Yes Please || c.g. {complete}

All My Fault

35

.Carl.

It all happened in slow motion.

I watched in paralyzed horror as the board suddenly flipped up, sending Layla flying forward onto the pavement. She landed on her stomach and skidded forward.

"Layla!" I cried, sprinting up to her.

She was crying and huffing as she rolled over, and I saw that her right leg was completely raw and bloody. It almost made me throw up.

"Baby, are you okay?" I asked, kneeling down and carefully touching her. Damn it. Why the fuck did I let her do this?

She was crying too hard to answer me, her hands shaking as she reached toward the open wound all down her leg.

I reached into my pocket and called an ambulance. "I'm so sorry," I whispered to her over and over as I sat there cradling her head.

What felt like hours later, a crew of paramedics arrived with a stretcher. Layla cried out as they lifted her onto it.

I wanted to cry watching her in pain. I stood back to let them do their thing, but she reached out for me.

"Carl!" she wailed.

"I'm right here, baby," I replied, stepping forward to hold her hand.

They wheeled her over to the ambulance, and put her in the back.

"I want him," she cried to the EMTs, pointing at me.

"He's coming, honey," the lady told her before looking at me. "Hop in."

I jumped in and sat on Layla's left side as the paramedic tended to her right. The other guy slammed the doors shut and we were off.

"Starting an IV," the lady called to no one on particular. She took Layla's arm and straightened it out. "Alright sweetie I need you to make a fist, and then you're going to feel some pressure."

I held her hand as the needle went in. She closed her eyes and tears fell down her cheeks. "It's okay," I whispered as I rubbed the back of her hand with my thumb, although to be honest I was mostly saying that for my own benefit.

"Starting a saline drip," the lady called out. "Okay, sweetheart, we're going to give you something for the pain, alright?"

Layla nodded, her breathing still erratic as she clenched her teeth.

"Starting five milligrams of morphine," the lady announced as she squeezed a syringe into the IV port.

"That doesn't sound like very much," I said as I watched Layla writhe in pain.

"She's a little thing," the lady said. "If she needs more we'll give her more."

I nodded skeptically, looking back at Layla.

"Sweetheart, I need to ask you some questions, okay?" the lady said to Layla as she began to calm down a little.

Layla nodded weakly, and the lady began to ask her several basic questions about herself: name, age, birthday, et cetera. I kind of zoned out from the shock of the situation until one of the questions snapped me out of it.

"Any chance you might be pregnant?"

I looked at her in a panic. We hadn't used a condom since the first time we had sex. I don't know why I was so worried; I knew she was on the pill. Maybe just hearing someone ask that was what freaked me out.

Layla shook her head. "I'm on the pill," came her hoarse reply.

I sighed in relief as she confirmed what I already knew. I squeezed her hand and tried to act like that last question hadn't freaked the hell out of me. I realized that with how much she and I had sex, I had never really given that possible outcome so much as a thought. It's fine, Carl, I reassured myself. That's what birth control is for.