I slowly climbed into the back of the police car. After a few minutes of trying to extract further information from them I reluctantly agreed to go with them to the hospital. They explained to me that they were just told that Auden was in the crash with two other vehicles and currently in critical condition and they came to me since I was the first number on her cell phone.
I thought about calling her mom and dad but I was too busy thinking about all of the possible things that could've happened to Auden that I hadn't even bothered to pick up my phone on the way out.
The car was very quiet, almost too quiet. The clouds outside were a dark gray making the entire area seem like it were night or very close to it despite it being only half past noon. The officers sitting in the front of the car kept on glancing at me with a weird look in their eyes. I tapped my fingers on the door handle impatiently. I looked outside the window to see a small bar with the lights flickering that it was open, and I thought of Abe.
Flashback-
"Dude you're totally wasted," I laughed watching as Abe attempted to walk from the bathroom to our table. I was grateful that we looked old enough to be able to get into the bar with the fake IDs he had made for us.
"I'm perfectly fine, shmart one..," he drawled out collapsing on our table.
"Well, maybe not wasted. But definitely drunk," I smirked to myself, for once glad that I had only touched one beer in the four hours that we'd been here compared to his five or six. He rolled his eyes at me and leaned his head back against the booth. "You need to sleep it off; you'll be fine in a couple of hours."
"Dude, we can't goo noow" he said stupidly, eyeing a bunch of girls that walked into the bar. I laughed and shook my head watching as he made a poor attempt to make his way to the girls.
End Flashback
I sighed to myself, willing myself to try to forget about that night but it just wouldn't happen. All I thought about is all the things that could've happened differently if we'd left the place earlier
Continued Flashback-
"C'mon Abe. We have to go," I said tugging him away from the girls about an hour later. It was dark and I was getting bored of watching him make a fool out of himself.
"Five more minutes, dude," he muttered. Some of his drunken stupor was starting to fade away but he was still too drunk to drive.
"You said that an hour ago. Let's go," I said pulling him a bit harder by his arm. He gave a coy smile to the girls sitting at the table and they smiled back at him.
Eventually we got to the parking lot where I after a couple minutes of searching and keeping Abe from tripping we found the car. I opened the passenger seat and helped him get in. He dozed off by the time I had gotten into my own side.
I sighed to myself. Even though I had a good time it's not how I imagined my first bar experience to be like.
End Flashback
The tapping of rain soon accompanied my fingers and I looked outside. We were waiting on a four way intersection with barely any cars passing through. Memories of that night began to buzz through my head.
Continuation of Flashback-
It started to rain as we drove down the quiet street. Most people were in bed by now since it was probably close to two a.m. But since it was a Friday night cars still passed by us occasionally as we pulled up to the intersection. I glanced over at Abe who was quietly staring out his window on verge of passing out.
The red light seemed to be taking longer than it usually did. I looked into my rear view mirror and saw a set of bright lights coming towards us faster than they should be. I gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter as it approached. It was far enough away that it would stop, but I saw it swerving.
My eyes widened and I looked at the red light for half a second before speeding ahead a bit so we wouldn't get hit by the oncoming drunk. I glanced up at the red light again as we were halfway through the intersection. Even though it was happening so fast it felt like we were in slow motion.
I saw the bright lights of someone else's headlight along with a loud beeping coming up on our right side. I didn't feel much when it happened. I felt like I was floating for a bit and since neither of us bothered to put our seatbelts on since our house was only ten minutes away I guess you could say that we were.
I felt the car rolling and both of us bouncing around in it. The noise of it was unbearable loud. Before I knew it, it was over. I felt the pain of a couple of glass shards in my stomach and a couple of other cuts here or there. I grunted in pain as I tried to sit up, but decided that it wasn't worth it.
I felt some blood beneath me and attempted to look back at the car. The car that hit us was still in the middle of the street with the car that was behind us wedged into it. It was then that I started to panic.
My senses were slowly coming back to me and I heard a sort of panting noise coming from behind me. Abe was lying there, his eyes clouded with fear, all signs of being even close to drunk were gone. I could tell that both of his legs were broken by the way that they just lay there crooked.
He was covered in blood the same as me. I made an attempt to at least army crawl a little closer to him but a sharp pain shot through my body and I cried out in agony. He looked to his side at me.
"Eli?" he called, panicking. I could feel my world going black
"I'm right here, Abe," I grunted, feeling another shot of pain.
"You okay?" he called. I couldn't help but feeling so pitiful that he didn't even talk about his own pain. When I didn't answer he called out again.
"What happened to us?" I could feel my world going black as I heard the sirens starting up a couple miles away.
"I'm not sure," I answered honestly. I looked up at his crooked body laying there, covered in blood and called out his name. He didn't answer. I tried even harder to crawl over to him despite the pain. I probably moved a couple of inches before I couldn't see anything. Everything went black as the rain started to pour down harder on us.
End flashback
We eventually pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. I was numb to any feeling, except for the cold I felt deep within me. I stared at the back of the seat, unmoving.
I realized that the one of the officers had opened my door and was waiting for me to get out of the car. I slowly stepped out, instantly feeling the rain come down on me. We were close to the door since we were in cop car, but the rain was coming down fast and hard.
I looked up at the windows of some of the hospital rooms, remembering the clean smell and white walls.
Flashback Continued:
I woke up to a faint beeping sound. The white walls in the room were covered in health posters and some pain measuring thing where you point to the faces 1-10. I glanced over to find my mom sleeping in a hospital chair next to the bed. The pain that I felt before was no longer there. In fact, I couldn't feel much of anything. It took me a while to piece together why I was sitting in a hospital bed but once I did, I sat strait up.
My sudden movement startled my mom and she looked the happiest she ever had to have seen me. She called the nurse who came in and started to check something with the drugs I was given. I stared ahead blankly but I could hear a happy voice of my mother and the soothing tone of the nurse.
"Where's Abe?" I asked suddenly, when all the elements of what I thought had happened got into my head. The nurse looked between me and my mom for a moment. My mom just gave me a blank face. It was the nurse that told me quietly, looking down at her white shoes.
"Abe's dead.."
End of Flashback
I walked into the waiting room and stood there dumbly for a moment. I noticed one of the desk attendants hang up their phone and I walked up to her. She had curly red hair and looked at me clearly concerned that I was soaked through.
"Do you need help, my boy?" She signaled for one of the other front desk people to get help for me but I held up my hand and she stopped.
"Auden.." I breathed. It was all that I could manage. She tilted her head like she knew I would be here.
"You're Eli?" I nodded and she didn't say anything afterwards. I felt the rage slowly build up and I kicked the desk as hard as I could causing anyone who had been in the waiting room to look up at the commotion.
"Where is she?" I screamed in her face. She retreated a couple of steps and looked at me surprised. I sighed, not wanting her to be scared and repeated in a cool tone.
"Where is she?"
Authors Note Time!
Sorry, I'm not ready to tell you what happened to Auden yet. Please comment. I worked unbelievably hard to try to get this chapter right and I think it's one of my better ones.
The comments received from the previous chapter made me reconsider stopping and I will probably continue this story for a while yet because it seems I actually do have a mini fan-base if you will.
Thank you to all of you who take the time to read my work and even more thanks to those who offer me feedback that helps me improve.
Azallea
