return soon and the ringing in my ears would stop.
If I was here, it meant that she was still alive.

"Ma'am, can you hear us?" I could faintly hear one of the silhouettes over the ringing.

I suddenly felt agony radiating through my chest and cried out, along with Anxiety and Despair who were gripping their chests.

I finally reached EJ, who was lying on the road, wide-eyed and panting. She had scrapes down her face, one of her legs was bending in a way that a leg shouldn't bend, and the blood pumping from her chest made her shirt unrecognisable.
I couldn't understand the jargon the paramedics were using, but I heard the words 'shattered sternum', and it was then that the horrible realisation hit me.

Her heart was literally beating out of her chest.

The bus that hit her was pulled over to the side of the road, and the passengers all had their faces pressed to the window, and the bus driver was talking to a police officer.

EJ's wide eyes found me, and I ambled quickly to her side.

"You're okay, sweetie." I said, trying to hold one of her hands, but a paramedic took her arm and wrapped a blue cuff around it.

"M-Mum..." EJ gasped, her eyes scanning around frantically. "Where's my mum?"

"Oh my god!" Despair gasped from behind me.

I followed where she was looking, and my heart dropped.

Not too far ahead of us was Ellen's car wrapped around a tree. Another team of paramedics were extracting her from the vehicle. She was covered in blood and bruises, her neck was wrapped in a supportive brace, her face was shielded by an oxygen mask, and she had tubes and wires coming out of every inch of her body.

"What the fuck just happened?!" Anxiety screamed.

The next few hours were a blur. We would be awake for a few seconds and then lose consciousness again only moments later. From what we could make out, EJ and Ellen both made it to the hospital, but we lost track of Ellen when EJ was brought into the operating room.

"Wait," EJ exclaimed as they placed a mask on her face. "My mother. Where's my mum?" She could feel herself slipping back out of consciousness.

"EJ, your mother is having surgery in the other room. We will tell you more after your operation." One of the masked surgeons answered before we lost consciousness again.

"Please don't let her die!" I cried before disappearing into darkness.

***

Anger

All I could see was a bright light as we awoke. Every inch of my body was sore, especially my chest.
I saw EJ in the hospital bed, her swollen face covered in scratches and bruises, her left leg wrapped in a cast and another cast binding her chest. Her heavy eyes flitted open to a nurse adjusting her IV bag.

"What happened?" EJ mumbled, barely conscious.

"Hello EJ," the nurse said, turning her attention to EJ. "You're going to be okay. You were hit by a bus, and you have a broken leg and a broken sternum, but we fixed both in surgery. Your recovery is going to take a while, but you're already doing so well."

"My mum, where is she? Is she okay?"

"She suffered a serious brain injury and broken ribs. She is still in surgery, but we won't know what the damage is until she wakes up. She will need round the clock care for the next few months, but even then, we don't know what her recovery will look like. It's just a matter of waiting.
Now, you're going to be in quite a bit of pain for a while. There's a button in your hand attached to your IV that will give you pain relief. It will make you groggy for a while, so you'll do a lot of sleeping while you recover for these next few weeks. After that, we will wean you off it and send you home with some painkillers.
Someone will check in on you every hour. If you need anyone, just press the nurse call button, okay?"

After the nurse left, I expected EJ to press the medicine button right away, but she just sat there motionless. For the first time, I couldn't tell what she was thinking. I didn't know if it was because of the anaesthetic still in her system or she was still in shock from everything that had happened to her in a matter of hours.

"EJ, are you okay?" I eventually asked.

"You all need to leave," she mumbled.

It was then that I realised all of us were in the room, surrounding her bed.

"The nurse said you're going to be okay." Hurt said, reaching for her hand. "Recovery will be long, but you–"

"I mean it! You need to get out!" EJ snapped, pulling her hand away from Hurt. "Since the day I started seeing you all, you have told me that I need to hold on because I have so much to look forward to! This is what I had to look forward to? My heart literally broke and my mother might have permanent brain damage where she will need constant care for the rest of her life! Who do you think will be the one taking care of her? Me! It's always going to be me! I exist to take care of a woman who will not – and now cannot – take care of herself! I'll never leave her, I'll never get out of that house, I'll never go to culinary school, I'll never see my brother again, I'll spend the rest of my days alone!
If you had just left me alone the day I was going to walk out onto the road, we could have avoided all this! You tell me to hold onto hope, so where the hell is this hope, huh? I'm better off dead! I'm better off without any of you!
So, please, SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE! LEAVE ME ALONE! LEAVE ME ALONE!" Tears poured down her red face as her screams echoed throughout the room.

We all looked at each other, hoping one of us had something to say that would make her feel better. But we were all silent. It was only then that EJ pressed the button, and in seconds she was engulfed into a dark, dreamless sleep.

We walked out of her room and stayed silent for what felt like hours.

"Maybe she's right," Despair said, breaking the silence. "We've been giving her all this hope only for it to turn out to be a complete lie. Maybe she would have been better off without us."

"Without us, she'd be dead." Hurt replied.

"She could die now!" I barked. "And who's fault do you think that is, Hurt?"

Hurt's eyebrows knotted in confusion. "You're saying it's my fault that she was hit by a bus?"

"You're the one who told her to jump out of a speeding car onto a busy freeway! Who else am I supposed to blame?"

"I was trying to save her life! It was either jump out of the car or fly through the windshield! There weren't a lot of options, Anger!"

"Here's a thought, maybe one of us should have told her not to get in the car in the first place! I mean, it's Ellen we're talking about. The woman is drunk ninety percent of the time. We should have known something like this would happen."

"Is blaming each other really going to help EJ?" Anxiety asked with a quiver in his voice as if he was holding off crying. "If we find someone to blame, is it going to help EJ get better? No. What's done is done. Mistakes were made and there's nothing we can do about it now. What's important is how we can help her through this. We need to figure out how to help her with this part."

"Maybe we should do what she said." Hope said so quietly I almost didn't notice she was in the room with us. "Maybe we should disappear for a while."

I looked at her, confused. "No, she needs us now more than ever. We can't just leave her alone."

"But that's what she wants. If she feels like she needs to be alone, we need to respect that. If she needs us, she'll let us know."

"But what if we can't appear like we did the first time? What if we stay gone like we were before?" Despair asked.

Hope looked down with deep sadness in her eyes. "If EJ doesn't want us anymore, then we stay gone."