Saving Me

Alex’s POV

Tears fell from my face and pooled onto my tshirt. Matt’s hand was clasped on my shoulder as he was standing next to me. I couldn’t dare to look at him.

“This is all my fault,” I said softly, staring through the glass at the doctors who were frantically fighting to mend Jack’s three broken ribs, a major concussion, a broken leg, and a broken arm. He had lost so much blood from a gash made on his scalp that the surgeons didn’t expect him to live.

“No. We all should have watched him...,” Matt said sheepishly. I felt sorry for dragging him into this. He had no idea what to say to me.

“I was just out talking to Carla and Mark about Zack. How’s my baby?” Joyce asked, stammering into Jack’s room. Carla was Zack’s mother and Mark was his stepfather. I didn’t lift my head to look at her; instead I stared through the glass wondering how much they’d all hate me if they knew that I was the one who was supposed to watch Jack.

“Still no word from the doctor yet,” Matt muttered for me.

“I can’t look through that window. I can’t see him like this,” she whispered shakily, taking a seat across the room.

“Joyce, can you tell us where Zack and Naomi are?” Matt asked.

I finally took my glare off of the glass, and looked straight up at him. He had lost all color in his face, and I had never seen him so scared. I didn’t want to leave this room. I didn’t want to see the rest of the mess I had made.

“Naomi is in the room across from here. Zack is in room 306,” she said through tears.

“Thank you,” he said, and walked me out of the room.

I was too weak to fight him in front of Joyce, but as soon as the door was closed behind him, I swallowed hard. “Matt, I don’t want to see what else I’ve destroyed.”

“This isn’t your fault. You’ve destroyed nothing,” he said walking through the door across the hall. “Come on. Let’s see how Naomi is doing.”

I took a deep breath and stepped through the door to see her parents sitting on a couch in front of the window. Her father, Robbie was holding her crying mother, Shianne.
Robbie welcomed us with a warm but broken smile and motioned for us to take a seat next to him.

“How is she doing?” Matt asked, guiding me to a seat next to them.

“Well, she has a deep cut across her chest, a broken arm, and four broken ribs. She lost a lot of blood, but because she didn’t have her seatbelt on, she wasn’t hanging upside down and didn’t lose as much as Jack did. Unfortunately, she got beat up quite a bit more because of it. Her face is a mess,” Robbie explained, running his fingers through Shianne’s long brown hair in a comforting manor. “You were with them tonight, weren’t you?” he asked quietly.

I stared down at my feet in silence. I found myself once again, unable to look at their faces. The only difference was that I couldn’t stand to look through the window and see her lying there so broken.

“It was my 24th birthday party,” Matt said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

Robbie let out a stressful laugh; “I can see the guilt in your faces. It’s not your guys’ fault, you know. Naomi is going to be okay. She’ll make it through this. She’s a tough girl. She can make it through anything.”

Shianne started sobbing even louder, causing Robbie to wrap his arms tightly around her.

I could feel my insides rush up in my throat once more, and choked them back down. Matt touched my knee and motioned for me to look through the glass. I shook my head violently, and he nodded in understanding.

“She’s in our prayers,” Matt said softly, leading me out the door by my shoulder once more.

“I need some air,” I said shakily as the door closed behind me.

“All right,” he said, and led me to the bottom floor.

As soon as I reached the bench outside of the hospital door, I fell apart. Everyone seemed to be hurting in some way all because of me.

“I’m going to go make some phone calls.” Matt said, stressed. His facial expression told me that he wanted to be there for me, but he also knew that I needed to be alone for a while. He quietly walked across the parking lot to his car.

I looked down at my shoes and thought about my situation. If Jack died I would never forgive myself. For a second, I tried to imagine my life without him, and found that I couldn’t do it. He was my best friend. He constantly made me want to rip his head off, but I loved him. I couldn’t imagine waking up every morning and not having to deal with his annoying sense of humor, or breathing without him lingering in my air. I would be left with nothing... I would be so empty, and hollow.

“I can’t help but think that this is my fault,” a familiar female voice rang, making me jump.

I looked to the right of me and saw Stella standing in front of the bench I was sitting on. Her face disgusted me tonight. The look in her eyes made me hurt. It looked like she didn’t care and she was unfazed. If I wasn’t mistaken, she looked.... pleased with herself. I looked back down at my shoes.

She sighed and took the spot next to me on the bench. “What makes you need Jack so bad? I mean, he’s what tore us apart in the first place.”

Rage bubbled up inside of me. Over a year ago, Jack caught Stella cheating on me with a boy who I knew she was having an affair with. In the end, she had not only cheated on me with him, but many other people. Some being girls. “Stella, if you knew what’s best for you, you’d get the fuck out of here.”

“Do you honestly think I’m afraid of you?”

“Why do you use me? Why do you constantly fuck me and leave? You tell me that you love me, and then you’re fucking someone else the next day. And the fact that you’re bringing Jack into this makes me hate you even more. Jack is not the reason why we broke up; you are the reason why we broke up. You cheated on me with everyone you knew. You lied to me for almost a year. Jack just opened my eyes to the situation.”

