The Dating Department

21. Broken Bones and Bruising

“Riley! Hurry! It’s Amber!” Danny panted, doubling over and putter her hands on her knees as she gasped for breath.

I snapped back and stared at her, “What happened?”

“She’s been in a car accident!”

Hearing those words, Levi immediately stood from his kneeling position in the mulch and grabbed my hand, “Come on, we need to go,”

I stumbled along beside him, my left hand held tight in his, my right clutching my skirt at my knees so that I wouldn’t trip. We reached the parking lot to find Aiden was already there, lips set into a grim line, and his car keys in his hands.

We all climbed in and Aiden started the engine,  pulled out of the parking lot and began speeding away towards the hospital.

I sat in the front seat next to Aiden, unbuckled, and hugging my knees to my chest. Was Amber alright? What had happened? Why had she even left her own party?

All those questions swirled around in my mind as we raced along the empty night road, probably paying no heed to the speed limit.

“Are we almost there? Are we almost there?” I mumbled over and over again, rocking back and forth on my tailbone, feeling like I was going to shatter at any moment.

“Shh… it’s alright, Riley,” Levi murmured in my ear, moving forward so that his lips were nearly touching my ear. “We’re going as fast as we can, right?” He turned for a moment to look at Aiden whose hands were white as the clutched tightly to the steering-wheel.

Aiden glanced at us briefly, and something flashed across his face so quickly that I had barely time enough to identify it: jealousy. Before I could comment on it he quickly wiped his features clean of any emotion and replied, “We’re going ten miles over the speed limit; and we’re about two minutes away.”

Stiffly unwrapping my arms from around my legs, I pressed my feet against the carpeted floor of the car, as if the extra pressure against the body would make it go faster.

The two remaining minutes spent in the car felt like eternities. Everyone was silent, the only sound the constant hum of the car. The dark road stretching in front of us seemed like it was never-ending. White-stripe after stripe flew under the car at speeds that made me nervous.

Finally, Aiden slowed the car and pulled into the hospital parking lot, swung into the closest parking space, and unlocked the doors, “Let’s go.”

Everyone clambered out of the vehicle and ran through the hospital’s sliding glass doors into the sterile white interior. The nurse at the reception desk looked us up down, clearly surprised by our formal dress as we hurried to her station.

“Is Amber Harris here?” I asked breathlessly, twisting little folds of my dress between my hands.

The nurse checked her files, and ran through names, “Yes, she is, she’s in room 121, are you family?”