"You've been hit by a car. You are going to be fine!"

mom's gonna kill me

always wear a helmet

i'm never gonna see Beau or Addy again

He was weightless; maybe he had already died. Arms above the ground; torso off the ground, hair on his face, vision swam and blinked out as he passed out, the EMTs carrying him sagged under his limp weight before readjusting him to settle him on the stretcher.

The noise outside his head was tremendous. He recognized the sheer volume of the siren and breathed in, breathed out, shuddered with nausea and tasted blood. Someone said he was going to be fine. He figured he was already dead and asked someone, anyone, to turn the siren off. They didn't. He passed out again, jostling with the movement of the ambulance.

It felt like a year. He had several dreams – frightening, calming, strange, average, vivid, foggy. The nurses said he had sat up and asked for water; after drinking, had laid back down and went to sleep. He didn't remember.

Six hours later, he found a hospital ceiling above him and Constance beside him, clutching flowers – not the first time she'd hold a bouquet over the body of someone she cared about. Not the first time, not the last, but she reached for his hand and squeezed it. He pulled it out of her grip, not ready to deal with her tide of emotions. He knew exactly how this would go.

"Oh, Tate," she started, laying the flowers on the table beside him. "I was so scared. I was so scared, my beautiful, my wonderful-"

He raised a hand to stop her and she put a shaking hand on her chest, apparently the quell the rising emotions. He knew that gesture well. She was full of irritating, fluttery hand gestures.

She settled back in the chair beside his bed and cleared her throat. "Your arm's broken," another fluttery gesture that has half indicative and half to add grace to her stature, "and you're covered in cuts. Your poor pretty face."

He sighed- at least this meant no school, hopefully, at least for a few days- and sat up, slowly. His consciousness swam for a second from the effort and he noticed the complete lack of feeling in the arm he had pointed to, tightly bound in a sling. "Jesus Christ."

"Tate."

"I can't feel it at all. I don't need you here, though."

"Well," she said, wiping a tear from one eye and sniffling, breaking eye contact, "I guess I'll leave your pretty young nurse to it, then. She doesn't know a damn thing about what she's doing," she added in an undertone, leaning towards him. "I think she wrapped you up too tight there. I'll speak to them about that."

"Don't. Just.. come back tomorrow, or something."

She nodded, patted his undamaged arm, gathering her expensive purse and reading glasses in her arms as she hurried to leave the room. It took a lot for her to swallow her dignity that quickly, Tate noticed as she strode out, coat sweeping behind her. The door clicked and he was left with the beep of machines, the mumble of soft, attentive, genderless voices from other rooms. She was doing him a favor by listening. Not like usual.

He was left to test his arm for a while. He moved the shoulder, with difficulty, and sat up straight. "Wow," he muttered, straining against the cast – no movement resulted, just sharp, deep pain. "Shit."

There was no mirror in the room. He wasn't wearing the sweater he had put on that day. Had it gotten ripped up?

The door opened and a short, young nurse came in, clipboard held in the crook of her arm as the closed the door behind her. " ?"

"Yeah?"

She fell into the light of the lamp on his bedside table, all soft features and medium length straight brown hair. "That was your mom, right? I'm Violet. I'll be checking on you for the next few days until you feel ready to go home."

She couldn't have been much older than he was. No, she wasn't. He scanned her face. Barely any make up. Sarcastic, monotone voice. What a nurse.

"Yeah, that was mom."

She set the clipboard down on his legs – upside down, so he couldn't read her notes – and strode to check on the machines by his bedside. "I hate to say it, but- oh, can I call you Tate?"

"Yeah. Feel free." His eyes followed her around the room.

She settled on the edge of his bed after checking his vital stats and he got a glimpse of her stockings as her uniform rode up with her movements. "Tate, you haven't seen yourself yet, huh?"

"No."

She leaned in as if confessing a secret, a smile creeping across her lips, professionalism gone. "Your face is GRATED."

–

Tate blinked, grinned, pressed his lips to Violet's head, her back to his chest, curled up in her bed. "Yeah, you're right. We probably could've met anywhere."