“Oh please, you don’t hate me,” she chuckled darkly. “If you hated me, you wouldn’t care if I said that I loved you and then left. Plus, you wouldn’t have fucked me tonight instead of watching your best friend.”

I finally looked her in the face and clenched my fists and tried to restrain the burning sensation to hit her. She hit it home, and the smile on her face told me that she meant it. “Get away from me!”

“Is that really what you want, Alex?” She smiled, seductively and put her hand on my knee. “Because you know I’ll leave.”

Tears flowed from my eyes and burned my cheeks. She was right. I didn’t hate her, I loved her. She knew that, and I hated myself for it. “No,” I whispered softly, and looked back down at my feet.

“I thought so,” she grinned and brushed my hair away from my face.

“Anything else you want to fuck up?” I asked shakily.

“I don’t fuck things up, I make your life actually interesting,” she said. It was as if she was emotionally invincible. Everything hurtful that I said to her only built her up and made her more powerful. The meaner I got, the happier she got.

“Go home, Stella.” Matt said, stepping into the streetlight. The sound of his voice made me jump.

She stood up and spoke sarcastically with a smile. “Because you were doing such a good job keeping him together yourself.” She walked over to him and kissed his cheek.
“Goodbye, stranger,” she said to him with a flirty wave. And with that, the invincible Stella Hudson walked away without even acknowledging my existence.

“What did she say to you?” Matt asked.

“A bunch of fucking cryptic nonsense,” I growled. “I want to see Zack now.”

“Okay,” he nodded and led me to the third floor where Zack’s room was located.

The tone in Zack’s room was a lot less tense than the other two rooms. Carla and Mark were seated right next to his hospital bed.

“Hey, Alex. Hey, Matt.” Mark greeted.

“Hey, boys.” Carla said.

“Hey,” Matt said softly. “How is he?”

“Thankfully he is okay. He’s got a broken arm, and a pretty beat up face, but other than that he’s fine. The doctors think that he’s going to go home by tomorrow night. They just want to keep him here for observation just in case there’s something more serious that we’re looking over. He can’t remember what happened except that he was in a car accident and he was drunk, so don’t tell him anymore than that, please. He doesn’t know whom he was in the car with or that there was another car involved. Now I’ll just leave you two to talk to him.” Carla said. She looked stressed out, but yet peaceful and grateful that Zack was okay.

“Zack....,” Mark said softly, touching Zack’s good arm to nudge him awake.

I took a good look at Zack, and felt thankful. His left arm was in a cast, and he was attached to several IV’s. He had a cut on his left cheek, a bruise on his right cheek, and a black eye. I sighed a sigh of relief. He was okay.

“Zack....,” Mark tried once more.

Zack’s eyes flew open, and he let out a soft sigh.

“Alex and Matt are here to talk to you. We’re just going to go get something to eat, okay?”

Zack nodded, and watched his parents leave the room.

“How are you feeling, man?” I managed to ask.

“I’ve seen better days,” he said roughly, “my neck hurts, and my arm hurts like hell, and the whole left side of my body feels like it was stomped on by a herd of elephants.”

I chuckled softly, seeing that he still had a sense of humor even if he was stuck in a hospital bed.

“I’m really fucking scared,” he said softly. “They’re not telling me what happened or who I was with. I don’t even know if anyone was seriously hurt, or who was driving. I think Naomi was involved.”

“Why do you think she was involved?” I asked.

“Because she’s not here. She loves me. If she knew I was here, she’d be by my side in a heartbeat.”

“Oh.” I said silently. There was nothing I could really say. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I also didn’t want to go against his parents wishes.

“You have no idea how fucking happy I am to see you two here right now. You guys are okay,” he smiled. “I just wish I had that reassurance for her.”

I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t tell him. He was hurting himself because his mind was wandering off so far. Thinking of so many scenarios, and wondering if the worst happened. I found myself thinking about the girl that they hit. I wanted to see how she was doing.

Zack yawned, and his eyes closed half way.

“Get some sleep. You’ll be out of here before you know it.” Matt said, reassuringly.

“Sorry, guys. Being in a car crash is exhausting,” he smiled.

“Don’t be sorry, you need sleep,” I said, standing up.

“We’ll see you later, man,” Matt said.

The two of us walked out of Zack’s room, finally at peace.

Carla met us as soon as Matt shut the door. “How’d it go?” She asked, quickly.

“It went well. He’s back asleep. He knows that Naomi was involved, and he’s really worried. We didn’t say anything, promise. He knows because she’s not with him. Have you thought that maybe telling him what happened will make him feel better? I can see that he’s making up the worst scenarios in his mind,” Matt spoke. It was like he realized exactly what I had.

“I couldn’t tell him what happened. He’d go find her, and he’d quit sleeping and eating. At least now we have that under control. I want to wait until he’s out of here to tell him what happened.”

