Red.
Everything is red.
My leather seat.
My clothes.
My hands.
I hate this color.
I absolutely despise it.
It's absolutely horrifying.
Red is the color of tail lights, closing in on you slowly, slowly.
Red is the color of the whirring sirens of the ambulance.
Red is the color of the Red Cross you pass on the way into the hospital.
Red is the color of my skirt, with hints of white. I shouldn't be bleeding. Not from there.
At first, I was in awe. Why is this happening to me? Why not someone else? What even caused this?
No, I know. No need to remind me. I just gained consciousness after flying through the window of my car. The doctor told me I was asleep during labor. My husband gave them permission to give me a C-section.
I was going too fast. Way too fast. I know I was stupid.
I had a spontaneous abortion. It hasn't even been that long. 21 weeks, and I already went into labor. There was so much blood. My god, there was too much. I panicked, and took the nearest car in the oversized garage. In the process, I caused even more damage to others and myself.
When I arrived at the hospital, my husband's family was there. He himself was somewhere; probably out with a business partner, until he got the call. When I woke up, they told me they cut me open and took the dead fetus out. That's it. No emotion. Ootori's never have emotion.
That's why I cannot cry. I'm married to Kyouya. I am an Ootori.
I am Bernadette Ootori. I do not cry. I do not laugh. I am not empathetic in the slightest bit. That was Bernadette Grantaine. She is long gone.
That's what I thought. But I saw him crying. His glasses were fogged and his tears stained his face. He told me it was okay to cry. For the first few days, I didn't. But the stitches and the bandage…
The bandage on my stomach is a constant reminder. It had flaky brown spots on it sometimes. But I knew what that color was.
In my eyes, it was red. It would always be. And when the stitches under the bandage are devoured by my skin, I'll still be seeing red.