The Endless Highway, Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Brett heard sirens coming closer and closer to the horrific scene. Peering through the cracks of the car, he noticed some lights flashing nearby, and watched as two firetrucks and four ambulances pulled into the scene, quickly followed by a couple police cars. Other people were pulled over on the side, simply watching, while others were taking pictures and texting their friends. Quite a few were on their knees, praying that God would show mercy to those involved in the crash. Brett slumped his head down on his chest, utterly exhausted. He just wasn’t ready to fully comprehend what had just happened.
Some voices seemed to be approaching the car, and he sat up slowly, the pain in his shoulder growing. A police officer swung open the door to the passenger side, leaning over to feel for a pulse on his mother’s neck, and then the his father’s, and hollered that ‘Two adults: one male, the other female,’ were dead. His parents were dead… Brett pounded his fist on the window beside him angrily. They couldn’t be dead! The officer must have made a mistake, he must have! Brett slammed his fist against the window again, and felt some glass cut his tender palm. He cried out, and the other officer flung Brett’s door open with urgency.
“Sir! Sir, we found someone alive! Over!” The mysterious man reported to his walkie-talkie, then stretched out his arm to help Brett up. “Can you stand?” he inquired.
Brett nodded, and crawled out of the car. The officer helped him over to a paramedic, talking occasionally into his walkie and dodging the piles of debris strewn around. The paramedic then led him to an ambulance, loading him into the back and onto one of those generic blue beds in the back, pulling Brett’s shirt off so she could get a better view of his shoulder. Just as the other paramedics were going to close the doors to the back of the vehicle, he thought he saw a red-headed girl being carried to the other ambulance beside him.
***
Willow woke up inside a white room, completely disoriented. What had happened? Why was she in this room? So many unanswered questions flew through her already confused mind.
She slowly came to her senses, and realized she was in a hospital. That must have been where they took her after she passed out. Did she actually pass out? One moment, chaos at the crash scene had surrounded her, and now, chaos at a hospital surrounded her. Had anything really changed?
People rushed back and forth at the foot of her bed, making tons of noise that sounded too loud in her sensitive ears. She waved her hand at a passing nurse and she came rushing over.
“Yes?” The nurse set a hand on Willow’s shoulder and bent over to her height.
“Why am I here? I’m not injured. Where’s my mom? What’s happening?” Suddenly, everything came rushing back to her, and she clutched her head and moaned lowly, bowing over in a protective stance, her elbows on her knees in pain. “Gah....”
“Are you alright?” The nurse rubbed her back softly, eyes scanning her body to see what was wrong.
“Y-yeah…” Willow murmured, pulling herself together. Her mother was going to be okay, right? She couldn’t be that hurt, and she most certainly could not die! Willow needed her. She wasn’t even an adult yet; heck, she didn’t even have her driver’s license! She still needed a mother… she still needed someone to take care of her, someone to tuck her in at night, someone to give her a kiss before she went to school. She had already lost her father; did her mother really need to go, too?
“You know, you’ve been in a terrible, terrible accident. Is there anybody we can call to come pick you up?” the nurse questioned.
That’s when Willow stopped. She just seemed to stop. All emotions were flooded from her body, everything she should have been feeling she refused to let herself feel. She became numb.
She had nobody. Her father was gone. She had no way of contacting him, so he was off the list. Her mother was somewhere in the hospital, either being healed or dead. Both of her parents were single children, so she had no aunts or uncles, and she was an only child, too, so she didn’t even have a sibling she could live with, either.
The only one left was her grandmother.
“Could you call my Grandma Juliet? I can give you her number.”
The nurse nodded, “Of course. You know, if you hadn’t been in the back seat during the accident, you’d probably be dead, too.”
Willow blinked in surprise. If they hadn’t brought Ruby along… she would be dead and Ruby would be alive. Ruby had basically saved her life.
Willow nodded tiredly, rubbing at the tight bandage around her forehead, wondering what it was doing there, then quickly wrote down her grandmother’s phone number with the pen and paper the nurse provided. Then, the nurse helped her stand, and handed the number to another nurse, saying that Willow would be able to contact her grandmother later. Then the kind nurse, whose name was apparently Suzie, led her to the waiting room, one slow step after another. While they walked, she wondered about the blond haired boy she had seen while being carried to the ambulance, before she passed out from the intense pain she had felt throbbing in her head. Who was he? Would she ever meet him? Had he seen her? Was he the one driving? Was he even alive? He probably wasn’t. What if she was the only one who had survived? How horrible would that be? She sighed and shook her head. It was too early to be worrying about this kind of stuff already.
When they arrived at the door, Willow pushed it open and stumbled through, tripping over her own feet as she tried to awaken from the daze of her thoughts.
She scanned the room silently, the bright lights bouncing off the plastic red seats settled around the room, hurting her eyes and making her squint.
Then she caught the eye of a young man across the room. He had startlingly blue eyes and wavy blond hair. Suddenly, her own eyes widened in uncovered astonishment.
It was him.
***
Brett turned around at the sound of a door opening behind him. He still wanted more time to figure out what had happened at the crash site. It all seemed like such a blur! He was tired, he was angry, and he was confused… basically overwhelmed with a truckload of emotions that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
Then the door had opened, so he turned to see who it was, wondering if perhaps the doctor had come with news of his parents, that they weren’t really dead.
Instead of a doctor, he locked eyes with the red haired girl from before. The one with hazel eyes and freckles. The one who had entered the ambulance beside him and he had assumed was dead. How could she even be alive? He rubbed his bandaged shoulder thoughtfully, then jolted in surprise as he actually realized who she was; as he realized the situation unraveling before his own eyes.
It was her.
This girl… and her family... had killed his mom and dad.
