Girls Chase Girls | #1 [COMPLETE]

chapter 1 (new)

NOTE: For those who prefer to read a story in shorter installments, the next 13 chapters will feature the original story with some limited bonus content. The original will remain largely unchanged. I hope you enjoy it. -Idris

+_+

Xia

They began with a head-on collision.

Horns blared, the world spun on its axis like it might wobble off its orbit and spin free into the great unknown. Metal crashed, crunched. Glass shattered in tinkling musical notes timed to the melody of her gasping as splinters cut her face. She swallowed an airbag. Felt her second right molar crack. Had her skull slammed against the headrest with such force it thunked up a notch.

Click.

Click.

Finally, finally, the earth stopped moving.

Hazard lights flashed.

Xia tasted blood and nylon.

Something burned like gas.

The rear of her car exploded, and Xia began to scream.

---

Xia woke up to an oxygen mask over her face and a steady beeping beside her head.

Her parents stood at the end of her bed, both in tears, and praying. She couldn't figure out which language they were crying in; it all sounded like ringing in her ears.

"Mama..." God, her jaw throbbed when she tried to speak. The inside of her mouth was hot and dry. Her breath tasted of smoke and unleaded gasoline, a trace of coppery blood trapped under her slack tongue.

Drugs, the good kind, had knocked her for a loop and left her eyes crossing when she tried to catch her parents' eyes. They didn't need to cry for her, she was all right; couldn't they see?

It was forty-eight hours before she could speak clearly enough to be understood. Her left wrist was sprained, so writing was out of the question. Probably for that best considering who walked into the room once each day.

Phaedra Barlowe had lumbered into the general ward of Morrissette County Hospital reeking of halomethane ten hours after Xia was admitted. Soot was smeared on her brown cheeks and her infamous leather jacket hung off her shoulders in soaked panels like she'd gotten caught in the blast radius of a pressure hose. Maybe she did, Xia thought. Her dad had told her who pulled her out of the car. Her memory after the collision was a terrifying blank.

"Hey, kid. You okay?"

"I—" Xia hissed and reached for her dose pump. She knew better than to talk, but it was instinct to answer when somebody called. They said she'd be fine once the initial trauma had passed. Bruised, black and blue, but fine. She didn't feel fine.

The sodden greaser girl winced. "Sorry. I didn't know how bad it was. You want I should call the doctor for you? Maybe your mom. I saw her outside."

Xia held up her call button, trying to smile as much as her jaw allowed. Even her teeth were giving her twinges.

Phaedra bit her lip, shifting in her squelching boots. "You got real lucky, girl. If you hadn't got out of there..."

Xia lifted her chin a bit. She'd be as lost for a response with her jaw in working order. She knew she was lucky, that this could be worse—that it could have been her in a morgue instead of an uncomfortable bed with scratchy sheets. She was aware, she was just also in more pain than she'd ever been in.

"Can I bring you anything? I could get your homework for you; I think we have mostly the same classes, and if you don't, I could find out."

Wetting her lips, Xia managed to mouth the word please. She didn't really want to deal with schoolwork yet, but she couldn't muster up the energy for anything else, like thanks so much you saved me or why? So she pulled her swollen lips in her mother's best approximation of a polite grin and let Phaedra go.

And go she did like a woman on a mission. You wouldn't know she'd been caught in a car fire by the way she walked. You'd swear she owned this hospital.

That was how she walked back in two hours later, too. The redressed Wild Girl came bearing peonies in a vase and bright orange smoothies in a carrier. She plopped into the hard chair pulled close to Xia's bedside. Her parents had been and gone. They'd returned home to secure the house, having left as soon as they heard about her wreck. She didn't know when they'd be returning. Morning, she figured.

Phaedra presented her with the flowers.

"A bunch of peonies and citrus fruit smoothies for healing."

Smiling was slightly less agonizing this time. She was getting used to it. I bet she Googled that.

Phaedra's smile was a mockery of innocence. "I might have Googled it. I'm not admitting anything. We just don't know."

Xia found it didn't hurt as much to laugh as she thought it would. Her neck, her chest, her ribs all twanged, but her face was by far the most tender part of her. Her hero didn't seem to mind much that she kept her giggles small and coughed down the largest of them. All she seemed to want was to see Xia laugh instead of wince. Phaedra made it easy.