She's My Kinda Girl

Adele was never the sort of person to lose her cool easily. In fact, she was probably the calmest person that she knew. But as she paced through the halls of the emergency room, waiting to hear any word on her best friend, she felt as if she was losing her mind. Devan’s father was sitting calmly in a chair, hands over his face. He was feeling just as on edge as Adele, but he was hiding it a lot easier.

Adele envied him for that.

“Mr. Saylor?”

Devan’s father stood up and walked over to the doctor with Adele hot on his heels. He wrapped a comforting arm around his pseudo-daughter’s shoulder as they prepared for the worst. Since Devan’s mother had left years before, he didn’t really have anyone else to call but Adele when he found out about Devan’s accident. Adele had been Devan’s best friend for years, and she had practically become family. “Yes?”

“I’m Dr. Malvo, the head of trauma,” he introduced, offering his hand.

Mr. Saylor took his hand. “Call me Leonard.”

“Leonard, your daughter has suffered some major injuries. Due to the speed of the impact, the officers say that the other car ran the stop sign, and hit her on the driver’s side door. The door crushed her pelvis and, whoever dragger her out of the car, only did more damage. We had to reconstruct her pelvis and she’ll be in a wheelchair for a couple of weeks, then she’ll need crutches for four to six weeks to help alleviate pressure. She’s badly bruised, and she’ll be sore for a while. Her left wrist is sprained, but her pelvis absorbed most of the damage. She’s been moved into recovery and should wake up in a few hours. We’ll assess the wounds in a few hours and we’ll determine where to go from there,” Dr. Malvo explained.

Leonard sighed and ran his hands over his face. “But she’s going to be okay?”

Dr. Malvo nodded. “Yes. She’ll need physical therapy after a time, but she will be okay,” he told him.

“Oh, thank God,” Leonard said with a sigh of relief.

“When can we see her?” Adele asked, wiping a few tears away from her cheeks.

“You can head in now. Just be careful,” the doctor informed them. “Let me know if you have any questions.”

Leonard nodded. “Thank you, doctor.”

“I’m going to go get Jack,” Adele said quietly, stepping away from her best friend’s father and the doctor who may or may not have saved her best friend’s life. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her American Apparel hoodie as she approached her boyfriend (and his best friend—yes, Alex was often an afterthought in Adele’s mind). “She’s out of surgery.”

“That only took four hours,” Alex muttered under his breath.

Jack elbowed him in the side. “Is she gonna be okay?”

Adele nodded. “Relatively,” she said with a small shrug.

“Good to know. Can we go now?” Alex asked.

Jack sighed. “You can go, I’m going to stay with Del.”

“Papa Saylor can take us home,” Adele said.

Alex frowned. “No, I can take my best friend home,” he told her.

Adele shrugged again. “Then you’ll be staying for a while because I plan on staying.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to stay, bro,” Alex told Jack.

Jack bit the inside of his cheek. “I’m staying as long as Del stays.”

“Fine,” Alex snapped.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Adele sighed. “I’m going to go up now, with or without you guys,” she told them, turning on her heel and following Papa Saylor down the hall.

Jack stood there with his arms crossed for a few seconds, sending his best friend a raised eyebrow, before scurrying off to chase his girlfriend.

Alex let out an exasperated sigh before he slowly followed them as well. He stayed at least ten steps behind them, feeling as if he didn’t belong in the first place. He ignored the voice in the back of his head that was telling him to leave. But more than that, he ignored the feeling of guilt that was pooling in the pit of his stomach. As he approached the room, his steps got a little slower, a bit more hesitant.

Mr. Saylor had taken his spot to the left of his daughter’s bed, holding her hand in his own. Adele had pulled a seat forward so she could sit down with Jack. Alex could tell that none of them were going to move for the night—or, well, morning. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time—it was just past three in the morning. He shifted from foot to foot before leaning against the doorframe.

And when his eyes finally landed on the girl—Devan—on her body, he had to stop himself from making any sort of noise. His eyes widened as his eyebrows shot up. She was hooked up to multiple machines, ones he probably couldn’t even pronounce, and ones that he in no way would ever understand. He had overheard the conversation, he knew the extent of her injuries, and while he wanted to force himself not to care, he couldn’t…not care.

Oh, but he could hide it. That was exactly what he planned on doing.

He had to hide it. After all, he knew how much trouble he would get into if the police found out. He had too much on the line. He was graduating in less than a month, and then he and his band would be on their way to tour for the summer and record in the fall. If the label found out, he knew they would lose their record deal. And, yeah, that would really suck. He ignored the part of his brain that was telling him that losing a record deal probably wasn’t as big of a deal as this girl almost losing her legs. But, well, Alex had never really cared about other people that much; he was notoriously self-centered. And that was why it was easy for him to push away the fact that, yeah, it was his fault.

In fact, it was all his fault. But besides Jack, no one knew. And he knew his best friend wouldn’t tell anyone.

It was their secret.

“I’m—I’m gonna go,” Alex said, not even recognizing the tone in his voice.

