Her Name is Tilly

1: Maybe

Maybe I shouldn't have been drinking. It was only one beer and it wasn't like I never drove after a beer before. I could walk in a straight line. I probably couldn't say my ABC's backwards, but I couldn't do that sober. I didn't drink during the season. This was everything to me and I was not going to throw it away for a party. I usually wasn't such a lightweight but it was the first time I drank since preseason.

I went up stairs to ask Roman, the second string linebacker and friend, if he knew where the hard liquor was. That's when I caught them. Not him and my girlfriend because she wasn't my girlfriend but all the guys on the team knew she was off limits. They apparently forgot to lock the bathroom door and I was pissed. They froze and Saph jumped up trying to explain while gathering close strewn across the tiles. I bet there was an apology somewhere in there but I didn't care. "You know what," I put my hands up. "You guys have fun." I slammed the door and made my way down stairs. Then I told Cole, the freshman who threw the party, that I was leaving. Nobody blinked an eye when I did because I always did this.

I wouldn't stay long at parties because there was training, practicing, or conditioning I could do that would be far more rewarding than not remembering what happened the next day. Yeah, I was the strict, annoying player. Maybe I had the reputation for 'having no time for fun' or just having no idea what the word even meant, but I knew it would all pay out in the end.

I went outside and shivered in the cold December night. It was a week or two to Christmas and frost was covering the grass and rain sprinkled from the sky. I shook my head and ran my hands through my hair.

This wasn't fair, I thought. I had lo—maybe not loved, but felt deeply for Saph and we had an agreement. No expectations, no labels, but exclusive. She had been the one to bring it up to me. I had only been seeing her but saying we were exclusive made her feel better. Apparently not good enough to avoid sleeping with my teammates but better.

I got in my car turning it on and driving out of the neighborhood. Mansions crowded around me as I started to make my way back to my apartment miles away. As I drove all I kept feeling was my phone vibrate in my pocket. I could have been counting the calls.

One,.. Two,.. Three,.. Four,..

I was at a stoplight when I pulled it out to turn it off, I couldn't focus on anything but that because I knew Saph was calling. Not Roman though, he was a douche. Teammate or not he couldn't give two shits about how I felt. I threw it to the passenger seat after turning it off and saw the light switch to green. I pressed on the gas and I didn't see the truck.

He was running the light.

The impact felt crushing. and the lights swirled around me. I heard glass breaking and felt the car go on it's side. The feeling of asphalt on my my left bicep was the only thing running through my mind. There was blood, but it couldn't have been mine. Where was it coming from? Everything was still spinning and I couldn't hear anything but the sounds of cars that drove around as if we didn't matter.

I heard a strangled cry but it couldn't have been me. What was that? The seatbelt felt like it was choking me and shards of glass sparkles around me. I could taste blood on my tongue and feel it on my forehead. The world blended together from the view of my cracked windshield. My heart was pounding in hysterics.

"Hey, man you're gonna be alright," I saw a guy looking at me twisting his body so our eyes could be looking straight at each other. He was bending at the waist a few feet away from me or my car. "I called 9-1-1 and they're sending an ambulance. Are you okay?" I blinked. Was I?

He took a few steps towards me. Each step crunched the debris of whatever was destroyed. My car? His eyes were suddenly close to mine and he looked horrified. That wasn't how people reacted to seeing me. Sure the guys on the team would roll their eyes but girls would blush.

"Yeah," The man spoke into his phone. "He's breathing but he's not talking. Uh, yeah he's awake. I- I don't know what's wrong." He looked at me distressed. He was younger than me. Maybe sixteen. "Buddy, what's wrong? Can you hear me? Are you deaf?" He motioned to his ear free of a phone frantically.

I shook my head unable to gather my bearings on reality. Before I knew it I heard sirens in the distance. The EMTs
took their time getting me out of my car telling me each of their steps even though I never responded. Even when they asked me direct questions. Important ones, may I add. Like if I could breathe okay. Or if anything hurt.

The only way to describe it was like being at the dentist and on laughing gas. I could feel it but for some reason I couldn't care. I saw the black sky as they dragged me towards the ambulance hoping to see stars but there was always too much light pollution. So I saw the red and blue lights flashing around me and a helicopter flying far away. They placed a breathing mask on me and strapped me in, but I didn't fight it. Something that, had I been thinking clearly, I would have done without conflict.

Because my body wasn't telling me there was pain but, dear God, did everything hurt.