I shot out of bed like a bullet. Within two minutes, I was dressed and banging on my mom's bedroom door.
"Mom! Mom, wake up!" I shouted. After shouting for a little bit, my mom came and opened the door.
"Gemma? What's wrong?" She asked. I was out of breath from shouting and getting ready so fast, so I held a finger up. She waited until I could talk.
"I heard an emergency alert about a car crash...about a teenage girl who got badly wounded and her sister got killed...and Hollie just texted me saying she was in the hospital and crying her eyes out." I managed to choke out. Hollie's older sister was only two years older than her, and if they were talking about her sister, Hollie was going to be dead on the inside. Besides me, her sister was probably the closest person to her. She loved her more than anything.
"What?!" My mom cried. She ran back into her room, and practically ripped off her pajamas to put on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. "Text Hollie and ask her what happened, and that we're on our way."
I nodded, and replied to Hollie's message.
"We're on our way, Hollie. What happened? Are you alright?"
I figured the text was okay, so I sent it, and my mom tugged on her shoes before moving around me to get to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth and then went downstairs. I followed her, and before we went out the door, she grabbed us both some cereal bars. I was too worried to eat, so I just stuffed them in my bag.
My mom drove like a maniac. We made it to the hospital in twenty minutes, even though it was supposed to be a forty minute drive. Right as I stepped out of the car, my phone went off. I read the message and shut my eyes. My mom noticed that something was wrong, and took my phone from my hands.
"It was her! Oh, shit. Mom, Hollie's sister is dead." I opened my eyes, and then started to sprint towards the hospital entrance. My mom followed, and we almost smashed into the automatic doors because we didn't want to wait for them to open.
The secretary at the desk was fairly small, and she looked no older than twenty-five. She smiled at us and asked what we needed.
"We're here to see a Hollie Michaels. What room is she in?" My mom asked politely. I could tell she was anxious, but she kept her good posture and plastered a smile on her face.
"Room 257. Are you family?" The secretary started typing in something to her computer, and my mom looked at me expectantly. I shrugged.
"The closest thing to family she has besides her actual one." I told her. She nodded and told us we could go. It took us a little bit to find Hollie's room, but we did eventually. I peeked around the door, and she was laying in the bed, playing with a piece of string. My mom pushed me forward, so I entered, and even though I didn't want to, put a huge smile on my face.
"Gem? I'm sorry for waking you up this late at night. I just didn't really want to be alone. My parents can't come see me for a few days. Thanks for coming to see me. Oh, and I--" I interrupted Hollie by putting my hand on her arm.
"It's fine. Anything for the sister." As soon as that last word left my mouth, I regretted it. Hollie looked down at the bed, and she looked like she wanted to die. I watched her sit there silently like that for a moment before a couple of tears started falling down her cheeks. "Oh, Hollie--it's okay, I'm sorry...I shouldn't have--"
"It's alright. It just happened recently, is all." She managed to pull a small smile before completely bursting into tears. I slid onto the bed and put my arms around her. "Gemma...what am I going to do? Hannah's dead. She's dead." I looked at my mom, and she came over to sit down with us. She started patting Hollie's back.
"It's okay, sweetie. We'll be here for you." My mom sat Hollie up in the bed, and then started distracting her with questions so she wasn't thinking about her sister anymore. "Gemma told me you were injured. Is that true?"
"Uh...yeah." Hollie ran a hand through her hair and then wiped the tears off her cheeks.
"Well, what's wrong?" I asked, holding one of her hands in both of mine.
"One of my ankles is screwed up, there's a huge cut in my side, and I have a concussion from the crash. I'm not allowed to go to sleep until they check on me later tonight and tell me it's alright." My mom and I exchanged a worried look before helping her off the bed.
"Come on, let's go for a walk." Hollie was reluctant at first, but she eventually came outside into the hall with my mom and I. It was a bit hard to move around with the IV stuck into Hollie's wrist, and her ankle, but we managed to go at a rather fast pace.
"Where are we going?" Hollie asked impatiently. I rolled my eyes and grabbed the wrist that didn't have an IV in it, pulling her down the hallway. My mom pushed the IV cart behind us, squealing as she almost tripped over one of the wires.
"You'll see." I told her. We were almost there. As we rounded another corner, Hollie gasped.
"Gemma, how did you know about this?"
"It's a secret! Shhh."
"Come on!" Hollie took the IV cart from my mom and dragged it along behind her as she went outside into the outdoor garden. "It's so beautiful."
My mom sat on a bench while I took Hollie to a huge fountain that was just around a bend in the path. She stuck her hand under the water flow and flicked it at me, and I did the same. By the time we moved on to some flowers, both of our shirts had big wet spots. We picked a couple flowers, and brought them back with us on the way to my mom. Hollie practically shoved one in her face, and she started laughing.
"It's gorgeous, Hollie!" I smiled as my mom gave us both a hug.
