A[U]CTOR

On the road.

"What have I done?!?"

She looked to her right and saw that her brother bleeding, and unconscious.

"Luke. Luke wake up! TALK TO ME!"
She picked up the phone to call an ambulance.

"We need help! We crashed on the highway! My brother is not responding! Send help!"

"We need your current location."

"It's highway C-1812."

"Help is on the way." The ambulance hung up.

"Luke. Hold on! Don't die on me."

She unbuckled her seat belt and shifted her body weight to the right, stretching her right arm to unbuckle Luke's seat belt. The only thing on her mind right now was getting her brother out of the car.

"Dammit!" The door wouldn't open.

There had to be something that could help her break the windshield. She opened the glove compartment.

"Shit!"

Nothing that would help her get out. Only a wallet, a charger, bubblegum, and a rusty screwdriver. She pulled out the car keys and held them, exposing the sharp edge of the keys between her fingers like a flimsy brass knuckle and leaned in to punch the windshield.

"Aaaaahhh!" Not only that it didn't work, it put pressure on her palm. After four tries it was deemed useless.

"Don't die on me, Luke."

She used the rusty screwdriver to stab the windshield, to her surprise, it worked. She finally broke the windshield.

She slung Luke's arm around her neck and lifted him out of the car.

Slowly and steady, she laid his torso on the front of the car and laid his head down gently, removing the shards out of the way.

When she lifted his legs, the siren was heard. The red and blue lights whirring, she rolled herself out of the car and staggered.

The paramedics got off to the back of the ambulance and pulled out the stretcher. She squinted when she saw a familiar shape.

"R-ralph?"

Her body collapsed. The paramedics pulled out another stretcher.

First they brought Luke on the stretcher, and then his sister on another one.

"Whoa, Nelly." Ralph identified her former college friend.

"You know her?" His coworker asked.

"Yeah, we used to talk during lunch. After she dropped out, I haven't heard from her since."

The paramedics got them on the ambulance. Ralph and his coworker sat on opposite sides.

When she woke up she was on the hospital bed. She shut her eyes, wrinkling her eyelids.

"Damn!"

She got out of the hospital bed and got out of the room looking for her brother.

Nelly was at the hall, wearing a sky blue patient scrub. She saw the waiting room and the reception from were she was standing. Her mother was sitting there, waiting for answers. Nelly's instincts told her to scram. So she asked the nurse that pushed the cart about her brother, giving his name and such.

"Sorry, miss. I only serve the food. You should ask the doctor." Then she hummed as the lady pushed the cart.

"Dammit." She muttered under her breath.

She turned around and saw a man wearing a lab coat.

A doctor.

She ran up to him.

"Excuse me, sir. Doctor." He turned around.

"Yes?" The doctor inquired, a man in his fifties. Gray hair, ID card. Perfect.

"Doctor, is my brother alright? His name is Luke Sanchez." Nelly told him.

"Yes. He is stable, though he suffered a mild concussion." The doctor responded matter-of-fact.

"Where is he?"

"He is in room 160."

Nelly sprinted to look for the room while the doctor went to inform their mother.

"156... 158... Aha!"

She entered the room. When she opened the door, she saw Luke on the bed with his eyes closed with sutures on the left side of his forehead, reaching from the crown to above the bridge of his eyebrow.

"What have I done? I should have paid attention to the damn road. It's all my fault." She cried, remembering the argument they had before the crash.

*

"Be careful with that truck."
"I already saw it. I have my foot on the brake."
"Ok, now you can pass it."
"It's me who's driving. I don't need instructions."
"I was trying to help you... I'll shut up now."
"I'm not telling you to shut up, just talk to me about anything else. Let me do the driving."
"I won't say another word."
"Again with that? Does everything have to be black or white with you?!"
"Calm down. I won't tell you how to drive, but stop looking at me and keep your eyes on the road."
"I am paying attention to the road, but you..."
"Watch out!"

The next thing she remembered was that she swiveled too far from the road.

She stepped on the brake, but it was too late.

They crashed against a tree. The front of the car was crushed five centimeters in. The front lights were cracked open. Luke used his arms to shield his face, but he hit his head against the windshield, a shard went flying and cut the left side of his forehead like a razor blade, bleeding. Nelly hit her forehead and the bridge of her nose against the steering wheel. She heard the loud honk pound against her eardrums.

The rest was a blur.

*

Now, there was nothing she could do.
"I'm sorry bro." She held her brother's hand. His arms also sutured from the crash. She wiped away her tears when she heard a click from the door before their mother entered the room.

A hispanic woman with tan skin, long wavy dark hair with some gray strands. Her beady eyes, with small traces of crow's feet. Their mother appeared to be in her mid 50s.

She looked at them, but Nelly didn't have the courage to look at her mother straight in the eyes. If her mother was gonna scold her, she didn't want to hear it. But instead, Nelly felt a hand swooping down on her left cheek.

"Thank God you both survived. I almost had a heart attack. If Ralph hadn't called me, I wouldn't have known what happened to the two of you."

So it was Ralph that brought them to the hospital. She was too focused on finding her brother and avoiding her mother to notice.

"He also told me that you pulled your brother out of the car by yourself."

Luke was the only thing she cared about in that moment. She fought to break the windshield in order to get him out, his life was the only thing at stake. Without room for air he would have died.

Luke's eyelids fluttered.
They heard him groan.

"Luke!" Nelly hugged him. His eyes were wide opened for being hugged by surprised.

"Mom? What am I doing at the hospital?" He looked at his injuries. "Oh, right, the crash. Can I get something to eat? I'm starving."