Will's+Memoir

As I slowly opened my eyes, the light from outside filled the cramped interior of my car. The blurry picture of my crumpled passenger seat began to swim into focus. Soon, the state of my car, or what was left of it, became blindingly obvious to me and I noticed two things at once. The first was; I’m upside down, the second was; something’s burning. The latter of these revelations freaked me out, I had seen one too many action movies where after the accident, the audience finds out that a fuel line was cut, or a gas tank is ruptured, and moments later, “Ka-Boom”. Without thinking much I tried the door and at first it gave a little, but then it jammed. I hoisted myself into the passenger seat and tried that door; it wouldn’t budge. I figured my best option was to try the other door again, I reeled up my leg and kicked, the door made a sound like metal tearing, and gave. I pulled myself out of the car into an embankment that lay off a backroad in Reading, PA. I crawled up the side of the embankment and on to the road, pushed myself up and felt a cool stream of blood drip down my forehead. I started walking, about a quarter of a mile down the road I found a mom and her two sons playing outside on the lawn. Out of all the things I could be feeling right then, I didn’t expect one of them to be an awkward shy feeling. One of the sons, 7 or 8, saw me first, and I must’ve looked much worse than I thought I did, because the boy started screaming immediately. His mother rushed over to find the cause of the boys outburst and after she took me in with a startled glance, she quickly ordered the other son, who was closer to the house, to run inside and grab a towel and some water. The woman then asked me if I was alright, which under the circumstances was such a mundane question to ask that it made me laugh a little. Half an hour later I was being hoisted up on to a cold metal operating table. Two nurses were at my side, they drew over a flurescent lamp that flushed me with warm light. One of them began cutting up the side of my sweater; $45, the nicest sweater I owned, the only sweater I owned. I winced. A few moments later the sweater was off and the nurse had begun at the seem of my pant leg. My nicest set of Dockers. F*ck. I attempted to lift my head up, but the neck brace made it impossible. “Is this really nessecary…?” I questioned, hoping to salvage some remain of my formal attire. “We need to see // all // of you to make sure nothings broken or worse.” I closed my eyes, 2 min later I was naked strapped to a giant metal table being poked and prodded by a team of white-clad physicians. Once I was cleared for any visible damage, I was given two scans, and stationed in a hospital bed in the trauma wing of Reading General. The doctor came in an hour later and told me I had “banged up” my left knee pretty bad. Thank you 8 Years of med. School. And on a more serious note, I had fractured a spinal process. I didn’t know what that was, but it sounded serious. Treatment=A few weeks of bed rest and you’ll be fine. Typical. A nurse came in and asked if I wanted her to contact anyone for me. I ran through the short list of numbers I had stored mentally, my phone having been lost in the crash. I finally decided to have her try and reach Jackie, she being the one whose house I had left 4 minutes before the crash, and whose number was clear as light in my mind. After a brief scolding on how I drive way too fast, and multiple reassurances from me that “I was fine, really”. She told me she was coming down, and after I put up a small fight, she hung up. Half an hour later she was pushing me around the hospital in a wheelchair. “So how fast were you going, really?” she asked after we scooted out of the trauma center. “Was it like..thiss” and she sped up swerving in and out through hospital personale, before banking at the end of the hall. “A bit faster than thatt” I laughed back. I looked up trying to catch her eye, the fluorescent light reflected off her cheek, it was wet. “But not much...” I added with a heavier tone. When we got back to the room an hour later, I remembered that I had made plans with a friend to catch the red sox game. I figured if I changed the location, and the friend, I could keep that appointment. The tv flicked on and I turned around to slide back into bed, but jakie had beat me to it. I gave her a questioning glance, a sly smile creeping up the side of my face. I sauntered over to the side of the bed, held her gaze for a long second, then dropped back into the guest chair next to the bed, ha-ha. A nurse came in an hour later to check on me, she looked around the room, we looked back. The site of a banged up me in a loose-fit hospital gown, sitting next to a perfectly ok girl laying in my hospital bed, was enough to make her stutter. “Yo-Your parents are here” she managed to get out. We looked at each other, and laughed.