The grey mat in the footwell of Chrissy's car was surprisingly interesting. Especially, with Chrissy silently fuming on the driver's seat as she pulled into the hospital parking lot.
"You're such an idiot," was the sentence I probably had to have heard the most in the last hour. I had stopped answering but it hadn't prevented Chrissy from muttering it under her breath every few minutes.
She killed the engine and stepped out. The door fell shut with a bit too much force and not for the first time did I wish I had a good excuse for what had happened. I didn't. I had simply been stupid.
Chrissy rounded the car before opening my car. I peeked up before glancing at the small opening. Chrissy was still frowning but I knew there was no way I was going to make it out of this car by myself.
But part of me was too prideful to ask. Especially with the way Chrissy had been acting.
So, I grabbed the top of the door, trying to pull myself up. Instead, I almost shut it into my face.
I fell back onto the seat, somewhat relieved if embarrassed to hear Chrissy laugh; the first friendly sound that had come out of her since that very bashful phone call I had to make.
She held out her hands. While my pride was still cracked, even I had to admit that there was no real other choice. So, I put my hands into her palms. With her help, I got onto my feet, a hiss leaving my lips when I put a bit too much pressure onto my bad ankle.
"How did you even do that?" Chrissy asked, some of the annoyance slipping back into her voice, though most was overshadowed by the amusement of watching me struggle.
At least someone got entertainment from it.
All things considered it was a good question. One I had asked myself many times since it had happened. One moment I was training, copying a dance move I had found in a video, and the next I had found myself on the floor with an aching ankle.
Luckily – or perhaps unluckily as I was starting to think – Chrissy had been in the studio as well and volunteered to drive me to the hospital.
Putting most of my weight onto her, I limped into the waiting room of the emergency room. Carefully, she helped me sit down on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs before leaving to register.
A few chairs down the line sat a boy, face pale and skin sweaty as coughs shook his small frame.
Another woman was holding a tissue to her nose, drenched in red.
It was enough for me to avert my eyes, stomach churning at the sight.
I hated hospital.
Chrissy let herself fall onto the chair next to me, a long sigh leaving her. She ran a hand through her messy curls.
"Let me guess, you want me to cover your class on Thursday?"
An apologetic smile pulled on the corners of my lips. "Please?" Then I glanced down to the offending ankle, already swollen with a dull pain pulsing through my leg. As much as I wished to teach my class, I doubted I would be able to.
Still, putting it onto Chrissy left a bitter taste in my mouth. With exams coming up we were supposed to split teaching the kids. And now, here I was, putting all of the work onto her shoulders.
Chrissy let her head fall back against the white wall but didn't argue.
The rest of the time waiting was spent in silence. Only when a nurse called my name did I get pulled out of my thoughts.
With a wheelchair I was pushed away from the waiting room and into a small corridor that held all the treating rooms. Once parked there, it was another round of waiting. Slowly, the adrenaline was leaving my body and exhaustion was settling in.
With worried eyes, I glanced at my ankle. I just really hoped it wasn't broken. I could not afford to be without a paycheck for so long. The last months had been hard at best and if I would now lose my job at the dance studio, I really didn't know what to do.
One of the doctors entered in a rush, barely muttering a greeting while he looked at the chart one of the nurses had filled in. Then he kneeled in front of me, rushed fingers coming to prode at my ankle. A sharp pain ran up my leg at the touch and a harsh wince left me.
Immediately the doctor pulled back his hands, eyes flickering up slightly as if he hadn't expected such a reaction.
"We're going to have to X-ray that," he said, already scribbling something down on the chart. "Please wait for a little longer. Someone will come get you."
And then he left, leaving me alone to find my way back to the waiting area.
I pushed myself out of the room, surprised with how hard it was to steer a wheeling chair when you've never used on. So, while at first, I rammed the doorframe, I found my way back into the hallway, turning right and going down the hallway.
The doors were a lot harder to open and I rushed through one of them when someone that looked like a patient held it open for me. With a thankful nod I continued my way, only now realizing that something seemed off.
This did not look like the way I had come.
But when I glanced back, the heavy door had fallen shut and gone was the friendly patient.
For as busy as an emergency room usually was, when needed, it seemed all people disappeared.
Rolling back with a nervous pressure right under my sternum, I tried pulling the door open. But all I did was roll closer to the – stubbornly still unmoving – door.
With a defeated sigh, I let my hands fall back onto my lap, glancing around to find a way out.
There really was just one way to go. And if I was lucky, I would find a nurse or a way to loop back around before my name would be called for the X-Ray. It was the best and, really, only plan I had.
