"Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults." -Benjamin Franklin
I can feel the liquid oozing all the way down to my elbow. My entire body is in a panicked state because I'm not sure what to do. There's hundreds of shards of glass surrounding my body, so I can't stand up. I'm trying not to move any part of my body but the natural instinct to somehow escape the pain is trying to force it's way through my body. I'm still surrounded in darkness, making my eyesight useless.
I hear loud footsteps pounding up from the basement stairs.
"Luke," I gasp. I know my voice sounds pained. This cut has to be either very deep, or very long. This amount of blood escaping my body is ridiculous. "Stay out of the kitchen, I shattered some glasses," I cry.
Lights above my head turn on in an instant and his eyes immediately find mine.
"Holy shit, what—Vanessa! Your hand!" he says rushing his words. His words are more panicked than mine. Everything's been happening so quickly, I forgot to look down at my hand. There's a large slit in my hand that starts at the bottom of my middle finger and extends halfway down my palm. Shit. From what I can tell, it's not very deep, just long.
The blood is still rushing out of my hand. Luke's shirt that I'm wearing has blood smeared all over it. It's a little hard to see since the shirt is black, but it's definitely covered in my blood.
"I—I'll get a broom," Luke says and runs off to find one.
"Hello?" A new voice enters the kitchen, Anne. "Wh—what happened?" she shrieks. "Vanessa! Your hand! Where's Luke?"
"Finding a broom," I say. A few tears slipped down my cheeks a few seconds ago from the pain, but they've stopped thankfully. My hand is still in pain, but the adrenaline pumping through my veins has distracted me from the ache.
Anne is standing a distance away from me, avoiding the glass. I can see how flustered she is because she can't help with anything at the moment. Luke rushes back into the room with a red and black broom in his hand. He starts to sweep away a path of glass quickly but carefully. There's so many large shards and little slivers covering the floor, and I'm laying right in the center. Once a path to my body is cleared, Luke steps on the cleaned part and picks me up. I'm in a state of shock and am barely processing what is happening as Luke carries me over to the kitchen island and sits me on top of it rather than the chair. "Anne, can you please go to the bathroom and get the first-aid kit?" Luke asks and runs his hand through his hair. Was he not just drunk off his ass ten minutes ago? Seeing me in danger seems to have awoken him from his drunken state. He must be high off of adrenaline at the moment, too.
"Why don't you run and get it? I'll clean up the glass. I don't want you to get a cut, too. I've cleaned up glass before," she says with equanimity, but I know her heart is beating at twice the rate as usual.
"Okay," Luke says and his hand combs through his hair again, making it seem like a habit of his. Luke leans forward and presses his lips to mine. Passion exerts from his lips to mine, and he's kissing me as if I'll be dead by the time I'll be back. As much as I'm desiring his kiss right now, I really need something to stop the bleeding. Somehow reading my thoughts, he pulls away and goes in search for the medical supplies.
Anne begins sweeping up the shards of glass into a neat pile in the center of the floor. What a mess I've created. Luke returns faster than I thought possible with a larger than necessary first-aid kit in his hands and a pair of sweatpants. All this has been happening so fast I forgot I'm not wearing pants, just underwear. I flush from embarrassment. Luke sets the kit on the counter and slides the pants up my legs.
I scoot on the counter over to the built-in sink and wash off the wound. Even the water makes it sting slightly.
"I don't really know how to clean a wound," Luke admits.
"Me either," I say. The water helps clean out the wound but some of the blood on my arm has already started to dry.
Luke grabs a towel from a nearby drawer and wraps it around my hand. "Hold pressure on it."
"Okay."
"Shit, we need to get you to a hospital, now," Luke says.
"I don't know—," I start to say.
"This isn't open for discussion, Vanessa. Look at your hand. It's not going to stop bleeding, and you need stitches. It looks really painful, I don't know how you're not freaking out right now," Luke says. His voice is still full of panic.
"I don't need medical bills carrying a burden on my parents," I say.
"I can—," Luke starts to say, and I know what he wants to say.
"Don't you dare," I interrupt and glare at him.
"We'll discuss this later. We're going," he lightly demands.
"You can't drive," I whisper.
"I'll be fine," he rolls his eyes.
"No, you're not. If we get into a car accident you'll be in tons of trouble and my hand injury would be the smallest injury I'd have. End of discussion," I say with a straight face. Just because adrenaline is pumping through his body doesn't mean the alcohol has subsided.
"Fine," he says quietly, "Anne can you drive to the hospital please?"
