Young Blood

"Alex! We're out of milk!"

I sighed, pushing my laptop away from me and dragged myself down the stairs.

"I was trying to type up my project for school," I said in monotone.

"Well, we're out of milk," my mother stated once again.

"Yeah, I heard."

"I need you to go out and get some," said Mum, handing me some coins.

"Why can't you do it?!"

"I'm waiting for your aunt to come over; she's giving me a haircut and dye."

I considered momentarily if Mum was making a clever decision allowing her younger sister to practice for her hairdressing exam on another person's head, but I shook it off. I really didn't want to get milk when I was at a critical point in my homework.

"But I really need to finish that project..."

"And I really need several cups of tea with milk!"

"My project is due tomorrow!"

"It will take less than half an hour, just go."

"Half an hour? The shop is literally just round the corner, are you expecting me to crawl?"

"No, that shop is closed for the holiday week; you'll have to drive to the supermarket. It won't take you long," Mum smiled as she picked her car keys up off the table and dropped them in my hand. They clinked against the coins.

"All right, fine, but don't disturb me when I get back. I absolutely have to hand in my project tomorrow, so I need to get it all typed out."

"Fine by me, just get my milk! I need tea."

I nodded, pulling on my battered grey Converse boots and heading out the front door.

I really loved driving. I had just got my license a few months before and nothing was better than getting in the car and driving needlessly through the town. As I pulled out of my street, I decided to take a more secluded road to get to the shop. Even though I did need to finish the project, I wanted to make the most of my time alone, so I turned down a long winding road with huge trees growing either side of it. It was one of my favourite roads to drive along. Hardly anyone used it because it took longer to get to places, or the bends were too sharp or they just didn't know about it, but I loved it. The trees were so dense it was difficult to see through them and even though the bends were occasionally fairly dangerous, it never mattered because no-one ever drove that way anyway. Since I'd got my license, I had only ever seen one other car on that road, and even then they were lost.

As I traveled down the deserted back-road, I glanced down at the passenger seat where I'd thrown down the change Mum gave me to buy milk. I counted it inwardly and noted that there was extra - I could get something for myself too. I considered getting a magazine. Which one could I buy? I could get a music magazine, unless the selection wasn't that good.

It was when I was wondering what my second choice would be if they didn't stock the one I wanted that I properly focused on the road in front of me and realised there was a sharp bend coming up. I swerved quickly to avoid smashing my mother's car and probably myself against the oak tree in front of me, and it was only on the turn that I took in the small figure on the road and the shattering of one of the car headlights as it slammed into him. I heard something solid hit the concrete.

I forgot how to function. My hands turned off the engine seemly by themselves. I felt completely detached from my body as I opened the door and swung my legs out the car. I stumbled when I stood up and I froze for a moment, trying to regain balance. I felt steady until I began to walk around to the front of the car and my entire body started trembling. My limbs had turned to water. It took great effort not to fall against the car.

I went numb when I looked at the child on the ground in front of my car though, his sickly white face turned away from me. The solid thing that hit the concrete was apparently his head. The blood pooling on the asphalt was a murderous colour, screaming at me. I didn't know it would stain my entire life red afterwards. The boy's arm was twisted awkwardly underneath him and a scrape on his other elbow. I reached down to check for a pulse, but before I made contact with his skin I drew my hand back. I remembered something I'd seen on TV about not touching someone whose been hit by a car, in case they had internal bleeding, or worse. Very cautiously, I crouched next to his small form and pressed two fingers to his neck. A faint beating throbbed against them. I sucked in my breath. Alive. Never had the word tasted so sweet as I whispered it in relief. But it wasn't going to be enough. He needed the security of a hospital, and soon. My phone was in the car, sitting next to the coins on the passenger seat.

The coins on the passenger seat.

Everything rushed at me. Less than twenty minutes ago I had left the house to simply buy milk, and now I had a child's life in my hands. Less than twenty minutes ago, my main priority had been to get my project for school typed by tomorrow morning. Strange how my entire life had just been altered. I turned to get the phone and call for an ambulance, and suddenly heard a whimper from behind me. I twisted around so fast to check the boy I felt joints in my back pop. I studied his face, his lips twitching slightly as he made pained sounds. It took me a few seconds to realise he was trying to speak. I knelt down by his head, touching the ends of his dark hair, unsure how to encourage him.

"M-Mom?" he finally managed to mumble.

I was surprised by the American accent but shook it off quickly.

"No, it's not your... mom. But she's going to be here soon, I promise, I'll get her," I reassured him shakily.

