Snapshots of a life, lived

Accident

Author's Note: The quest to make GotYouBlue cry continues.

Rain pattered against her face.

She frowned and wrinkled her nose, tried to turn her head away. Her cheek scraped against asphalt. What in the world...

Lights filled her vision. She jerked the handlebars to the left, trying to get out of the way...

Autumn's eyes flew open.

She was lying on the street, staring at the cloudy sky. No stars tonight. She tried to press her hand into the pavement, to push herself up; pain burned through her body. She collapsed with a weak yell. Her head was spinning and pounding, and she could only move her eyes as she tried to take in her surroundings. Her motorcycle was a few feet away, wrapped around light pole.

"This is what I want for my eighteenth birthday," she informed Reece, pointing to the motorcycle on her computer screen.

"Absolutely not," he said at once. "You'll kill yourself on one of those."

He was such a wet blanket. But she had three years to convince him.

She never had convinced him, and then it hadn't mattered because she never would have accepted it from him. Instead she took the time to save money on her own and bought the bike has her own present for her twentieth birthday.

Had she been wearing her helmet? She couldn't remember. She didn't see it anywhere, and it certainly wasn't on her head (if it had ever been). Autumn tried to trace back through the evening. She had been at a pub. She had seen her current (and now ex) boyfriend talking up some pretty blonde. She had confronted him, yelled, then left. Had she put on her helmet?

The blood trickling down her face seemed to suggest that no, she had not.

Autumn made another attempt to push herself up despite her body's protests. But something cracked in her arm, sending her tumbling back to the pavement with a pained yell. She looked around again, panic building in her chest. She was on the edge of town - no nearby houses. This road was barely traveled at night. She didn't know where her phone was. If it was in her pocket, it was crushed. If it was in her tail box, then it was too far away for her to get.

Get up, she ordered herself. She had to get up. No one was coming to help her. She was going to die, and no one was going to save her. She had to get herself up.

She rolled onto her side, her left arm pressed to her chest as she pushed herself up with her right hand. It shook violently but didn't give. Good. She was on her knees. She tried to shuffle forward a bit...

Fire lit up inside her body, paralyzing her. It hurt - everything hurt. She couldn't identify one source. She collapsed again, curling in tight on herself as she tried not to cry out.

Darkness swallowed her once more.

* * * * *

It was still dark and raining when Autumn opened her eyes again. And her body still hurt. She coughed, gasped, then coughed again as she struggled to breathe.

"You would look so bad ass on a motorcycle," Mia said when Autumn showed her the picture. Autumn had known she would understand. "Don't worry. Between the two of us, we can absolutely convince Reecey to make this happen."

Getting up wasn't an option. Instead she forced herself to roll onto her stomach, thinking she could crawl to her bike, or drag herself there.

Unsurprisingly, her beaten and battered body didn't enjoy the feeling of being raked against wet pavement. And she had left her jacket at the pub in her haste to get out. She didn't make it far before she was forced to give up and collapse again, staring dismally at the road.