As I walked into the hospital's emergency department, I felt a sense of unease. I wasn't sure if it was the blindingly white tile or the sickeningly sterile smell that lingered in the air. Perhaps it was the vacant stares of the hospital patrons or the eerie silence despite the soft droning of the news on a flat screen mounted to the beige wall.
The dread swirled in the pit of my stomach as I approached the front desk. A receptionist with dark raven hair pulled back into an impeccably tight bun stared at me over dollar store reading glasses. "How can I help you?" She asked in a monotone.
"Uh, yes, my friend was brought in an ambulance, she's hurt bad. Her name is Kristina Wooding." It felt like someone else was talking in my place. The voice leaving my lips didn't sound like my own.
The receptionist typed on her computer, a flurry of clicks erupted from the keyboard. She stared at me for a long moment before gesturing to a door with an intercom on the side. "Room 4."
I practically sprinted to the door, pressing the button and waiting for the nurses' station to pick up. After a moment, the click of a lock signaled that the door was unlocked. Slipping inside, I took in the sight of the hallway before me.
While the emergency room was eerily quiet, this part of the hospital was a wild flurry of activity. Nurses in scrubs every color of the rainbow flitted from room to room. The beeping of monitors made an discordant symphony of beeps and alarms, clashing together at once. In the distance I could hear someone retching.
I ventured cautiously to Room 4 and tentatively knocked on the door, which Matt flung open and pulled me inside. He'd been crying again, I could see the tears streaking through the dust on his face. He'd been at work when I called him, the dirt on his work boots a stark contrast to the overly sterile hospital floor.
He pulled me into a crushing hug and sobbed into my shoulder. I'd never seen him like this and I feared the worst. Looking around the claustrophobic triage room, I noticed the hospital bed was absent and Kris was nowhere to be found. "Matt, how is she? Is she okay?"
He sniffled and wiped his nose unceremoniously on his sleeve. "She-she's torn up pretty bad. She's got a concussion, whiplash, her left leg is broken and her ankle is crushed. They got her stable and rushed her to surgery to fix her leg and her ankle."
I felt my heart sink. I was glad Kris was okay, for the most part, but I knew a reconstructed ankle would likely cause her pain or the rest of her life. Still, it was better then death. I sunk down into a chair and leaned my head against the wall. Now that the initial adrenaline of Kris' accident had began draining away, a wave of self loathing crashed into me.
I couldn't shake the feeling that this was my fault. If Kris hadn't been coming to get me, if she had made that turn just one millisecond later...
Miserable thoughts swirled in my mind, tears welling up in my eyes and slipping down my face. I curled up in the chair and put my head on my knees. I didn't know what to do. My best friend, the person whom had stood by me through thick and thin was now laying broken and battered in a hospital bed because she was trying to look out for me.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and could hear Matt's watery reassurance. "She's gonna be okay, Luna."
I didn't reply, fearing that in my anguish I would lash out at the eldest Wooding boy. Instead, I let my mind wander. I felt foolish for being so caught up about Taylor this morning. Maybe if Kris wasn't so tired from working all the time to support me, she would have seen the truck coming.
The uncertainty and self hatred crashed in my mind, making me more and more upset. I knew, realistically, that these things happen and there was nothing I could have done to stop it. The anxious clamoring of my brain, the insidious little whispers of self doubt tried to persuade me otherwise.
I felt my phone vibrate in my back pocket and I shifted to retrieve it. Looking at my notifications, I saw a text from Dr. Morgan. The number was unfamiliar and I assumed it had to be her personal cell phone.
"How is she? Are you okay?"
I deliberated lying to her, telling her that everything was fine, but at the last moment I changed my mind.
"No, I'm really not okay, I can't keep myself from thinking this is all my fault." As I typed, new tears sprung to the corners of my eyes and slid down my cheeks, dripping onto the screen of my smartphone.
"Guilt is a natural part of life, Luna. It's natural for you to want to feel responsible because sometimes our brains prefer feeling guilty to feeling helpless. It gives us a sense of control over the bad things in life. It's important for you to understand that it's okay for you to feel your emotions and be upset. But, don't be so caught up in being upset that you assign blame to yourself when you haven't done anything wrong."
I was very thankful for her reassuring words. The feeling of self loathing was at a more manageable level now. Pausing for a moment to think of my reply, nothing came to mind, so I just stared blankly at my text messages.
Nothing from Taylor, still.
A sigh escaped my lips as my head thudded into the wall.
---
It was hours later before Kris was out of surgery. The last streaks of light were fading from the sky by the time we were told her hospital room. I stared out the massive window at the cars mulling around on the city streets before us, curling up on the uncomfortable couch. Dylan had joined us shortly after he got out of school, one of his friends volunteered to bring him by the hospital.
Initially, the youngest Wooding was enraged that he'd been the last one told about the accident, but once Matt had explained his reasoning, Dylan resigned himself to sulking in the chair beside me.