I felt a sudden wave of shame and guilt crash over me. What would the boy's parents say? I had run their child over with a car. They would be furious with me. I was stirred from my fear-tainted thoughts of dealing with protective parents by more slurred words.

"Sh-she won't come," he said quietly, shifting his head to look at me.

He tried to move his arm out from under himself and stopped abruptly. I winced seeing his shoulder jar with pain.

"Of course she will, of course she will," I dismissed quickly. "What's your name? How old are you?"

"Jack. I'm nine."

I winced again at how much of a struggle it was for him to form sentences, his lips barely wrapping around letters and sounds. All the words he wanted were coming loose from his mouth.

"Jack. Right. My name's Alex. Can you tell me, does anything hurt?"

"My arm a bit. I can't really feel anything."

I started to worry. He had an obvious head injury. Why couldn't he feel it? What if it had affected his brain? Apparently the whole situation was affecting my brain too because I couldn't think straight at all. Jumbled questions raced around in my mind after every word he said but I couldn't seem to conjure a coherent answer to anything.

"Well... does it hurt if I do this?" I asked him, and pinched his bare leg below his knee-length shorts.

"I didn't feel anything," he said, looking quizzical.

"Really? Nothing? What about this?" I squeezed a tiny amount of skin as hard as I could between my thumb and forefinger, expecting him to yelp or slap my hand away, but he barely twitched.

"I felt it a little bit," he admitted.

I tried not to show my panic. Surely that couldn't be good, but I had no idea what was wrong with him. I had no experience medically. I was suddenly struck with the realisation I hadn't called for an ambulance yet.

"Jack, I have to phone the hospital for you, okay? But don't worry; you're going to be fine. I just want some doctors to check you over properly and we'll get your arm fixed. I think it's broken. Wait here," I told him slowly.

I didn't want to treat him like he was stupid but I was equally terrified he would become increasingly distressed if I didn't tell him what was going on and although my brain had turned to liquid, I knew the last thing we both needed was for him to freak out.

I opened the car and grabbed the phone, trying to dial quickly, but my hand trembled uncontrollably. After three tries at stabbing buttons, I finally got through to a woman who promised an ambulance within ten minutes.

When I returned to Jack, he had closed his eyes. The same shaky unsure feeling enveloped me that I had felt when I first got out the car to look at him. I hurried over to him and sat cross-legged next to his skinny body. His black hair was matted with sweat and blood against his forehead. He had managed to wrench his arm free and it was now obvious that it was certainly broken, bent unnaturally near his wrist. I frowned and took hold of his other hand carefully. His fingers were ice-cold and limp.

"Jack? Open your eyes," I told him sharply.

His unresponsiveness to my holding his hand made me shiver.

He forced his eyelids open agonisingly slowly and it gave me a moment to see his eyes were a murky brown colour flecked with darker patches. I imagined a tall slim father with clear dark eyes, his arm slung around a slender mother with soft brown curls and soft brown eyes to match, shining with tears. I held in a shaky breath and focused on the fact that his pupils were just pinpricks. They disappeared as he shut his eyes once more and yawned. The inside of his mouth was a mess of clumsy adult teeth and clusters of tiny milk teeth. I had an urge to touch them and check which were wobbly. He might lose his next baby tooth biting an apple or pressing his tongue against it during a class at school.

"No, no. You can't go to sleep. You've hurt your head and I can't let you sleep in case you get sick," I told him, bending closer and stroking his face.

It was odd how hitting him with my car had allowed us to surpass so many levels of intimacy.

"How did I hurt my head?"

He looked so lost. His cool fingers finally felt mine and he clutched my hand tightly. I leaned over his face, swallowing.

"I hit you with my car."

I didn't realise I was crying until a tear hit the child's face.

"Don't cry!"

He looked more scared in that second than I had seen since I first got out the car.

"I didn't mean to! I was running away from home because I got into trouble for hitting my brother! I was in the road! Don't be sad, I didn't mean to scare you!"

He was quivering, his desperation to comfort me overcoming the fact that he was immobile and probably more severely injured than even I knew.

"It's okay, it's okay, we'll get everything sorted out," I quietened him, my own calmness giving me a slight shock. "You just can't go to sleep, alright? Let's play a game! We can play I Spy. Do you want to go first?"

He nodded shakily, the back of his head grating on the asphalt.

"I spy with my little eye... something beginning with C," he said, his eyelids drooping.

I looked around and my throat clenched.

"Car," I whispered, fresh tears threatening to spill over.

He smiled at me. "Your turn."

The game of I Spy grew dull after sixty seconds when I remembered the only thing to spy on this damn road was trees.

