The Accident: A Josh Hutcherson Story

A/N: First chapter is mature but most of the story will be of a general rating.

The Accident

Chapter One

Rule number one: Never get hammered.

Rule number two: Always get hammered if you're depressed.

Ella downed her glass of scotch on the rocks, slamming it against the bar so hard that the ice chinked together in protest. "Another one Dave!" she ordered, waving her hand at the bartender. Immediately, another glass of scotch was slid towards her, which she immediately caught and took a large gulp from. Screw life, she thought, screw everybody. She didn't need them, she didn't need anyone.

She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her backpocket, fishing in her jacket for her green and yellow lighter that had a pathetic and frankly sad 'Aloha!' printed across the front. Last time she asked her brother for a gift from Hawaii. Once the cig was lit, she stuck it between her lips and took a long drag, letting the smoke puff out of her nose.

Her mother was such a bitch. All she cared about was getting her daughter married off to a man with money, to compensate for her habit of being jobless. Ella knew that her mother just wanted this so she would have something to boast about to her friends. "Oh my daughter is married to a doctor!" or "a surgeon!" or "a celebrity!" Ella scoffed at the last one. People always think that LA is crawling with famous people but in reality you'd be lucky if you saw one in six months. They were very private people.

Before she knew, her scotch was gone again and she was ordering another one. She kept her cigarette between her fingers, taking the odd puff between drinks. She just wanted to get hammered. To lose herself in a drunken haze and forget everything. How she was sad, depressed, lonely, jobless and unloved. Well, not completely lonely and unloved. She had her lifelong friends Scotch and Rocks.

When Ella was slightly tipsy, having worked through four tumblers of scotch and two cigarettes, she became suddenly aware that she wasn't alone at the bar. The guy looked like he was nervous about something, sitting with his head resting against the bar with a helmet resting a couple of centimetres from his head. Ella shuffled on her bar stool, propping her feet up on the rests, and slid her pack of cigarettes across to him. 

"Cigarette?"

The guy lifted his head and looked at the pack of cigarettes with distaste. "No thanks," he said.

"Let me buy you a drink then," Ella said, choking on a hiccup. "Yo, Dave! Hit me with another one and one for my friend here!" She frowned and looked at the nervous guy. "What's your poison?" she asked. When he didn't answer, she sighed and looked back at Dave. "Just get him the same as me." When the drinks came, Ella jumped a seat so she was sitting right beside the stranger. She placed his drink right beside his helmet, putting her own to her lips and quirking an eyebrow. "So, what's gotten your knickers in a twist then?"

"Are you supposed to be the equivalent of the kind bar keep who talks to the patrons about their woes?" The guy looked at her and quirked his own eyebrow. Ella frowned, gripping the edge of the bar for support when she took a light head. He looked familiar but she couldn't place him in her tipsy state.

"I suppose," she said. "So, tell me, why do you look like you're about to shit a brick?"

The stranger squinted at her, finally taking up the drink she bought and taking a large gulp. "I'm proposing to my girlfriend," he said. "Soon."

Ella nodded thoughtfully. "I see," she said. "Who's the lucky girl? What's her name, I mean?"

The stranger smile faintly. "Claudia," he answered.