Matt Kent glanced at his alarm clock which was screeching country music at decibels too high for the hour. With a snarl, he punched the off button and swung his muscular legs out of bed and ambled off to his bathroom. He glanced in the mirror and grinned. What he saw was a 17 year old boy, 6'1, with tousled light brown hair and ice blue eyes. His muscles had finally caught up to the rest of his body, and he had the lean build of a track runner. ‘If only my asthma would let me run, I would whoop everyone on the field.’Matt thought to himself. He shrugged off the negativity and climbed into the steaming water. Normally he would wash lightly, just enough to wash off the thin layer of grime that had accumulated however today he scrubbed every inch of himself. Brushed his teeth and took three gulps of mouthwash, two of which he swallowed. Dressed himself in his nicest ‘school appropriate clothes’ which consisted of a slim blue hoodie and narrow leg jeans, what he hoped would attract the girl that he had been chasing for the better part of a year.
A hasty breakfast later, Matt was in his car heading for school, rehearsing what to say to Amanda Williams. Every time he saw her, he got a smile that he didn’t manage to conjure up for anyone else. He knew that he was completely smitten with her, everyone knew. Andy had been egging him on for months, and today was the day he would finally open up. He adjusted the rearview mirror to see his face as he merged on to the freeway and began practicing his expressions. “Hey Aman-“He never finished the sentence. There was a Hyundai SUV stalled out in his lane, and going 100 kilometres an hour, he ploughed into the rear end.
*
Heather Greenwood applied the finishing touches to her eyeliner before arranging her black hair into the style that made her parents cringe every time they saw it. ‘It serves them right, divorcing and neither one fighting for me.’ With a grimace, she pulled her seventeen year old frame into her black skinny jeans and rummaged around for her Bring Me the Horizon t-shirt. She grunted as she pulled it down, which meant one thing. She poked her head out of her bedroom door. With no parents or annoying sister in sight, she sprinted to the bathroom and stuck her middle finger down her throat, disposing of the little breakfast she had eaten that morning, then brushed her teeth to get rid of the smell the purging had wrought.
Ten minutes later she was in the back seat of her father’s 'soccer-mom' Hyundai Santa-Fe, headed for another day of emotional torture some people call Baker High School. Suddenly a grinding noise came from under her feet, and the vehicle slowed to a stop. Her dad let loose a profanity and got out of the car to raise the hood. Before he could get around the front of the car, he watched in horror as a small Japanese car sped full speed into the trunk and came to a rest upside down above his daughter.
*
“What do we have?”
“Seventeen year old male, fractured skull, fractured neck, three broken ribs, broken femur, and multiple internal injuries.”
“Turf him to surgery, if he makes it through the night, it’ll be a freaking miracle. What about the other vehicle?”
“Seventeen year old female, two broken ribs, punctured lung and major concussion. She’s been intubated and she’s stable. We’ll schedule surgery in the morning.”
*
Matt awoke with a start. “Lights, lights aren’t supposed to be on at this time? I’m gonna get Dad back for this one. What time is it? Manda will kill me if she realises I slept in. Where are my pyjamas? Man, my head hurts. Wait...”
The neck brace was restricting his movement. He couldn’t feel anything below his neck, anyway. Looking around, he saw the intravenous tube sticking out of his hand. Opened his mouth to cry out, his head was really hurting now. He head a low, piteous moan and realised it came from him.
Matt was about to start screaming for his father when he heard a noise beside him. Unable to look, he tried to speak again, but all that came out was the same moan from before.
“You’re awake! Doctor! My son woke up!”
Footsteps. There was someone rushing to his room, but where was his room? He felt confused, he was in pain, and there was a tube in his mouth and in his hand. With a small sigh, he let sleep take him once more.
*
Two rooms away, Heather was fuming. She felt good enough to get up and walk, they had reinflated her lung already, and her ribs were set back into place, but if she wanted to go anywhere she had to call a nurse to lift her into a wheelchair. And they wouldn’t even let her see the boy who had hit her; she wanted to punch him in the face for causing this. Oh, he would suffer so much. “I bet they let him go wherever he wants because he’s a boy. I’ll make him pay for all of this.” Deciding on the spot to solve this herself, she stumbled over to her chair and wheeled herself to the boy’s room two doors down.
As she wheeled into his room, she was immediately shocked at what she saw. There were no doctors in sight, the boy’s father and the physician were down the hall talking. Slowly, she wheeled herself to the chart hanging on the end of his bed.
*
Matt was slipping in and out of consciousness. He would be awake for five seconds, then the image he saw would be burned into his retinas until he awoke again. For two hours, he saw a slim girl in a wheelchair reading a chart at the end of his bed, tear marks on her high cheekbones.
He awoke again to see the girl talking to his father and another man. Doctor? No, no lab coat or scrubs. The girl’s father maybe. He attempted to greet them, but what came out was a raspy ‘hello’. No more tube in his throat then. Saw the girls eyes open wide.
“I thought you must be dead,” she began. “I’m the girl you hit.”
Matt raced through his mind. “Hit? Accident. Car accident. Nicole...shit. I was in a car accident. Hyundai. Blue. Man beside it, this man?’
“Sorry,” the words grated his throat. “I’m-“
And he lapsed back into unconsciousness.
*
Heather was pretty sure she was in shock. The accident was beginning to take its toll, sitting for so long in her wheelchair was making her ribs hurt like a son of a gun. The boy had fallen asleep again, probably because of the morphine they were pumping into his veins, so she grimaced and wheeled herself back to her room down the hall, and with her dad’s help, got back into bed.
”Sorry. Little prick, that’s all he says? I’m gonna sue the crap out of him.” Her dad was fuming, pacing around her room with an intensity he usually saved for when her mother came into the room.
“Dad-“
“Save it. We’ll get every cent out of him, no one hurts my daughter and gets away with it.”
“Don’t do this, can’t you see he’s suffered enough?!” The words came easily, and they hit their mark perfectly. Her dad looked flabbergasted that she had even mentioned it, like she didn’t want the money.
“I’m fine,” she continued. “It’s him we have to worry about. Look at the state of him, for goodness sake! And you want to take the little money that family will have left after medical bills just so that you don’t have to work to pay alimony for a couple months. Dad, get out of here and let me get some sleep!”
The words worked to get her dad out of her room, but there was no way she was sleeping. There were too many thoughts going through her head.
