You Really Got A Hold On Me

Doctor Robert

My eyes flickered open for a second. I could hear noise - a lot of noise. I wasn't exactly aware of what was happening but when I tried to lift my head every fibre of my body pulled me back down again.

Something hurt, that much I could tell. In fact a lot hurt. My eardrums begged for a moment of silence as I was deafened by the commotion. I heard voices, a siren, people talking hurriedly. 

I forced my eyes to stay open. They opened. Sky. I realised I must have been lying down. I felt strange. The sky looked like the sky but something was wrong. It looked...blurry. 

I suddenly heard voices closer this time - what were they saying? "Michelle? Michelle? Can you hear me?"

Then I felt like I was  floating off the ground. Floating? No, I must have been being lifted up. Carried. My head was a mess. Like my mind was a jigsaw puzzle but someone had put all the pieces in the wrong order. 

The noise, white noise, seemed to dwindle as I drifted in and out of consciousness. 

Then, black. Again.

• • •

My body seemed to jolt as I suddenly awoke, my eyes open. Where was I?

I had that feeling you get when you wake up in the morning and you feel like you've been asleep for five minutes but in reality you've been out for hours. 

As I blinked the room slowly came into focus. The swirling seemed to stabilise and I became aware of my hands. Someone was holding my right one.

I looked at it then slowly looked up. It was Dad. 

"Dad?" I croaked. 

He squeezed my right hand and said "hey sweetheart" tiredly. "I'm glad you're awake."

"Dad? What happened?"

"You were in a car accident sweetie."

"W-What?" I asked stunned. I tried to think back to the last thing I remembered. 

 I remember seeing Tom. I remember getting Paul's letter. But did I read it? No, I don't remember anything about that. I would have remembered. 

Then I remembered the car brakes. That terrible screeching sound. That must have been it. Being hit by a car certainly was a strange experience. It's like I didn't even remember it happening. 

One minute I was holding Paul's letter, the next I was lying on the ground in a strange, unnatural position. Now I was here. From the clinical, artificial smell I guessed it was the hospital. 

"I was worried about you" I heard Dad say which brought me back down again. He put a hand on my cheek. I could see the worry in his caramel coloured eyes.

"Where am I?" I asked for confirmation. 

"The hospital honey" he replied. "You don't know how scared I was."

I had considered when I opened my eyes and saw the white room that I was dead. That this is where you go when you die, this all white room. 

But when I felt Dad's hand it felt too real. His warmth too warm. His rough hands too rough. I couldn't have been dead. 

"What happened?" I asked again, rubbing my head, wishing to know further details. My hand brushed over the left side of my face, where a throbbing pain had been crying out for attention. It felt rough to the touch. Probably one of my many injuries I thought, gingerly touching the fresh scrape. 

"You were just down the road" he said, his voice shaking a bit. I had never heard Dad like this. "And, and I heard this awful screech so I looked out the window and I saw a car and someone on the road" he swallowed before continuing, "it was you. So I ran out, you should have seen me" he chuckled a bit shakily, "I rang the ambulance and they came and there was a lot of commotion and the, the driver of the car, the woman, she was hysterical. You had me so worried."