“What’s the room number of the girl that they hit?” I asked bluntly.

Everyone focused their attention on me, and shot me some confused glances.

“I don’t know, Alex. I haven’t been in her room,” Carla said.

“What was her name?” I asked.

“Well I know her first name was Katherine. Her last name was something weird... like Kiley or something.” She explained.

“Thanks,” I muttered and began walking towards a receptionist.

Matt said goodbye to Carla and followed me to the desk.

“Can you please tell me what room Katherine Kiley is in?” I asked.

“Dude, what are you doing? Are you sure you’re okay to see her?” Matt demanded.

“I’m fine.” I said waving him off.

“She’s in room 625.” The receptionist answered.

I thanked her, and made my way to the elevator.

“Alex, you know she’s worse off than Jack? They expect her to die by tomorrow morning. Are you sure you want to do this?” Matt asked once more on our way up.

“I have to see how she is,” I mumbled.

Matt shrugged and led the way to Katherine’s room. I could feel the painful tension once more as I walked through the door, and I began to regret the decision I made. There was a girl standing against the wall. She wore a thin black dress with rips and tears all over it and fishnets up to the middle of her thigh. There were dark circles around her eyes from makeup, and her hair was a disaster. She didn’t seem so upset. But then, I saw an older lady crying at the window, and instantly felt the urge to vomit once again.

Any feeling of peace that Zack had left me with had evaporated in seconds.

Rena’s POV

I watched my mother cry as she stared through the window at her broken daughter. My baby boy, Niko was sleeping soundly in his car seat, and I was leaning up against the wall on my own.

Out of the blue, two men walked through the door. One of them was oddly familiar, with shaggy dark and purple tinted hair. His eyes were red and puffy and it looked like he had been crying. The other had a lip piercing, and shaggy black hair. You could see that he was upset, but not as upset as the other one.

My mother didn’t even turn towards them.

They walked towards me, and I could see the one with puffy eyes’ face lose all color.

“Yes, hi. Can I help you?” I asked them.

“Uh, is this Katherine’s room?” The one with the lip piercing asked.

“Yup, sure is. And you are?”

“I’m Matt,” the one with the lip piercing announced. “And this is Alex,” he motioned to the pale boy who didn’t seem to be able to speak for himself.

“Great, and?” I mused.

“We wanted to know how she was doing,” Matt spoke.

“Oh she’s fine and fucking dandy.”

“Uh, can you tell us what’s wrong with her, please?” Matt hesitated.

“She has a piece of glass lodged in her skull, she lost and is losing a shit load of blood, her brain is swollen, both of her arms are broken, and her face is fucked up with cuts. She’s going to die,” I explained emotionless.

“Oh... are you sure she’s going to die?” Matt asked.

“Yup, we’re about 90% sure.” I reassured. “I’m sorry... but you look really familiar,” I said to Alex.

“I doubt you know him,” Matt said.

“How do you guys know her?” I snapped.

Alex ventured off to the glass wall and watched the frenzied doctors, but I was not amused.

“One of our friends was the one that hit her,” he spoke softly. Just low enough so that only I could hear.

I couldn’t believe how fucked up this was. The friends of the guy who killed my sister actually had the audacity to show their faces in her operating room. “You guys need to get out,” I said with a bit of irritation.

“I understand. She’s in our prayers,” Matt said, as he grabbed Alex and led him out of the room.

“Whatever,” I muttered, and stared down at my tattered shoes.

It wasn’t that I didn’t care that Katherine was going to die; it was that it hadn’t quite sank in. I felt like I was going to wake up and see her there in the bed across the room. Like she was going to baby-sit Niko all day tomorrow, and she’d listen to my party stories when I got home. I refused to believe that she was even hurt.

Maybe it was that, or maybe it was because I numbed myself from all of my other pain.

I wasn’t searching for the answer to why it seemed like I didn’t care. I wasn’t searching for anything except alcohol to numb myself some more.

Alex’s POV

“How do you guys know her?” The girl that had been speaking to us asked, flatly.

I quietly peered through the glass to see the girl that they had been working on. A doctor moved away from her face to grab something off a nearby table. It was just enough time for me to realize that my best friend may have nearly killed the most beautiful girl in the world. Her wavy blonde hair fell from the operating table and hung above the ground. Her eyelids looked to be the most fragile and delicate things that I had ever seen and her eyelashes were long and dark. Numerous cuts were placed around her face, and her ski-slope nose had a large gash. Her lips were the perfect shape, and more inviting than Stella’s.

Doctors rushed back in front of her face, and continued operating to dislodge the broken piece of glass that was stuck towards the top of her skull.

Matt grabbed my shoulder and said, “I understand. She’s in our prayers,” as he glided us out of the room.

“Whatever,” said the emotionless girl who was standing against the wall.

Matt closed the door behind us before saying, “Well that was interesting.”

But I didn’t respond. She was all that I could think about.

There was no way I could see her die now.

I had to know her.