Jack was the only one who turned around, confusion in his dark eyes. “You okay?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah, dude. Call me if you need a ride.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” Alex said lamely.

Adele scoffed.

“Maybe,” Jack said. “I’ll let you know.”

“Right,” Alex said, nodding slowly. Another minute or two passed before he realized that, yeah, no one was really paying attention to him. He turned around and made his way out of the hospital and to his beat up car. The damage wasn’t that bad, really; and the car ran the same way it did before. Sure, it was a few years past its prime but, well he was saving for a new one. Or that was his excuse, anyway. He would just keep up with Jack’s story about a past fender bender. Besides, it wasn’t as if anyone would think less of him because of his car. Alex didn’t need a car to impress girls.

He didn’t need anything to impress anyone.

+

Devan could slowly feel the world coming back into focus, but as her eyes drifted open, everything was still blurry. She raised a hand to rub at her eyes but jerked the hand away when something rough came into contact with her face. Her eyes slowly cleared and she saw an IV under her skin, on the top of her hand. That instantly brought everything into focus. She sat up quickly, trying to move her legs, but she let out of a scream of pain when she realized just how difficult that was going to be.

“Are you okay?!”

Devan looked over to see her father, definitely looking worse for wear, sitting up from where he had probably been laying on the bed next to her. “Dad? What happened?” she asked, glancing around the room. She saw Adele and Jack curled up in a chair next to her hospital bed. But she still wasn’t sure how she got there.

“Are you okay, Dev?” her father asked again.

Devan ran her hands over her face. “What happened?” she repeated.

Her father sighed. “I’m glad you’re awake.”

“Dad—“

“I know, I know,” he said, a small smile on his face. “You were in a car accident.”

Devan sighed. “Dammit. How’s my car?”

Her father looked at her, eyebrows furrowed. “That’s your first question?”

She paused. “Should it be something else? Clearly I’m alive and I have all of my limbs. They hurt, but they’re here. So, yes. How’s my car?” she repeated.

Her father smiled and let out a quiet laugh. “Your car is…not as irreplaceable as you would like to think. We’ll have to find you a new one,” he told her.

Devan frowned. “Dammit.”

“A car was speeding and ran the stop sign—hit you dead on. I would say whoever did it was heartless, but they had the decency to pull you out of the car before they left the scene,” he muttered.

“Bastards.”

“You broke your pelvis. You’ll need to be in a wheelchair, then crutches, and go through physical therapy. You sprained your left wrist. But that’s the extent of it.”

“The extent of it? I feel like…” she trailed off. “Well, I was going to say that I felt like I got run over, but, you know.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Clearly,” she said with a scoff. “How long have you been here?”

“A little past midnight.”

“Did you sleep well?”

Her father smiled and leaned up to press a kiss against her father’s forehead. “You could’ve died on me and you want to know if I slept well?”

Devan smiled softly. “You’re the only dad I’ve got,” she said with a small shrug. They were silent for a couple of minutes before Devan’s eyes landed on her best friend. “How long have they been here?”

“A little after I got here. She was the first person I called,” her father said.

“What time is it?”

“About seven thirty?”

“They’re gonna be late for school. Hell, I’m gonna be late for school,” she muttered, tossing the blanket off of her legs.

“You’re not going anywhere,” her father told her.

“Dad, I’ve never missed a day of school in my life,” she said, growing frustrated.

“Well, you’re going to miss a few now.”

“Not so close to graduation!”

“That’s final,” her father said.

Devan sighed. “I can’t believe you’re going to let some silly little accident tarnish my perfect attendance,” she mumbled.

“It wasn’t some silly little accident, Dev, I could’ve lost you.”

Devan met her father’s eyes and instantly regretted it. Pooling to the surface was all the pain that he tried to hide on a daily basis after he had, in a sense, lost his wife. Sure, she might have abandoned him and a nine-year-old Devan, but he had lost her nonetheless. “You’ll never lose me, dad,” she whispered.

He leaned up and pressed his lips against her forehead again. “See to it that I don’t.”

Devan smiled before looking down at the tray on the side of her bed. She picked up the complimentary chapstick and opened it, applying some on her, well, chapped lips before tossing the tube at her best friend’s face.

Adele stirred, rubbing her eyes, before realizing that, okay, yeah, Devan was awake and had just assaulted her with a tube of off-brand chapstick. “You’re alive!”

“For the time being,” Devan said, leaning back against the bed. She had used up more strength than she had originally thought by having that heart-to-heart with her father.

Adele stood up and walked over to her best friend, hugging her lightly. “I was so worried.”

“Don’t be. Nothing can keep me down,” Devan joked.

“Jack! Jack, wake up,” Adele said, leaning over and kicking her boyfriend’s knee.

Jack stirred, eyes opening slowly. “The fuck, Del?”

“Language.”

Jack shook his head. “Sorry—the eff, Del? Is that better, Papa Saylor?” he asked, peering around his girlfriend to meet the weary eyes of Devan’s father.

Papa Saylor smiled. “Yes, better.”

Jack smiled and looked Devan up and down. “You’ve seen better days.”

“I’m aware,” Devan said with a smile. “So have you.”