Free Fall

Chapter Three

~Erick~

I've seen a lot of bad things before. Life is full of them.

But I don't think I'll ever see anything worse than when I saw Kendall. She was almost in a full body cast, an oxygen mask over her mouth and almost every inch of her exposed body was covered in stitches. Her skin was a meaty red color, and bruises covered almost every square inch of her. The steady beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound when I first walked into that room.

Karen refilled her morphine bag regularly. She checked her heart rate regularly. She made sure was getting enough fluids. Then she left.

I stayed.

I don't know why I stayed. I would walk over to the chair in the corner and watch her, all bruised and stitched up and broken, sleep peacefully. I waited for a family member or a friend to come in and shoo me away, but no one ever came. Eight days passed, and she hadn't woken up and no one showed up to even check on her. A steady stream of gifts came in though, and that warmed my heart. Until I went to school and not one person was concerned for Kendall's health; Charlotte was the main concern. We had pep rally's and fundraisers all week, with T-shirts that said "Pray for Charlotte" but not one thing for Kendall Burgess.

The afternoon of the ninth day, the day after Kendall finally 'woke up', I was eating lunch in the break room when I looked up and saw Karen walking in. "Kendall is still non responsive."

I watched as she knelt down to get some kind of pasta in a plastic bowl and plop it on the counter. "Non responsive? As in . . .?"

She started the microwave before turning to look at me. "She won't respond to any questions asked to her. She can flex her fingers and arms on her own, but still seems confused."

"You don't think she will have memory loss, do you?"

Karen sighed. "There's no way to tell. Comatose can cause short term and long term memory loss, and Kendall has had both severe brain and spinal trauma."

I stood and tossed my trash, walking out of the room and down the hall to Kendall's room. My uncle was standing over her, holding a finger over her eyes. He looked over at me as I softly closed the door.

He looked back at Kendall, holding a flashlight at her eyes. "She's following my finger, which is a good sign. Her retina and cones still look in good shape, so I believe her eyesight will not be affected."

I walked over to his side, looking at Kendall's stitched and bruised face, her dull blue eyes severely dilated and following Uncle Mario's finger lazily. She still had a nasal cannula in, and her heart rate sounded un-regular. But when my uncle shut off the flashlight and walked over to the counter to scribble something down, her eyes slid slowly over to me, looking me right in the eye.

I seemed lost as I stared in her milky blue eyes. I could hear the noisy sound of the oxygen tank and heart monitor, but it seemed very far away. All I could see was Kendall and all the beauty just those foggy blue eyes held.

*******

The next day at school, something actually caught my attention.

"So most of you have heard of Charlotte Royce and Kendall Burgess by now."

I looked up from doodling on my notebook in Honors Health at Mr. Boswell. The short fat man heaved himself out of his chair and waddled over to the podium in front of the class. Everyone's noisy chatter had died down to a hushed whisper as they waited for what the teacher had to say.

He cleared his throat and looked over at Josh Harding, who sat by the door, and nodded at the lights. Once Josh turned them off, Mr. Boswell used a small remote to turn on the projector.

"Drinking and What It Does" was in bold letters.

"Now, for those of you who haven't heard the story yet, Ms. Royce and Ms. Burgess attended a party on a Friday night. Ms. Royce was extremely intoxicated, and Ms. Burgess was not. Charlotte got in the car to drive home, and Kendall got in the passenger seat." He said the last part slowly, his eyes flicking around the room. A few whispers broke out as he continued. "Charlotte stopped in the middle of the busiest intersection in town, for a reason no one knows, and a semi truck hit the vehicle. Ms. Royce is deceased and Ms. Burgess is in critical condition."

The room was dead silent. I looked down at my notebook, bending the corner of one of the papers and clenching my jaw.

Mr. Boswell continued. "Now. This is the vehicle after."

I looked up at the cries and gasps of the students. My breath seemed to get caught in my throat as I looked at the picture of scrap metal. It didn't even look like a car. It was upside down and nearly squashed flat; all four tires were off and the shattered glass from the windows littered the pavement. He quickly changed the slide to that off the human body with arrows to what alcohol affects, but I didn't listen to any of the lesson.

The picture of that car will haunt me for a very long time.