Trust No Bitch: Part 3

Gemma Akintola

Ever wake up and wish that you hadn't?

That was how Gemma felt as she first opened her eyes, lids so heavy that it was as if they had been sealed closed with tar. Her body was slack, collapsed to one side and, raising her head up, she realised that it had been resting on Josh's lap. It must have been the impact of hitting the tree that had knocked her unconscious; the real damage was on Josh's side of the car, despite smoke billowing out of the entire bonnet. It was instinctive what she did next, raised her head to check that he was okay, because really, she knew that she shouldn't care. But he wasn't okay, not by any means. He didn't appear to be dead but definitely not anywhere near conscious, congealed blood running out of the corner of his mouth. She was not okay either; her entire right leg was consumed by a rather exquisite pain, which only became more apparent as the shock began to drain out of her open mouth. Grunting over the tinkling of the music box, which lay smashed up on top of the dashboard and yet was still rolling out that silvery Greensleeves tune, Gemma dislodged the leg out from in between the car seat and the gear stick area and then lugged herself into the backseat. She tried not to scream in agony as she did so, and wake Josh up in the process, her eyes watering with pain, she found, upon collapsing into the seat. The passenger seat door did not open, she had realised that earlier, but the back seat, it had to. Because if Josh woke up again, Gemma was not afraid of what he might do to her, but of what she might do to him. She didn't want to be responsible for the deaths of two people, especially not in the same night. It was with a minuscule groan of relief that she pushed the door open, that the car allowed her body to topple out of it into the blackness of the night, onto the jagged concrete of the road. And then, came attempting the harder bit, standing up straight, at which point it became clear that her leg was broken. No minor sprain could possibly account for the rocket of agony that launched itself from her ankle up to her pelvis, causing her to sway forwards and throw her palm onto the car to keep herself upright, nausea swelling within her stomach. She had to keep going, though. That was the only thing she really knew, forget how far along the country road that ran adjacent to the campus they were, forget how distant help was. You have to keep going, she told herself silently, face screwed up as she hobbled along the middle of the road, as if the expression could concentrate the pain into that area instead. Unsurprisingly, however, it did not. Each step was even more excruciating than the one that came before it, Gemma unable to explain the relief that surged through every crevice of her body as she saw headlights in the distance.

You're safe, she told herself, you're safe!

Until she realised that the car was a lot closer than she thought. And they still didn't show any signs of stopping.

The metallic beast threw her body several feet into the air, where she seemed to remain for a few seconds too long, life giving her a last chance to feel the loss, and the betrayal, and the loss, and the betrayal, each emotion rolling into the other, as they always do. All of it, it was burning a hole into the pit of her stomach, creating a charred skin peephole through to her guts, which too began to sour and blacken like burnt milk. She would've cried, if she'd had the time; it was the only way of forcing the pain out, too agonising to hold in, like when you scream uncontrollably as the rollercoaster launches, your body unable to contain the adrenaline. But soon enough, she felt nothing at all, her body bursting upon hitting the ground, just like a water balloon, her consciousness seeping out of her remains and flooding onto the concrete beneath her slack form. Had she had to bare the loss for any longer, maybe she would've finally understood why Clara used to drink so much: to anaesthetise herself.

Because how else could one go on living like that, feeling the pain so raw?

Months before everything had gone down, the second that preceded her getting hit would've been enough to render the resentment for having survived everything that had happened to her unremitting, enough to make her wish that the moment she hit the tarmac was her very last.

That, however, was exactly not the case. She was just hoping for a different kind of existence.

Look how strong she had become. Would continue to become.

Cleo would be so proud.