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Chapter One: Dusk
Disclaimer: "Twilight", and all canon characters and characteristics remain the property and rights of Stephanie Meyer. All I own is the writing itself, and any original features and / or attributes portrayed within said writing.
A/N: The moment I read this scene, my alternate-reality-obsessed mind ran away with me and I decided to get some first-person narration practice in. Apologies if this idea's been done before. The second chapter will justify everything, so please don't stone me or jump to any conclusions until you read it. :3 Thanks!
I--I
It was warm.
I couldn't tell if either the fluorescent bulbs above me or the sunshine outside was to blame, but I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter, seeing nothing but red thanks to the insanely bright lighting overhead. Right now, the only details I could remember about the accident was the shock I felt seeing a vehicle on black ice skidding in my general direction, and Tyler's horrified expression as he ran out of his car to help me. In spite of the fact that everything else was pretty much a blur, I recollected enough to realize I must've been in the hospital, silently appreciating the fact I wasn't hit with some spontaneous case of amnesia, the kind wakening coma patients on low-budget soap operas always got.
I smirked, never thinking I'd appreciate the fact that life wasn't like what it was on television.
I looked down at myself. I didn't seem to be in too bad of a shape, seeing as I didn't feel much pain when I woke up. I was in a neck brace, my wrist was in a cast, and I had one serious migraine, but overall I was doing just fine. Still breathing. Still alive. The beeping of the electrocardiogram was a reminder that my heart was still beating.
Knowing the word 'electrocardiogram': now there's something I can blame television for.
Feeling tense all of a sudden, I straightened my back, raising my free arm to stretch out and loosen up a little. I wriggled my extremities in the process, mentally making sure all my digits were intact and that I hadn't suffered any emergency amputations while I was under. Ten fingers, certainly, but oddly enough, I...couldn't move my toes.
I blinked, glancing down at myself again. My feet were sticking out from under the bottom edge of the hospital-blue blanket covering me, all toes present and accounted for. Of course, there was a perfectly reasonable medical explanation for this. Maybe I was sitting out in the cold longer than I thought before the medics arrived. Maybe I sprained them the wrong way when I landed on the asphalt. Probably just some nerve aftershock, or whatever. Something temporary, or at the very least, reversible.
I tried moving them again, but to no avail.
I could already hear a voice of misplaced optimism in my head trying to calm me down, but it wasn't a mistake. This didn't feel at all like the dull sensation from being out in the cold too long, or the sharp sting of a bad sprain, or having a part of myself fall asleep. I couldn't feel my feet. I couldn't feel anything whatsoever! I--I couldn't move my ankles, o--or my knees...I couldn't feel my legs at all!
It was one terrifying, undeniable truth.
I was completely numb from the waist down.
The wave of fear which washed over me made me feel as if I'd just been tossed into a pool of ice water.
This can't be happening.
My heart began racing in my ears, pounding harder and louder than ever before. My eyes widened nervously, hopefully, as I tried harder and harder to get anything I could moving. Inhales became short, exhales became shallow. I can't remember exactly how many breaths I took before I screamed.
How in the world was I supposed to live like this?! What would mom think? Would she make me come home? What about Charlie? I'd be nothing more than a burden to anyone now! And Tyler...Tyler would probably kill himself if he ever found out about what had happened to me! Who's to say he doesn't already know? Of course, how could he not know? News spreads like wildfire in this backwater town--I was unconscious for deity knows how long; the entire town probably knew about this before I did!
The thoughts, the questions, the on-setting depression; none of it stopped, not even for a second. Everything in my head was swirling around, over and over, until I felt as if I was about to be sick.
For a second, I felt like blaming him. Tyler. If he'd been paying better attention to the roads, if he'd chained his tires, if he'd been a better driver...but then, of course, he didn't mean for any of this to happen. This was a complete accident, not unlike what my constant clumsiness resulted in.
I probably would be less accident-prone now that I was going to be stuck in a chair for the rest of my life.
I slammed my head back into the pillow, burying my face into my hands and running my fingers through my hair. Just like that, everything I believed my life to be, gone in an instant. The stress about the move, the terrible weather, the varying levels of apathy I felt towards everyone in school, meant nothing. Everything I was worried about before this moment was suddenly so trivial compared to what I was going through now.
The doctor went on to explain the technicalities of my injuries through line after line of medical jargon. I hadn't even realized he'd entered the room. I didn't care for any of it. The phones at the hospital's front desk were ringing loudly; the busy nurses were darting back and forth through the hallway and weaving in and out of neighboring rooms. The sun was still shining, the snow was still falling, the birds were still singing. It was as if the world was moving on and I was stuck in time.
My vision flickers to a figure suddenly present at the doorway.
Edward Cullen.
His face was twisted, brow furrowed, nose crinkled in utter disgust at the sight of me.
Even still, in my condition, the look he gave me was as cold as stone.
I turned away from him sharply, determined to put all my effort into staring at the back of the doctor's clipboard. I stopped making excuses. I didn't bother to give him the benefit of the doubt this time. 'Maybe he doesn't know about the results of my accident. Maybe it's not me he's repulsed at.' Bullshit. I didn't think anyone could be so ugly on the inside, not even him. How could he have looked at me like that? How could he treat me with the same disdain as the first time I met him? Had he no sense of empathy, of human decency at all?
I didn't even bother trying to hold back the tears anymore.
An emotion I hadn't expected was engulfing my entire being. Anger. Unadulterated, incontrovertible, anger. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want anyone here. I didn't want some stranger in a lab coat trying to console me with technical explanations. I didn't want that boy standing at the doorway, staring at me with such loathing. I was sick of trying to figure out what was going through that mind of his. I was tired of trying to solve his puzzle. I suddenly felt absurdly foolish to be concerning myself with someone like him, someone who could vary from sociable to antithetical with the inexplicable color-shift of an eye. Someone who could just stand there and stare.
Stupid hormones. Stupid teenage curiosity. I was just a stupid little girl with a stupid little crush, and only now could I see it.
I couldn't bring myself to listen. Not to the high-pitches of active telephones, or to the faint sound of singing birds, or to the doctor's long-winded descriptions of unfeeling nerves and broken vertebrae. All I could focus on were his eyes on me, and I wasn't about to turn away and shyly back down. Not like I used to. Not anymore.
Probably realizing I hadn't been paying attention this last fifteen or so minutes, the doctor rose to his feet with a heavy sigh and took his leave from the room.
Without warning, he entered.
And I felt cold again.
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