"GROUP HUG!" Hollie giggled. I tried not to squeeze her too hard because of the gash in her side.
"Alright, let's get back inside." My mom took both of our hands and pulled us back inside, and we followed her down the hallway, Hollie tripping over the IV wires, and me trying to get the wires out of her way.
We made it back to Hollie's room all in one piece, thankfully. My mom was going through her purse to find some gum for Hollie and I while I was talking with her on the bed.
"So, what exactly happened? You don't have to answer if you don't want to. No--wait. Don't answer that. Sorry." I bit my lip and glanced at Hollie. She didn't look upset. Sighing, she rolled her eyes at me.
"Stop apologizing. I think I need to talk about this stuff anyway. It'll help me get it off my chest." She took a deep breath, and started telling me what happened. "I went to a party with her. We each had a few drinks, but not enough for us to be wasted. The media keeps saying she was drunk, but she wasn't. I made sure she was perfectly safe for driving. It was someone else. Another driver, who actually was drunk, was sliding all over the road. Right as we made a turn, he smashed into the driver's side of the car." I glanced over at my mom, who had stopped digging around in her purse for gum. She was playing with her phone, but you could tell that she was listening to us. My phone went off, so I picked it up and checked to see why it went off. I had a new text message.
"Did he die? They didn't say anything in the emergency report..." I trailed off as I read the message. Oh, shit. I was not up for doing anything social, especially not right after this happened to Hollie. She must've noticed the worried look on my face, because she grabbed one of my hands and squeezed it.
"What's wrong?" I couldn't help but smile at her sympathy. I handed her my phone.
"Nothing...it's just that Gracie wants to go dress shopping this weekend." Gracie was one of the few friends I still had from junior high. All of my other friends were new ones from high school. She was bubbly, adorable, and it was hard not to love her. If you didn't, people thought you were insane.
"Gem. You can go. You still need a dress for that dance, don't you?" Hollie crossed her arms.
"Yeah. But I want to stay here--"
"Nope. You aren't staying. You're going to the dance. End of story." She chucked my phone into my lap, and I shoved it in my back pocket. She blinked a couple of times, like she was remembering something, and then started cracking her knuckles. "Oh, and the other guy is still alive. After the crash, he managed to get out of his car, and he started screaming at me. Calling my sister and I stupid whores." My eyes widened.
"He's still alive?! That is so not cool!" I crossed my arms, and Hollie looked down at the bed. She obviously wasn't comfortable.
"I mean, I don't want him to die or anything, but he was really rude." I patted Hollie's hand and hopped off the bed.
"He's a butthead, then." I sang. She giggled, and my mom raised an eyebrow. I shrugged. "I'm gonna go get a drink." I grabbed my bag and went out the door. Once I made it to the drink machine, I pulled out a dollar bill and bought a grape soda. I started to twist off the cap, but I almost dropped the bottle and spilled it everywhere when I heard someone behind me.
"Hey, you came out of that teenage girl's room, right?" I spun around, my eyebrows raised. There was a tall, dark-haired man in front of me, with a hospital wristband on.
"Yeah...why?" I asked. He laughed and walked up to the machine.
"Because her sister was the worst driver I'd ever seen." My eyes got wide.
So this is the drunk asshole that almost killed Hollie.
"You realize you killed her, right? And then almost killed my best friend?" He rolled his eyes.
"Oh, please. She killed herself. She was driving while she was drunk. That's just stupid. Her sister should've been driving, from what I've been hearing." I almost backhanded him, but I figured that would just get me in trouble, so I settled with a glare.
"Excuse me? You were the one that was drunk. Hollie told me they found alcohol in your system--and a lot of it." The man turned around, a rootbeer in his hand. He was squeezing it really hard. I think I pissed him off a little bit. Yay.
"If I was drunk, I wouldn't remember the whole thing. But I fucking remember it! Oh, hell, you're just like everyone else. Putting all the blame on me." He sat down on a small table that was next to the soda machine, and put his soda down next to him.
What the hell? Did he actually just tell me that none of this was his fault? Hannah was dead, Hollie was probably going to end up depressed for the rest of her life, I was very upset, Hollie's parents were going to be devastated, and the whole school was probably going to be silent for days. Hannah was one of those popular girls that weren't mean, but everyone loved them. She knew everyone's name, and even if she didn't know you, she was willing to talk to you and become possible friends. Hollie was just like her, except she was a bit more shy.
I blinked a couple of times, to get rid of my shock. This guy was an idiot. Hollie told me that Hannah was safe for driving. Hollie knows how Hannah acts when she's drunk, and she told me that she was acting normal. This was ridiculous.
"That's because it is all your fault." I spat, turning on my heel. As I was walking out the door, I turned around to give him another icy glare.
Without even noticing, my gaze shifted to the bottle of soda that was sitting next to him. I narrowed my eyes at it, and I was not prepared for what happened.
At all.
Because when I narrowed my eyes at it, the soda exploded.