Reckless

Reckless - Chapter Nineteen

Sorry I haven't uploaded for so long... :(

R E C K L E S S . . . 

CHAPTER NINETEEN-

The sound of Sam’s heavy breathing filled the small room. She was lying in the clinically white hospital bed, her chest slowly rising and falling with each haggard breath that she took. A long, jagged scar marred the side of her cheek, taking the attention away from her mess of tangled red hair and the large, grey bags that hung under her eyes.

I sat by her bed, waiting. My bandaged hand was lying limply on my lap and my other was typing away on my phone. The process was slow, since I was used to typing with my right hand or both together, but I needed some way to respond to the multiple text messages and voicemails – all from Blake – that littered my notifications. I didn’t feel much like interrupting Sam’s uneasy sleep by calling him, so I stayed as silent as possible.

I couldn’t leave the room, either. For one thing my sprained ankle was too weak to support my weight and secondly, and most importantly, I didn’t want to leave my friend alone.

My phone vibrated again. ‘You could’ve told me you were at the hospital!’ read Blake’s text.

‘Wasn’t enough time,’ I texted back, internally sighing at his over protectiveness. ‘She’s in a bad state.’

‘What about after you’d got her there??’

‘I fell asleep.’

‘What?’

The door swung open and Claire burst in, a frantic look on her normally cheerful face. I placed my phone on the table by Sam’s bed.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner,” Claire said immediately. “The school wouldn’t let me out till this afternoon even though I was screaming at them all day – they said that it’s against their policies to let students out unless it’s a proper family emergency – and then they told me that if I didn’t calm down I wouldn’t be allowed to visit at all, because I was yelling at them about how Sam practically was my family and how stupid their rules were…”

She took a deep breath, steadying herself on the doorframe.

Then she saw Sam, lying limply in the hospital bed and covered in bruises and burns. “Is she okay?” she demanded, clumsily drawing up one of the spare chairs that lined the wall and leaning over our friend.

“A broken leg, scars all over, and bruises and burns all down her arms,” I recited, having memorised the doctor’s conclusion. The same words had been whirling round in my head all day, taunting me for my inability to get to her sooner.

Claire started to cry. She turned to me, sobbing, and I braced myself for the accusations that I had been firing at myself all night.

But they never came.

“Anne,” she whispered in a shaky voice. “Thank you.” Then she leant forwards and hugged me, burying her tear stained face into my shoulder.

I patted her back clumsily. “Aren’t you mad at me, though? I could’ve got to Sam so much sooner in the woods or stopped that fight between us all yesterday or warned her about Darren… There are so many things I could’ve done to prevent this whole thing from happening.”

“But she’s alive,” snivelled Claire. “That’s all that really matters in the end. Her leg will heal soon and all the other injuries will eventually fade...”

I let myself be filled with that emotion that I hadn’t dared myself to even think about all night. Hope.

“Yeah, why would any of us be mad at you? You saved my life.”