A/N: Dislaimer-I only wish I owned the Gallagher Girl Series. Please read and review! See you at the bottom :)
I was only vaguely aware of my whereabouts. I was at a house, that I knew, and the majority of people seemed to be acquaintances, whether they were from school I was too gone to tell. There was something in my hand, a cup I think, and bodies swayed around me, lights bright and overwhelming, music pulsing and echoing.
Couples were grinding up against each other, two making out on the opposite end of the couch I had seated myself on, and I scooted over to make room for them. My vision was blurry and my hands were shaky. As a result, some sort of beverage had spilled several times down my shirt, but I was far too out of it to care.
"Hey man!" a male voice shouted to the side of me. I turned my head in his general direction. "Enjoying yourself?" He snickered at my rugged state of appearance and plopped down next to me.
"You going to Eva's party later? I hear there's gonna be some real booze. And I'm talking crazy shit, man, like full out tequila and joints to smoke too. She got some horse last weekend and crack, I think. At least its what she said, but I don't know. So you in?" It sounded like a babble of incoherent words to me, but I shook my head yes to whatever he'd proposed.
"Cool, man, we'll be leaving in a couple minutes." As he got up to left I was just able to recognize him. Max. My best friend. I face palmed myself and began laughing chaotically. What a fail.
He returned a few minutes later with three others all totally sloshed. But hey, it was the weekend, and nobody cared. School was out, summer lay ahead, and then senior year beyond that. We had to party while we could. 'Yolo,' or whatever those dumb asses said. We left the house and rammed into the car.
I got passenger seat, Max was driving, and the other guys smooshed together in the back. I wasn't sure who the middle one was, but on the sides were definitely Liam and Rodney. Liam had the big red hair, I think, or maybe Rodney, but I couldn't remember. Didn't matter anyway.
The music was turned up way loud, blasting through the open windows, and my hands were tapping out the rhythm on my seat. We were all singing at the top of our lungs, really getting into it. And Max was driving faster, and faster.
"Holy shit, man, look at all those trees flying by!" somebody exclaimed in the back. We all stared at the trees for a minute and they really did look like they were flying. I momentarily registered that we were going way too fast. But, whatever. It was midnight and nobody would see us.
Max started honking the wheel and Liam, or maybe Rodney, stood up and starting shaking his butt at the other. They were laughing like lunatics, and it was infectious. Max and I started laughing, too, and he was swerving the car around and zig zagging all over the place. I felt pretty chill.
Then this damn tree came into sight. "Turn, Maxy boy, or we're gonna hit it." I said.
"Hit what?" was his genius reply.
"The tree, idiot," I responded. At the last second he saw it. The others were still singing and laughing and dancing. They didn't know. But Max saw it, and for a second I thought I saw a little bit of fear flicker across his face. Max, scared? No way in hell.
But is was gone so fast that I thought I'd imagined it, 'cause then we were flying through the air and my arm was hurting, and my head was hurting, and sirens were ringing, and blue and red was shining in my mind.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
My body stirred awake, and I groggily opened my eyes. My cheek felt plastered and sticky. My arm stung a bit and I felt achy all over. My vision was blurry and hazed.
"He's awake!" The room was not mine, that I could tell. It was too clean, too organized, and just too white. It smelled like cleaning solution and the sterile scent made me want to vomit.
As my eyes adjusted to the light, a tall man with a clipboard came to stand by my bed. He wore a stethoscope around his neck and a name tag that read Dr. Reynolds. Ah, I was in a hospital.
"Hello there son," Dr. Reynolds greeted cheerily, "You must be feeling pretty sore." I nodded mutely. " Well, you have an open fracture of you arm, a mild concussion, and a lot of large cuts on your face." I lifted my arm from my side and noticed a large blue cast. "But," he continued, "Good thing is you are perfectly safe now. The surgeon was just coming in to check on you."
Surgeon? I thought blankly. What happened? Why am I here?
Another man walked into the room. He wore a calm expression but held a certain authoritative look to him. He walked over to me and the other doctor.
"Dr. Reynolds," he nodded at his colleague, "Zachary Goode. My name is Dr. Newman. I performed your emergency surgery. Zach, this may be hard to hear, but you had reconstructive face surgery last night. We are not sure exactly how you will heal, but your reflection may look different in the mirror. We don't know how badly you will scar, because your entire right cheek was crushed. In the process you acquired a mild concussion as well. And I see you have already noticed you fractured arm." He nodded at my right arm which I was holding protectively.