With a new goal, I started pushing myself further down the hallway. With how calm it was, part of me doubted I was even still in the ER. Perhaps I had found my way out of it and into the main hospital. Though one would think it would be harder to get there.
But then, names appeared on small papers next to each door. Ah, yes, those were definitely patient rooms. Fantastic.
The stressed hospital staff would surely be delighted by some random girl rolling around in areas she had no business being. I could only hope I would run into a friendly face, one that perhaps hadn't had too stressful of a shift and that would be kind enough to bring me back.
For a while, I continued, the hope of finding someone seeping away more and more. It was too late for patients to wander around and it seemed the staff wasn't patrolling either.
Just when I was about to pull out my phone, reading to do the phone call of shame and call Chrissy, a figure at the end of the hallway caught my attention.
Instantly, relief washed through me, and I pushed harder, the muscles in my arms already growing sore from the unexpected strain I had been putting them through.
"Hey," I called out once I had gotten a little closer. Apparently, he had been too caught up in his own head as he flinched at my voice before whirling around to face me. He was tall, a little lanky with black hair that was a complete mess on top of his head, as if he had been running his hands through it constantly in a gesture of stress.
The surprise turned into a small, friendly smile once he spotted me. A kind face, finally.
"Do you happen to know how I can get back to the ER?" I asked. A loud laugh boomed through the empty hallway at my question and all hope died when he shook his head. "I've been wandering around for close to thirty minutes now trying to follow these signs."
My shoulders fell in disappointment though I tried not letting t show on my face. Instead, I nodded, ready to thank him and calling for help. But he continued before I could.
"Perhaps we'll have more luck together." A wink accompanied his words and a surprised laugh bubbled out of me. His lips curled into a satisfied smile, one that was surprising playful. He placed a dramatic hand over his heart. "I was trying to be nice, and this is my reward?"
The whole display got another laugh out of me, and I shook my head in disbelieve. Though I decided to play along. "Of course, we can look together."
The played offence was replaced by real smile. And without another word he got behind my chair, both hands tightly wrapped around the handles and then he started pushing me.
While I had thought I was accident prone by myself, the way the boy drove me was even riskier; the sudden braking almost throwing me out of my seat a few times.
"By the way, my name is Sam," he said, after almost making me fly to the ground again.
"Leila," I said, grabbing at the armrest for dear life.
"What brings you here, Leila?" Sam asked, finally relaxing the way he was pushing me through the hallways.
A breathy chuckle left me. My face still flushed red whenever I thought about, it was so embarrassing.
"I tried learning this dance and tripped and now my foot is hurt." In an effort to quickly move on, I added: "What about you?"
Without missing a beat, he answered. "My best friend had a car crash a while ago. He woke up from his coma a couple days ago."
With how easy the words fell from his lips, their gravity didn't register instantly. Only after a second did my smile slowly slip from my face. I swallowed, unsure how to react. My story paled in comparison, and I didn't know what was appropriate to respond.
"Will he be okay?" I finally managed to get out.
A nonchalant hum was all I got as an answer.
A sudden heavy atmosphere had settled over us and I scrambled to find something to say to lighten it.
Of course, I was curious, questions sitting on the tip of my tongue, but I bit them back in favor of letting Leo share what he wanted to shar.
"What's his name?" I asked then, feeling like that was a safe question to ask.
The smile was back in Leo's voice when he answered and for a moment I didn't understand why.
"Alexander Caffrey."
A beat passed. And then another.
And then it suddenly hit me where I knew that name from. A name that Chrissy had mentioned countless of times when she had gushed about that favorite band of hers.
In absolute disbelieve I glanced back over my shoulder, just in case I was misunderstanding something. But sure enough, now with the extra information it was not hard to put the face looking back at me to the guy in the music videos Chrissy had shown me.
'Blue Flame' was what the band was called.
I turned back to face forward, at loss for words again. "Oh."
Thankfully, Leo seemed to find amusement in my reaction because a light chuckle was heard.
"Yep," he said, just as good of an answer as mine while he continued to push me through the hospital, long since having given up on finding the ER.
It wasn't necessarily an awkward silence between us, but I still felt like I needed to fill it. But what did you say when you found out the someone who had their best friend land in a hospital with severe injuries was also a prominent figure in the music industry?
"Cool."
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Hello, this is something I wrote almost 10 years ago and I found again today. So I've translated it and decided to publish it again for the fun of it. Even then I would appreciate if you'd leave a comment <3
Also, i have a twitter and even though I know it's hard to imagine, I do actually have somewhat good stories posted on a different side. So if you're interested, it's @ariatschki