"Maybe you could tell me a story instead?" Jack suggested, his throat hoarse.

"No way! You'll go to sleep," I smiled weakly.

It was easier to pretend he was perfectly fine and we were just joking around rather than making attempts to keep him conscious.

"You tell me one. Where are you from? You have a different accent than I do."

"I live in America," he pronounced each word with care, a smile settling on his face. "But we came here one year ago because Daddy got a different job. Mom says we can go back to America for holidays, maybe a big theme park!"

I watched as he became lost in his excitement, telling me about the time he went to Disney World in Florida and how he wants to go back again this summer.

In the eternal minutes before the ambulance came screaming down the road towards us, I learned that Jack's brother was called Joe, and that he had a baby sister called May. He told me he had a golden retriever dog and a Siamese cat, reeling off the breeds proudly and giving me facts about each that he had memorised from a book about pets he borrowed from the school library. After some coaxing, he also shared more on how he ended up on the quiet road, picking his way through overgrown plants and eventually stumbling onto the bend where he ended up in this mess.

"Mom took us to the park for the day while Dad was at work," he explained, avoiding my eyes. "I wanted on the swing but Joe wouldn't let me so I punched him. Mom said I was going to get a time-out so I ran away."

"The park is three fields over that way, though," I said, stunned he had wandered so far. "Why didn't you just turn back?"

"If I got a time-out I wouldn't get to play on anything! Joe would have laughed at me. I thought I could hide for a while until Mom stopped being mad at me."

I looked at him for a moment, really looked. Our days had started out very different and yet very much the same. I had the simple task of buying milk. Jack was playing at the park with his family. Nothing more, nothing less. Then things shifted. I lost concentration on the road and Jack disobeyed his mother. Neither action was related yet somehow, I ended up curled up on the road next to a wounded child trying to stop him from drifting into a fatal sleep.

Although I had him animated and talkative, whenever I took a turn to speak or make a joke, his head would loll sideways slightly and his eyes would waver, and I'd have to tap his arm several times to get him to wake up again.

When the ambulance pulled up behind me, coming from the opposite direction I had been driving in, Jack had grown tearful and aggravated. The shock was wearing off and the pain in his damaged arm was searing one side of his body. Each time he almost fell asleep, I would wake him and his head would jerk. He would panic, momentarily forget where he was and struggle to sit up before collapsing back on the ground, crying quietly. I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to stop myself sobbing. I was a monster. I wouldn't ever get behind the steering wheel of a car again.

I explained to a man from the ambulance what had happened, how I'd been driving and took a sharp bend, and the boy had just been there in the middle of the road. He nodded and rubbed my arm sympathetically. He pulled his hand back worriedly, chewing his lip, wondering if he'd adequately managed to comfort me. There was an awkward silence as I held back tears watching other men lift Jack onto a stretcher and load him onto an ambulance. A woman checked his arm and his head. I ran over to the back of the vehicle.

"Can I ride with him?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, we can only let family members ride with injured patients and from you've told us, you don't know this child," said one of the men loading him into the vehicle.

His name-tag said Matt.

"But I do know him! I've been here keeping him talking for nearly twenty minutes! His family isn't even here, he'll be all alone!"

"We'll be there with him."

"But he doesn't know you! He's comfortable with me now. Just let me in, I'll just hold his hand. You won't even know I'm there."

"Sir, we're really not supposed to allow this sort of contact--"

Matt was interrupted by Jack wailing inside the ambulance.

"Alex? Where did you go?!" I heard him calling.

"See?! He needs me with him!" I said triumphantly to the cold-hearted ambulance worker.

We both listened as the female nurse did her best to calm him down but he became more upset upon realising I was nowhere in sight and not appearing when he called for me. Matt's frown deepened as we heard Jack causing himself to throw up due to increasing distress.

"Fine, you can go with him. Do you know how to get in contact with his carers?" he sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"Yes, yes, he gave me a phone number," I said, quickly reciting the digits Jack had earlier told me was his home phone number.

I had repeated them over and over in my head to remember them. Matt scribbled them down on a notepad produced from his pocket, and I clambered into the ambulance and took hold of Jack's hand. I didn't want to ever let go. This was all my fault.

On the drive to the hospital I talked to him about everything I could think of, even though he slipped into unconsciousness after only thirty seconds of the ride starting, despite the sirens blaring overhead. I took that as a bad sign. The female nurse worked around me quickly and efficiently. She didn't flinch when the poor boy's head wound reopened and bled considerably. He began to drift in and out of consciousness again, but never spoke. However, the intensity of his stare when he looked at me and listened as I talked was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. We were nearing the hospital when he spoke to me.

