I Was There

Chapter 3: The Bird

Chapter 3: The Bird

I took the lead as I climbed up the boards nailed into the tree that were meant to mimic a ladder. I opened the hatch and hoisted myself inside the small space. Waiting for Ty to pull himself up into the house, I scooted over a little to allow more room. When we were both sitting awkwardly in the small room, I felt a small spark of something. I couldn’t explain it, but I felt something pass between the look Ty was giving me and the one I was trying not to give Ty. It wasn’t bad; it was a warm, deep thought that the other had spent much time thinking about but I had no clue what that thought was.

Physically and mentally shaking myself, I stood and moved to approach the window/door on the far wall beside Ty’s feet. When we had contortioned our way around outside the house to the higher branches, I climbed a little higher. Ty was still following me when I brought my leg over and straddled the branch that the nest was resting on. Ty didn’t join me on the high branch, just simply stood on one that was below it. I shushed him again when he cursed his shoelaces for getting caught in the branches. I peered down at the nest and saw the beautiful blue bird and her two little babies. They chirped a happy greeting and the mother fluttered her wings. I started to reach out but I felt Tyler tap his fingers on my shoe to get my attention. When I looked down, he was shaking his head in disagreement.

“What? I won’t hurt them.” I whispered down. He kept shaking his head but I ignored him as I started to pick up a chick. The mother didn’t seem to agree, and started pecking at my hands, trying to save her baby. I set the bird back in the nest but the mother bird didn’t stop. She rushed to my  face, and I threw my hands up to try and avoid her attack. Underneath me, Ty was waving his hands and trying to detract the bird’s attention from me but she kept on. I began to teeter on my branch and I tried to steady myself with my hands. Even Ty was trying to climb higher and help me down but nothing was stopping my unbalance. When I started to slide off the branch, everything seemed to start moving in slow motion while I watched from an outside perspective.

I was falling right towards Tyler and he was reaching out to catch me. His face was contorted into fear as he realized what was waiting at the end of my fall. I gracefully arched backwards, falling as I stared at the sky. I reached and stretched in frenzy for Ty’s hand. He was screaming my name and crying again. As soon as I was out of reach, he started climbing down the tree in any attempt to save me from my fate. I couldn’t see him anymore though because small branches and twigs caught my hair and scratched my face. I again covered my face to protect myself as best I could although it seemed irrelevant as I drew closer and closer to the ground. I was still falling backwards so I couldn’t see the grassy meadow lying in wait, but I could finally see Tyler again…he was crying and yelling my name. I could feel my face crying but I didn’t care, I still yelled for Tyler right before everything became fuzzy and then all black.

Tyler screamed out in pain. He watched Ally fall…he let her fall. He should’ve been able to save her. How could this happen, now of all times? Right before he was going to tell her. When he was going to finally be honest. Ty jumped from the last branches, closest to the ground. He landed several feet from Ally as she lied there silently. She hadn’t moved at all since she hit the ground, causing a sharp pain in Tyler’s heart. He slid his hand under her head and realized that she was bleeding. He was breathing heavy and crying hysterically as he felt for her pulse and wasn’t finding one. He quieted himself long enough to put his ear close to Ally’s mouth, searching his hardest to find any sign of life. In the empty silence, Ty jumped at the slight choke of a breath.

That was enough for him. Tyler picked Ally up and carried her hurriedly to her car, parked on the opposite side of the tree. He opened the back door with slight trouble and laid Ally in the seat. Without thinking, he buckled her using the middle seatbelt. Ty slammed the door and ran around the car to the driver’s seat as fast as he could. Trying to hurry and not stop for anything, He pulled open his own door and started the car before even closing it back. He threw it into gear and sped away from the tree and down the gravel drive. Turning back the way they came, Tyler rushed Ally to the hospital.

When he glided the car up to the curb by the Emergency Room door, Tyler didn’t even turn off the car or close the doors back when he got himself and Ally out. He didn’t struggle carrying Ally to the nurses and doctors, but did when they asked what happened while they rushed her back to a room on a stretcher.

“She fell from-will she be okay?!” A male nurse dressed out in a blue smock and pants turned away from Ally who was being rushed through swinging double doors on the stretcher and held his hands up to stop Tyler in his tracks.

“Please, sir. 1let us do our job. Wait out here and we’ll tell you when you can see her.” Tyler tried again to carry on with her, but the nurse blocked his path.

“Is she going to be okay? Where are you taking her?” The nurse still held his hands up.

“Please, sir. We’ll let you know. Someone will be out momentarily to ask some questions. Have a seat.” He gestured to a row of seats against the stark-white walls on his right.

“Okay.” Tyler said reluctantly, trying to hold all his emotions together, while every nerve he had stood on end. He was too anxious to sit so he paced in front of the seats instead. A nurse came out to ask what happened, but then disappeared minutes later.

The seconds turned to minutes, and minutes into hours. Tyler asked nurses at the desk and ones passing by, when he would be able to see her, was she okay, and just about everything that he could. After an hour, he still had no answers. Tyler finally sat down when his adrenaline had worn off, but was then asked to move his car away from the door. Glancing in the back seat, he saw a trace of Ally’s blood smeared on the seat. Then, almost as an afterthought, he looked at his hands and realized his shirt-along with them-were stained with the same. He stayed sitting in the front seat of the car, crying, for only a minute before parking and exiting it.