Ana -
It had only been an hour since I had sped off down the road to get away from my family at home. I couldn't move, but I could see. Hazily, but seeing nonetheless. I thanked the fact that my eyes remained glued to the ceiling of the ambulance. I felt the tips of needles disappear somewhere beneath my skin and into the muscles in my arm. My eyes fought hard to stay open. I tried to think back to how, exactly, I had ended up in this vehicle that smelled of many medicines and vaccines.
My head was spinning and around me everything grew dark until finally I saw nothing.
Joseph -
I saw her car flip. I was standing there in the cold as the paramedics were assisting the gurney into the back of the ambulance. Before I knew it I was sitting there next to her on the trip to St. Davids Hospital. A twenty minute drive if we used the freeway. The only way I knew how to get to the hospital. Sitting next to the girl I held to a better grasp of what she actually looked like, rather than seeing her face flash and bob around in a 2013 Chevy truck. She was very pale, like snow almost. Her skin looked cold, which was odd because it was room temperature in the hospital ambulance. But it was also very cold outside and some newscasters called for snow today. The veins in her skin were shown a brilliant blue-green and her hair fell in heaps of brown around her face as she laid there. The blanket one of the paramedics draped over her had only covered her to her waist. She was dangerously thin, which might have been the cause for cold and pale skin. After a time I noticed her light brown cable-knitted sweater revealed her bony, left shoulder. I tilted my head and saw her collar bones jut out. After covering her shoulder I stared straight up at the ceiling above me. Though I wasn't much of a Christian, I prayed to God that this girl would be alright.
Soon enough we -the girl and I- had been moved to the IC unit. A few nurses told me she was fine but even still they came to check on her every ten minutes for an hour before stopping. I pulled out a chair and sat across the room from her. Her parents, I thought to myself. I looked around the room and my eyes settled on a table with the girl's original clothing and personal belongings sat atop of it. Gradually, I stood and started to walk toward the table which was parallel to her head. I didn't have the slightest idea as to what i was doing, but I knew I couldn't wake her. "What the hell are you doing?" she snapped at me. "It's not what it looks like," I responded. "Um, I'm Joey Arias. You can call me what ever you'd like. Secondly, I was kind of about to go through your bag over there." I pointed to her handbag resting ontop of her clothes. She looked over at it to make sure it was still there then she fixated her eyes on me. I kept talking. "I was looking for your phone to call your parents. To tell them you were alright and that you are here, in St. Davids, resting your head. Also you were in a bad car acciddent. Or, I mean it looked bad. The car flipped twice and landed upside down. Have to say, it was pretty amazing. I rode with you all the way here by the way." Through my nonstop talk about the car flipping, and how boring the ride here was, and about how I saw her shoulder. She smiled at me.
Ana -
"I know you," I smiled at the boy standing oddly between me and the table. It was a shame I had only just recognized him.
"You- you do?" he asked quizzically.
I nodded slightly. "I used to know you very well."
"Who are you?"
I smiled at him for a while. Released, frowned and said finally, "I'm Analise Daniel. We, us, Joey, have met before. In the snow at Daybreak when were young. You always used to call me Ana because you couldn't say Analise. We were such good friends, but -" my voice trailed. I looked down at the pale green hospital bedsheets then up at Joseph. He stared back at me blankly.
"But?" he repeated. "But what?"
I turned away and looked out of the large window next to my temporary bed. Trees were spread in lonely distances from one another all across the hospital lawn. Most of them had little to no leaves. Branches were coated in piles of white. On the leftmost tree, a bird perched itself on one of the snow covered branches. I guessed it hadn't realized it was winter.
I don't think I could tell Joseph what happened after that. I wouldn't. After we'd been friends a while things started getting bad. Bad things were happing to me and my family. My mother was abused by my drunken father. My oldest sister, Chloe, disappeared after a month of my dad's beating. She was 18 and was going to college that summer, so I couldn't file a missing persons report because I wasn't sure if she left purposely. I grew neglected, and became bullied at school. Gradually, I hated myself too so I starved. My depression severed, as did my self harming. I remember being only nine years old. When I turned 13 in the fall my parents put me into Hallows Wood. It was a mental hospital for young adults. I'm sure they tried their hardest to make me better but I was stubborn and didn't want to be better. I was released only a few months ago. My father drank too much one day and passed out. Except he never woke up. He passed while in a coma. My mother readily welcomed me back into her loving arms and home.
I picked at the heavily coated burgundy tinted nail polish on my finger nails. A hand found its way onto my shoulder and I felt weak. It was Joseph's hand. I looked up towards him slowly.
"Hey, are you hungry?" he asked me.
"I'm deprived," I lied to him.
"Alright. I'll get you a sub or something. I'll be back in a bit," he smiled and turned on his heels.
I slumped into the pillow covering the metal makeshift headboard as he exited the room and closed the door tightly behind him.