"Alex?"

I stared at him, unsure if I'd imagined his voice. "What's wrong?"

"Can you get my mom to come now? And bring Joe?"

"Someone's going to call her and she'll be at the hospital really soon, don't worry. But I'm not sure they'll let Joe in right now."

I wanted to comfort him so badly that my chest ached. I didn't realise that hitting this kid with a car would cause me to feel so protective of him.

"No, please, you have to bring Joe!" Jack's outburst startled even the unshakable nurse and we exchanged concerned glances. "I have to tell him that I didn't mean it. Before I ran away, I told him he was stupid and that I hated him."

I breathed in, trying to ignore the lump in my throat. I tried to think up words to reassure him that he'd see Joe as soon as it was possible, but I didn't get a chance to.

Jack's eyes rolled back in his head and his body convulsed violently. I dropped his hand like it had burned me. The nurse sprang into action, along with another male nurse who had been standing by, I assumed in case of an event like this. I was pushed away from the boy's side, but I didn't fight to hold his hand again. I stood there wondering if I was dreaming a lucid nightmare. I could be thrashing in my bed right now, a cold sweat soaking my bed-sheets, blankets tangled around my flailing limbs as a fight to wake up. I didn't wake up. I stayed shaking in the ambulance, following at a run that felt like I was dragging myself across the floor when we reached the hospital and Jack was wheeled away from me. I chased him down long echoing corridors that made me feel like I was on one of those A&E TV shows, only I didn't know the script and I didn't know how to predict what was going to happen next.

When I caught up to him, he was being shut in a room that I wasn't allowed in. Instead I paced up and down beside the chairs outside the room and waited. When a slender woman with brunette hair falling across her shoulders ran towards me, her eyes wet with tears, I knew instantly it was his mother. She looked at me and then looked at the room, and reached forward, rattling the handle. An out-of-breath doctor appeared behind her, and grabbed her arm.

"Please, Mrs Barakat. We can't allow you to go in right now. They're working on him, like I said before. Sit here."

He guided her to the chairs next to me and told her he'd be right back to check on her. She sat down, silent, and didn't look at him as he hurried away.

"Thank-you."

Her accent was strong.

"I'm sorry?"

"Thank-you," she repeated, keeping her eyes to the floor.

I almost fell over.

"W-why?"

"You didn't leave him. You talked to him the whole time."

"How did you kno--"

"One of the nurses that was riding in the ambulance told me. He was waiting to take me to see someone else in reception to bring me here. Thank-you."

"Oh. You're welcome... He's a great kid."

She finally looked at me, and I regretted looking at her eyes. Fresh tears brimmed as she smiled slightly and whispered, "I know."

We waited in silence for long minutes. Nurses nodded at us curtly as they walked past. Jack's father arrived and hugged his wife, saying something about how Joe and May were at a family friend's house for now. He shook my hand briefly and sat down, pinching the bridge of his nose. I saw a tear escape from his eye when I glanced at him.

I had been afraid of their fury, but seeing them so broken was scarier than any anger they could have aimed at me.

Minutes blurred together and the tense silence drove me crazy, but not as much as not knowing what was wrong with Jack. I was not tied down to him in any way. He had nothing to do with me, and yet I couldn't leave. It was not my place to wait here with his parents but I had to know.
When the same doctor that had brought his mother here returned and entered the room without a backward glance at us, I breathed steadily. He was rushing back after a call saying he was making a miracle recovery, and he had to see it for himself.

When he came out of the room five minutes later, or it could have been an hour or even three, he did not look like a person who had just witnessed a miracle. He looked like a person carrying the burden of telling a nine-year-old boy's parents that he had just died.

We were led to separate rooms to be told the same story, that his injuries were too severe and there was nothing more they could do.

I was calm as I stepped out of the hospital and found a shop down the road. I bought milk with some change I found in my jacket pocket. I called for a taxi to pick me up and take me home, and a breakdown company to pick up my mother's car from the winding road that I hated so much. The fact that the sound of Jack's delicate frame making contact with the headlights of my mother's car and his delicate head bouncing off the concrete would never leave my mind hadn't sunk in yet.

My phone rang, vibrating in my front pocket. It was my mother.

"Alex? Where are you? I've sent you five messages! Are you on your way home?"

"Yes. Sorry. I got the milk."

"Ah, good. Well, your aunt's here and she did a great job with my hair! Hurry home and we can all catch up. What took you so long? Did you run into someone?"

My head jerked at her words.

"Yeah, I did. See you soon, Mom."