The imposing door of the hospital room swung open and we were greeted by the sight of a groggy Kris holding a bedpan close to her chest. She was paler then usual, her ginger curls hung limply around her shoulders, wet with sweat. She had been cleaned up since the last time I'd seen her, her sweater and jeans replaced with a papery pale green hospital gown. A large bandage adorned her forehead and a massive white cast enveloped her leg from her foot to her knee.
As she entered, nurses swarmed into the room, bringing in countless bags of questionable fluids with names I couldn't pronounce. They hooked Kris up to multiple monitors, making occasional beeps and clicks, nurses checking and double checking IVs. One middle-aged lady in brightly colored pink scrubs approached the wall wrote Kris' name and the name of what I assumed was her doctor on a whiteboard.
She turned to me and Matt and smiled, her exhausted eyes landing on me. "My name is Joy, I'll be Kris' nurse for the next few hours. How are you doing tonight?"
The snarky reply looming in the back of my mind had threatened to burst from my lips, instead, I tried to keep up the meaningless small talk, offering her a halfhearted smile. "I've been better, but I'm thankful she's alive."
The older woman nodded pensively, a jaded sadness behind her eyes. The appreciation badge holding her hospital identification hinted that she'd been with the hospital for 20 years. I wondered briefly what atrocities she'd seen in this place over two decades. "She's banged up, but she's a fighter. The surgery went good, however she has a severe concussion and some whiplash, we'll need to keep her here for a few days to keep an eye on her."
My heart sank. Kris didn't like hospitals at the best of times, no doubt she'd be fighting to go home in a matter of hours. I couldn't see her pale form for all the nurses congregated around her bed, running various vital checks. If Kris was feeling like her normal self she would have already shooed them away, but the combination of concussion, whiplash and anesthetics had wooed her into a sense of complacency.
Shifting on her worn-out sneakers, the nurse continued. "Visiting hours will close at nine. Unfortunately, we can only allow one companion to stay overnight." She regarded us with a sense of unease, clearly these words didn't tend to go over well with worried family members.
I saw the wounded look radiating from Dylan's face which surely mirrored my own. We both knew that Matt would insist on staying, forcing Dylan and myself to go back home. Whilst I understood why Matt wanted to be by her side, I couldn't help the disappointment settling in my chest.
It was another reminder that I was not a Wooding, not a sibling. Shoving the thought down, I nodded to the nurse, who sensed this was her time to return to her duties. As she walked away, the chaos happening around Kris' beside subsided.
Glancing away, I was met with the somber face of Matt.
"Luna, y'all should go home and get some rest. I'm trusting you to get Dylan on the bus tomorrow and make sure he gets home okay." He spoke to me as if Dylan wasn't sitting between us, which clearly annoyed the youngest Wooding boy. It was rather ironic that I was put in charge of the younger redhead, as I was a head shorter then him with half the strength. I was lucky that the teenager was usually pretty easy going.
Dylan considered protesting, judging by the frown marring his usually playful features. After a moment, the crease in his brow relaxed and he started to gather his things. I stood, grabbing my bag and tossing it over my shoulder. I glanced at Kris and approached the end of her hospital bed, patting her good leg. Her eyelids cracked open and she gave me a weak smile.
"I'm headed home, Kris. I love you." My voice cracked, despite my attempts to sound nonchalant. The slightest move of her head confirmed that she'd heard me, but was still very out of it from all the pain meds.
Dylan and I said our goodbyes to Matt and made our way to the lobby of the hospital and out into the parking garage. Climbing into Matt's pale blue Chevy, I glanced at Dylan out of the corner of my eye as I clicked my seatbelt into place.
"I'm going to have to start working soon." His mouth was set in a hard line, and I was taken aback how much he looked like Kris in that moment.
I gave him a sympathetic smile. "I know. That's not gonna go over well."
He turned away from me to stare out the window, a hand cradling his chin. "Yeah, well.. they can't treat me like a kid forever. It'll be months before Kris can go back to work and we need the money in the meantime."
He was right. As much as I wished we could handle things between me and Matt, Kris' income supported most of the electric and food bills. I'd been able to help some, but my minimum wage job by itself couldn't compensate for Kris' overtime at the grocery store.
As I drove out of the parking garage, bitterness took hold of my heart. It wasn't fair, at his age, Dylan should be chasing after girls and video games, not picking up a job. Whilst I had a rather difficult upbringing, at least I had been able to focus on my studies. I was nearly nineteen before I had to get my first job.
I darted my eyes over to Dylan as we stopped for a red light.
The younger boy was rapidly turning from an awkward kid into a young man. The acne that had so troubled him as a preteen was clearing, and I could see the hints of a patchy ginger goatee that had been meticulously groomed. I remembered when he was an annoying 6 year old clamoring for our attention, poofy red hair and big brown eyes, glasses that were comically large for his face. For years he'd had ears like satellite dishes... when had he grown into them?
I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, we were all getting older. My eyes wandered to the rearview mirror and I took a long look at myself. I looked haggard from the events of the day, but overall I was looking healthier.
Turning to look at the road ahead, I wondered what the next few weeks would hold for our little makeshift family.