"Of course, I'll go get the car," Anne says and starts walking out of the room. "Oh, and go get Jake too!"
"Go wait at the front door, I'll be there in a minute," Luke says to me and I oblige.
Within two minutes, Luke and Jake are walking towards me. Jake is still wearing his pajamas. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes at the same time that he yawns.
Luke opens the front door and I step outside as Jake and Luke follow. We get into the car Anne has ready to go. I shiver from the cool air, and I think Anne notices because she turns up the heat further.
It takes fifteen minutes to reach the nearest hospital. Anne pulls into up to the entrance doors and we step out of the vehicle.
"Do you need me to carry you?" Luke asks.
"Seriously Luke? I'm not dying, I just have a cut," I laugh and roll my eyes.
"Oh, uh, right," Luke stutters and stares at the ground embarrassed.
"Thank your for offering though," I say and pull his chin up so our eyes lock. I softly kiss him on the lips. I silently laugh to myself because I'm allowing myself to kiss Luke even though we should be rushing into the hospital.
"Gross!" Jake says, and we all laugh despite the situation.
The automatic doors fly open as we approach the entrance. We walk up to the front desk and Luke explains the situation. Luke and I are escorted to a room in the ER wing of the hospital, but I told Anne and Jake they didn't have to watch if they didn't want to.
I sit on top of the chair where my wound will be examined. A doctor emerges through the door and closes it behind him. I tell him general information about myself as he removes the towel and glances at the wound. The bleeding has substantially slowed. I wonder how much blood I've lost.
He rinses off the wound so the wound is more easily visible. He grabs a bottle filled with a blue liquid and applies it to my hand. It stings, but I try not to flinch.
"This is Hibiclens. It's a antiseptic cleanser. It will clear out the wound," Dr. Anderson explains. After cleansing my cut, he examines it closer. He explains that he's checking for and dirt or contamination and also making sure than I didn't cut a tendon. Thankfully, there is no contamination and no cut tendons. If my tendon would've been cut, I would've needed surgery.
"Have you had a tetanus shot within the past 7 years?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Good. Well, you're going to need stitches," he says after throwing away some cloths.
"Okay," I say. Shit.
He grabs another bottle and applies it to the wound.
"What's that?" I ask.
"Xylocaine. It'll numb your hand for the stitches," the doctor says.
Luke hasn't said much since we've arrived in the room, and his face is slightly pale. He's intently watching the doctor fix my hand. My hand feels numb and painless now, and it's a relief. I want to poke my hand to see if I can feel it, but I decide against it since the doctor would probably frown upon it.
Dr. Anderson searches through a drawer and pulls out supplies for the stitches. He returns to my side and with a steady hand, sews my skin back together. I can feel pressure from the tug of the needle as he weaves the needle through my skin, but it doesn't hurt.
After I'm stitched up, he cleans the wound one last time and places a large bandaid over the entire cut. He pulls out some white gauze and securely wraps it around my hand several times.
"I'll need you to come back in three days so I can examine how your hand is doing, and I'll probably be able to remove the stitches by then. I'll stop by the front desk and schedule you an appointment. Don't lift anything heavy or put any stress on your hand. I know we use our hands often, but try to let it rest and avoid putting any pressure on it. Stop by the front desk on your way out to find out when they have you scheduled again."
"Okay, thank you very much," I say and the doctor smiles in response. I'm glad the cut is on my left hand rather than my right hand since I'm right-handed.
"Does it hurt?" Luke's eyes search mine for an answer after the doctor exits the room. He doesn't look like he's under the influence of alcohol anymore. His eyes look normal, and the adrenaline from earlier seems to have worked some sort of magic on him.
"Not anymore. It feels numb."
"That's a relief," he says, "I feel so bad about this."
"Why? It's not your fault. I dropped the glasses."
"Still, tonight's been horrible. I don't know how it could get any worse," Luke sighs as we exit emergency room part of the hospital. A nurse is leading us to the waiting room where Anne and Jake are. "I don't think it can get any worse," I laugh. As we turn a corner, I bump into someone.
"Vanessa?"
"Mom? Dad?"
…
Hiiii guys! A ton of you guys voted really fast on the last chapter, so as promised, another update! :) I hope you liked the chapter. This has been one eventful night omg, is it ever going to end? By the way, sorry if there are some errors in my chapters, I don't have time to fully edit them, I just quickly skim over them after I write the chapter.
Voting goal is 20-25 votes by Monday/Tuesday, and if we reach it I'll update again on Monday/Tuesday :)
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