Emma

28: Laura

I'm running too slowly, yet I can't go any faster. The sound of my pounding heart is ringing in my ears. Everything around me, every sight, every sound, seems unreal. Detached.

I'm trying not to think of

Luke

Luke

Luke

His name's screaming in my mind.

Why didn't I listen? Why didn't I try to understand.

Don't think about that now.

The hospital corridors seem to stretch out to unreasonable lengths before me, although I tell myself nothing has changed. Despite the fact that my legs feel as if they're going to give way beneath me, I keep on forcing them forwards. The feeling of lactic acid burning in my muscles makes me want to scream, but still I hop down the hospital steps two at a time, painfully twisting my ankle in the process. I've no time for pain, so I keep on going, swallowing the cry I'm longing to release. Because if I let it out, I don't think I'll ever be able to stop. I'll just break down in a massive heap. They'll have to lock me up.

Mad woman, mad woman. Let's lock up the mad woman.

Maybe I can understand what it feels like to become insane, because that's how bad things currently are. 

I'm trying to only think of one thing at a time, that way I won't become too over-faced. Objective number one is making it to my car and then, only then, will I begin worrying about how to actually get home. How to actually drive. 

I jam my keys into the ignition with such force that I miss and end up dropping them on the car floor. Frantically, I scramble about to find them, cursing loudly at my own stupidity.

I'm losing time, I'm losing time.

Then, I try again  - this time more successfully. As soon as the engine comes to life, I slam my foot down and speedily reverse out of the space I'd so carefully entered just over half and hour ago.

I'm going too quickly. Luckily, I slam my breaks on just in time to avoid slamming into the car behind me, although I can't guarantee I didn't scrape a bit of their pristine, red paintwork onto my vehicle. Who cares, anyway? I've no time for such trivial matters.

I'm speeding through the car park. My next objective is to make it onto the motorway. Pulling out recklessly onto the main road, causing other cars to screech to a sudden halt (I receive a few swear-words and aggressive arm-wavings in the process), I race past everyone and everything in my sight, with an absolute guarantee to have broken the speed limit. Not that I give a damn. It's about time  I stopped being such a boring and sensible driver anyway.

For all I know, things at home may be alright. I might get back and nothing will have happened anyway. I might as well try kid myself. 

Still, that doesn't make me feel any less anxious. At the moment, I'm a complete and utter wreck, only able to keep myself together because I have a great reason for getting home. It doesn't help that I keep momentarily feeling as if I've lost the ability to drive, that I don't know what to do anymore, because I'm so overwrought. 

Traffic lights. Curse them.

I literally don't have time for them, so I make an either brave or disastrous decision to pull out whilst they are still at red. Luckily, at this time of day, the traffic doesn't seem too busy.

I don't cause too much damage.

Thinking I've made my way across the junction unscathed, I become slightly oblivious to my surroundings, too busy feeling a sense of accomplishment at having killed more time. Which, of course, is a stupid mistake. At the very last minute, a black land-rover decides to pull out to my right. He doesn't see me coming, so we collide.