Explanations and Years Gone By //tc 5

Nicole

"NICOLE!" Kyle screamed. "TYLER!"

"WHAT?" I screamed back, but twice as loud as Kyle. I like one-upping him.

"Stop screaming at me and get your butt down here!" Kyle yelled.

"You screamed first!" I reminded him, but decided to drop the topic and do what he asked me to.

"Shut up and hurry!" he demanded.

---

Tyler had apparently decided to go MIA today because he was nowhere to be found when I arrived downstairs. Kyle seemed annoyed by this.

"Where's Tyler?" he asked. I noticed he was tapping his foot impatiently.

"How would I know?" I retorted.

"Whatever," he responded. "Whatever."

"Why am I here?" I questioned.

"There was an accident," Kyle started, and I suddenly sensed his mood change. He was no longer annoyed. He seemed to tense up.

"What did you break this time?" I joked, and allowed myself to laugh a little. I stopped when I noticed Kyle wasn't laughing.

"This is serious, Nicole!" he shouted. I shrunk back. This was not a good time to talk back. I didn't say another word.

"I didn't break anything," he insisted, "Hannah got into an accident."

"What?" I was in shock. So much for not talking.

"Adam called. He didn't give away a lot of the details, but he told me the ski lift had some sort of malfunction and she fell," Kyle informed me.

"Oh..." I didn't know how to finish my sentence.

"So... yeah. That's it," Kyle muttered. "Yeah."

"Kyle, I-"

"You don't need to say it," Kyle interrupted. "You're just going to tell me everything I'm already thinking."

Not wanting to leave Kyle alone in such an upsetting situation, but not knowing how to comfort him, I let out a frustrated sigh. I didn't understand how this accident could have happened, and I didn't know how to handle it myself.

So much just didn't make sense.

On the one hand I was worried and silently praying that Hannah would be okay, whatever had happened. On the other hand, I was simply in shock that another accident had happened. I mean, for real, this chick is a part of the family for, what, four years? And she's had roughly three concussions, two diseases, a broken bone, a lost limb, a car accident, survived a tsunami, and a ski lift accident. Like, come on. What is this? A cliché fanfiction series written by a bored teenager? No. So I'm really starting to wonder what her problem is. Life is really not in her favor. Someone needs to serve her up a heaping bowl of luck, and fast.

Like I said, I'm worried, like, seriously worried for Hannah. Who knows what falling from a ski lift could do to you.

I wondered how Adam and Alesa were dealing with this news. I wondered if they had seen it happen. Were they sitting in their cozy log cabin, relaxing by the fire with a warm blanket, when suddenly a skiier raced in and told them "Oh no, your daughter totally just fell thirty plus feet to her almost inevitable doom?"

Or were they riding along beside her? Behind her? In front of her? Were they already riding down the mountain? Were they waiting for her at the top?

I can't imagine what it would feel like to be in that position. To have someone you're that close with just have one thing after another coming for her.

If it were me, and Kyle was the one who was rushed to the hospital after a ski lift malfunction, I don't know what I would do with myself. Probably cry. A lot.

Sure, Hannah is like a sister to me. I will probably be crying later today looking back on the whole situation, but with Kyle, it would be different. It would be a hit closer to home, you know?

I don't know why I'm even bothering to mention all of this. Not like it matters. What does matter is that Hannah's okay. She better be, at least. I don't know what I would do without her. Without any of the people in my life, really. We're all like a big family, whether we're actually related or not. That's why it bothers me to imagine what Adam is feeling. He's the one who adopted Hannah (though now that I think about it, that's weird. He's only like, six years older than her? Do twenty-some-year-old adults really just go around adopting teens? Is that a real thing?), so he must be really hurt by everything that's happening.

I hope he's okay.