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My head hurt. That was all I knew.
Where was I?
I couldn’t force my eyes open to look. Oh, shit, it hurt
... what had
happened?
The car. Me and AJ. A truck. We’d hit.
Oh, god, where was I? Where was AJ?
Struggling against the pain, I opened my eyes. I saw white
... a
ceiling. There were noises all around me. I took a deep
breath ... that awful
smell. I was in a hospital.
“Well, look who’s awake,” a cheerful female voice sounded from
my left side.
I turned my head slightly -- oh, Jesus, that hurt. A nurse
was
standing there, next to a bunch of machines. “Where ...” I croaked.
I
wasn’t expecting my voice to be that bad.
“You’re in the hospital. Just relax. You’re going to be fine.”
That answered some of my questions, but not all of them. “AJ ...”
“The young man with you? He’s fine ... he’s out in the waiting
room, actually. Are you feeling well enough to see him?”
“Yes ...”
I closed my eyes as she left the room. Thank god ... at
least AJ was
okay. At least, he was okay enough to be in the waiting room
while I was
laid up in here.
A moment later, I felt someone touch my arm. “Tori?”
I opened my eyes again and looked at him. He looked like
hell ... a
large, purple bruise decorated his chin, and another mingled with the
tattoos
on his arm. His curly hair was completely disheveled, and his
eyes were
nearly black with whatever emotions were running through them.
“Thank
god you’re okay,” he said softly.
“What happened?” I managed to ask. “You okay?”
“I’m fine -- just a couple of bruises. You managed a concussion
...
you hit your head on the steering wheel. You hit a truck ...
do you
remember that?”
I nodded, then winced. Moving my head was not a good idea.
“Barely saw him,” I remembered aloud.
“Yeah, well, he’s pretty shook up by the whole thing. I
guess he
wasn’t paying attention -- he didn’t see that you were coming up on
him
until it was too late.”
“I was going too fast,” I admitted.
“Yeah, that too. He broke his wrist -- I think we’re all
lucky we got
out the way we did.”
I thought about nodding my agreement, but stopped just in time.
Instead, I remembered something else. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know ... late afternoon, early evening sometime. Why?”
“Philadelphia ...” I reminded him.
AJ sighed heavily. “Don’t worry about Philadelphia.”
“I am.”
“Don’t, okay? Just worry about getting better ...”
He leaned over and kissed my cheek just as the nurse came back
in.
“Sir, I think we should let her get some rest now.”
He nodded. “Go to sleep, Tori. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
The nurse was feeding a sedative into my IV before I could protest
anything. AJ squeezed my hand one last time, then disappeared
out the
door. My brain was still a jumble ... he needed to go to Philadelphia.
I
knew that. I couldn’t remember why, though. I just knew
it was important.
My brain gave up. I fell asleep before the nurse was out
of the
room.