"What happened? How did I get here?" I demanded. The doctors exchanged a glance.
"You don't remember Zach?" Dr. Newman inquired. I shook my head, which hurt a little.
"You were in a car accident last night. The car was going 90 miles per hour and you hit a tree. On the way, you passed another driver and they called the police for reckless driving. If the cops hadn't arrived at the scene when they did, just in time to call 911 for you five boys, you would have most likely died. You must have a guardian angel, Zach, you are one lucky boy."
A car accident? Most likely died?
"Were my parents there? Where are they?" I asked.
"They are not permitted to see you until you have been cleared by me. You were with your friends. Your friend Max was driving the car," Dr. Newman answered.
Max, my best friend from kindergarten. Hadn't we had a falling out a few years ago?
"Are my friends ok?" I persisted.
"They are not in your state. They have mostly minor injuries, though Max broke his right leg." The doctors exchanged a glance.
"Excuse us for a moment," Dr. Reynolds said. They stepped aside and talked for a few minutes in hushed whispers. Before I drifted to sleep, I heard short phrases like 'it's worse than we thought,' and 'he'll need a stay at home nurse.' My mind wandered into subconscious dreams.
When I awoke again, my mother's blurred form came into view first. She was hovering over my bed with a concerned expression.
"Zach? Are you awake, sweety?" she asked softly. Her eyes looked puffy and her cashmere sweater was blotched with tears.
"Momma," was all I had time to say before she engulfed me in a hug.
"Baby, my baby," she mumbled. My stepfather stood next to her. He didn't race to hug me, but I wouldn't have expected that from him anyways. He was a coldhearted, mean, serious man. And I hated him. I turned my attention back to my mother.
"What happened?" I asked for the millionth time that day.
"Honey, you were in a car accident, don't you remember?" Dr. Newman came to her other side.
"Mrs. Goode, your son seems to have lost some aspects of his memory due to the crash. It may have been partially due to the excessive amount of alcohol he consumed," he told her. I had been drinking? I never drink. My mother's astonished expression told me she was thinking the same thing.
"You were supposed to be staying at your father's with Bex," she said.
"Bex? Is that a friend of mine?" I inquired. A girl emerged from the back corner of the hospital room. She pointed to herself.
"I'm Bex. Your girlfriend." I gulped. Since when had I had a girlfriend?
"We were at your dad's house and you started to fight with him. You were yelling at him and saying he should have tried harder to stay with your mom. As far as I know, that's pretty much all you guys talk about nowadays. But, anyways, he got mad and hit you, and you stormed out of the house. That was the last I heard of you until your mother called me into the hospital an hour ago."
I took a moment to look her over. She had dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and coffee colored skin. She was pretty, and she seemed nice enough, but I had no recollection of her whatsoever.
"When did we get together?" I asked her. Her eyebrows furrowed.
"Two months ago," she answered.
"I don't remember," I said. My mother turned to Dr. Newman.
"Will he be able to recover his memory?" she asked. He shook his head.
"We don't know. We need to pinpoint his last memory and begin therapy work with him immediately."
He walked to my side and removed a cap of sorts from my head. I hadn't even realized it was there. Pointing to my cheek, he announced to my mother, "Your son also has a crushed cheekbone. We contacted you about performing the emergency reconstructive face surgery last night. We do not know how this will heal, so we think it would be best to get Zach a stay at home nurse for the remainder of the summer." My mother nodded.
The door opened across the room and in walked the most beautiful girl on the planet. She was wearing a nurse's outfit, with the oversized pants and matching shirt, but her hair was long and blond, and her eyes were a crystal blue, and when she smiled at the people around me it made me smile, too.
I hadn't realized I'd bee ogling her until Bex glared at me. Having no memory of my current girlfriend would be hard.
"Hi everyone," the girl said brightly. Dr. Newman smiled at her.
"Hi sweety, we were just discussing you," he turned to me, "Zach this is your stay at home nurse. When you leave the hospital in the next few days, she will go with you. He job is to give you your medicines and help you maneuver around the house."
The girl walked forwards and stuck her left hand out. We shook hands.
"Zach Goode," I stated.
"Cammie Morgan."
A/N: Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, review. If you didn't enjoy it, still review! And let me know how you think this story should continue. I'll try to incorporate your ideas. Thanks!
-Silvya