Playing With Fire || d.h

104. Smile

I wake up to the sound of a heart monitor and the smell of hand sanitizer. I open my eyes, and nearly jump when I see three people standing by my bedside. Dan, Phil and Dodie, all look at me, worried looks on their faces.

"H-how long was I out? When did you guys get here?" I ask, my voice cracking as I try my best to get into a sitting position.

"We've only been here around fifteen minutes," Dodie tells me. "We headed here the second Dan got your text."

"You didn't have to do that," I tell them.

"I mean, we kinda did," Phil replies. "You got in a bloody car accident, for God's sake."

"Did anybody else get hurt?" I ask, and as the three of them look at each other, my heart jumps into my throat. That look could only mean one thing.

"Um, the driver who collided with you was drunk driving, and he's currently in a coma. The guy who was driving you died on the scene of the accident."

I begin to sweat, my heart pumping rapidly as a tornado of emotions swirl around in me.

"(Y/n), please calm down, you shouldn't work yourself up," Dodie tells me. "You're okay, and that's all we could ask for."

"Um, what...what happened to me?" I ask, trying to push the negative thoughts out of my head.

"You broke your leg, you have a minor concussion, and small cuts basically all around your upper body from broken glass. The doctor told us it's a miracle it wasn't any worse for you."

"Yeah, you're basically bulletproof," Phil adds, trying to lighten up the mood. I give him a weak smile, before looking at my foot. As I pull the blanket off it, I see my leg's wrapped in a large cast. I won't be walking for awhile.

"When can I leave?" I immediately ask.

"The doctors said whenever you wake up," Dan tells me. "You'll just need to fill out a little bit of paperwork, and you'll be all good to go."

Dan calls a doctor into the room, and they get me papers to sign. I go through them quickly, only reading the title of each page to see exactly what it is I'm signing. I'm done in only a few minutes, and ready to leave this page.

They get me crutches, and Dan helps me out of the bed. We leave the hospital, and get into one of the cabs lined up outside. The entire drive home is filled with silence, and I can't think of a single way to break it.

We reach the apartment, and Dan helps me up the stairs until I reach the hall. We get into the apartment, and I go straight to the lounge.

"Can I get you anything?" Dan asks me.

"Some fucking alcohol," I tell him, and the three of them laugh. I'm glad the seriousness was left in the hospital.

Dan gets me a drink, and I down it in one go. I guess our fight is over, and thank god, because I didn't really want to talk about it. Dan and I both hated confrontation, and I guess that came in handy, sometimes.

Dan helps me change into more comfortable clothes later than night, before the two of us go to bed. In the dark, as I listen to his steady breaths, I stay wide awake. A thousand things bounce around my mind, things I haven't thought about in ages. All the trauma Dan and I had gone through together, yet somehow managed to get over. The fact that I had raging PTSD, yet was somehow able to forget it so easily it's almost scary. The fact that I'm only twenty years old, but was already getting married.

Was I rushing this? Am I even ready to be married? I mean, don't they say people aren't really fully developed until their mid-twenties. I haven't even known Dan for a full year. In five years' time, I could be a totally different person. Even though divorce exists, marriage is still a pretty permanent thing. Do I even know what I'm getting into?