Cinders

~48~ All For Nothing

We get in Taylor's car, and he's absolutely furious. I can tell he's trying to calm himself down, but he isn't having much luck.

The silence is making me more uneasy by each passing mile, and I really want to ask him where we're going, but I don't. He stops his car abruptly after some of the longest minutes of my life, and we just sit there.

I look around and see a tow-truck worker cleaning glass off of the highway. Taylor just watches him for a couple minutes, his leg bouncing in obvious anger. Once he has himself under control, he starts speaking.

"Any idea where we are?"

"No." Dang my voice is shaking bad...

"This is the scene we were at a couple of hours ago."

He finally looks at me, and then back at the mess.

"You see that blood over there? That huge spot? That's where our victim was bleeding out. His carotid artery got sliced in the accident."

I really don't wanna hear this—I feel bad enough as it is...

"Megan tried to find your mom a clamp. She wasn't getting the bleeding stopped, and he was going to bleed out. Megan couldn't find the clamp, Liam. Wanna know why?"

Dang...'Worst Human Alive' goes to me...Scum-boy

"I'll tell you why... because you were being a selfish ass," he spits.

"You could see the panic in your mom's eyes as she tried to figure out what to do—She had to improvise. Your mother stuck her fingers in the man's neck, and pinched the artery shut. The kicker was, that she couldn't move once she did that. She had to keep her arm completely still, not moving at all the entire way to the hospital. Greene and I had to ride in back with her, steadying her so she didn't jerk from the force of the moving ambulance and rip the artery out of the guy's neck. None of that would've happened if she had the damn clamp."

"I'm sorry," I say before Taylor holds up his hand.

"Nope. I'm talking—You're listening. I won't say it again."

I feel like crying. I don't think he's ever been so mad at me before. I think this even trumps the time I pushed mom.

"Alright, we have one more stop to make," he sighs as he turns on the car and drives off quickly.

He doesn't say anything until we pull up to the hospital. Once we get there, he looks at me darkly. "Let's go..."

I follow quickly, basically running to keep up with him. We go up several floors in the elevator, and he's completely quiet as we're cramped with a bunch of strangers. When we get to the floor he wants, he goes up to the nurse's station. "Zack Monroe?" He asks quietly.

The nurse looks at her chart and nods "14"

"Thanks," Taylor says as he goes to the correct room.

We're in the ICU, and he stops outside of room 14—The walls are glass, so I can see a younger man, lying unconscious in a bed.

This can't be real life...

"This is the victim—He's 24. He got sideswiped, and lost control of his car. He didn't do anything wrong—He was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Because of you, he almost died. Look at him... He's lying there, on a ventilator. I'm assuming those people crying over there are his parents. You didn't cause the car accident; He would be lying here regardless. However, you almost cost those poor people their son—Your mom saved his life."

Taylor is so upset and mad, his voice is shaking hard.

Tears start pouring down my face. I never meant for someone to actually suffer for what I did. Putting faces to victims makes it all so real. So serious.