A Thousand Ways To Run

Chapter 23

I was wrapped, cleaned, inspected, and scanned. All much to my displeasure.

The hospital required an overnight stay because the crash occurred in the evening. I stayed frozen still while they situated me and a nurse replaced my bandages. Though I didn’t feel like talking much, I began to notice that even they didn’t want to make small talk around me. I slept erratically, waking up in short burst every time someone came to check up on me. Each time I would startle awake, I’d feel a little burst of pain from my stiff muscles. And each time I jumped in bed the nurse checking on me did, too. With a hand over their fast fast beating hearts, they would not curtly and avoid eye contact before scuttling out of the room. I had to swallow my assumptions otherwise I would never be able to sleep despite the heavy medications.

They looked at me like some sort of animal let out of its cage, supposedly tame. Untrustworthy. What had they been told? And by who? One with short hair was scared to touch me in the morning. As she changed some of the bandages on me, her fingers were lighter than air on my purple and blue skin. Whatever they had been told about the accident and about me was a mystery. Their stares made me feel uneasy and paranoid. The time to leave could not have come sooner.

No permanent damage the doctor said. Just a few scratches – nothing antibacterial cream wouldn’t fix eventually. And if I took care of them right, no scars.

I almost laughed. There was scars, plenty of them.

Dad was released hours before I was. I would not have been surprised if he just flashed his ID and said he was fine and they let him walk out. I wandered back through the winding halls of the hospital in Dover, putting one foot in front of another and still feeling in a haze. I was frustrated with myself, trying to find that split second when I should have seen or felt it coming. Where was my horrifying flashback? Why didn’t I understand why?

My fingers traced the outline of the strip of wallpaper that ran along every wall. I curved my hand along flower petals the whole way to where he was waiting. My right wrist had a small brace around it and my head would be pounding like a bass drum within a few hours after the medication wore off—but I was lucky. I was bruised and weak, taking light and short steps.

I didn’t really ever want to meet my dad in the lobby. It all sounded so dependant in my mind, but I wanted to walk out into the room and see Warren again, to see the concern in his face. I thought for sure I’d heard him at the crash site, and I missed the way he worried. That was how he showed he cared, not by making up stories.

He did promise he would worry, and I knew he would keep it.

I wanted to be back in the company of a person I could actually trust, the only one that ever came to mind. The only person who didn’t frequently lie to me or try to control me.

I sighed at seeing my dad, all cut up but showing no signs of bruises under his dark jeans and plain tee. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him not in some kind of formal wear, I almost didn’t recognize him. I gulped down as much hesitation as I could, unable to look him in the eye. I would have stayed silent if questions weren’t burning in the back of my mind like a branding iron. Every part of me was tired.

Tired of being confused.

Tired of always being disappointed.

Tired of being anywhere but where I wanted to be.

“Ready to go?” he asked, reaching out to lay a hand on my shoulder, but changing his mind after a second. It just ended up being awkward, his hand suspended in mid air before he mussed his hair as a cover up. And I hated how it would always be that way.

“Yeah,” I murmured, heading for the automatic doors. No overnight bags weighed down my shoulders, not like I could take it.

He went ahead and guided me, opened the door to a nice black sports car for me, watching hesitantly as I slid in slowly. I closed my eyes and let my head rest back, begging the cosmos for my own bed and not the sleek leather of car interior for comfort.