The Wedding Issue

Chapter Twenty - Red and Blue

Every cell in my body was burning with anguish, raging with despair and drowning in helplessness. I wasn't sure if time stood still or if the pain in my chest just wouldn't budge. My lungs refused to expand and the air around me felt stagnant. I didn't know if my heart stopped beating altogether or was it beating too fast for my understanding. Was the woman who disturbed my sleep really lying on the cold, damp asphalt broken and bleeding to death? Was she really lying there lifeless, unwilling to join the land of the living? Or was I too drunk and overestimated the intensity of the situation?

Somehow I found myself on my knees next to her, asking... no begging her to open her eyes. All I wanted was for her to say that this was nothing but a nightmare, and that she was fine. There's nothing wrong with her. She was going to get up and brush herself off and walk to the car and go home and I'll be seeing her soon at work. We would be looking at this moment as a faint, distant memory that almost never happened. All will be right with the world and we would find a way back into each other's lives.

She didn't open her eyes.

She laid lifeless on the ground.

There was blood running down her forehead.

She wasn't fine at all.

That's when I started screaming for help. I screamed until my lungs failed me.

Her driver came running towards us, panic and fear consumed his eyes. He was on the phone, telling the police operator about our location.

'Is she breathing?', he asked as he knelt next to me.

I didn't know how to respond. He ignored my cluelessness and checked for a pulse. I figured from his frustrated sigh that he was struggling to find one.

The reality of what happened just hit me as the sounds of the city came back to life. It was then that I noticed the car that hit her. It was a navy blue sedan with one of its headlights busted. The person who was driving the car didn't even bother to get out to check on what they had just caused.

The pain that was blocked in my chest was suddenly replaced by anger. Ragingly vibrating anger. Red, hot blazing rage that was volcanic enough for murder. I found the will to get on my feet to approach the bastard who did this. I pulled the door handle with such force that it was a miracle the door didn't completely come off.

There was a scared little boy, no older than seventeen, staring at me with horror in his eyes, and tears running down his pale cheeks. He clutched the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles went white. His hair was drenching in sweat and it dripped all over his Iron Man t-shirt.

I had half the mind to yank him by the collar and beat the living cells out of him. It didn't matter to me that he was scared out of his wits.

'She came out of nowhere', his whisper shattered through my anger.

I did nothing but stare at him; the kid who might as well have murdered the woman I had fallen in love with. Yes, I have fallen in love with her since the day I laid eyes on her, and was too much of a coward to say it. And there's a pretty good chance that it was a little too late to change anything about it.

Red and blue lights pierced through the dark night. Policemen were all over the place, closing down the street so that no one would pass through. There was an ambulance that parked next to Genevieve's body and the medics rushed to her aid.

She still seemed as lifeless as the dead. The color was washed off her face and the only thing that resembled life about her was the golden embroidery that twinkled on her dress.

I pushed through the cops and demanded to be escorted with her to the hospital. As I went into the ambulance van, I caught glimpse of Claire and Monica, both had the same look in their eyes of fear and confusion.