Chapter 11

She opens her eyes, with difficulty. Her body is not ready to wake up and her eyes work overtime just to halfway open, then fall shut again, but someone keeps prodding her, saying her name. "Bay… come on Bay, wake up!" She tries again, one of her eyes cooperating a lot better than the other, her mind still deeply in that sleepy nowhere that is deep deep rest, and she wants to whimper, ask for 5 more minutes but her throat feels bizarre, kind of full of… plastic? This odd feeling, like pressure inside her throat, wakes her up a little more, she starts to gag and to thrash, which makes her realize that one of her hands is tied down by something. Desperation crawls up her body like ants and she starts to feel pain along with this horribly panicky feeling, unable to move, unable to scream and yet full of fear, then a hand holds down her arm and calmly says "It is ok, Bay, calm down. Your mom is here, look! We will get that tube out of your throat in a minute, but you need to calm down or you will hurt yourself." The woman who is speaking is very large in a soft, grandmotherly way and is wearing enormous white scrubs, she can see her mom standing behind her, her eyes watery, kind of half reaching out towards her. White scrubs, a tube in her throat, her foggy mind starts connecting the dots and then they rush back, the memories. She went for a drive, to see her billboard and then just to clear her head, she was in that big crossing 7 miles away from home, the light was green for her. She is absolutely certain of that. Then that car came out of nowhere and the world went upside down.

"You were in an accident, Bay, but you will be fine. A doctor is on his way to take the tube out of your throat" the big nurse warmly says and then moves aside to let her mother come closer. "Oh baby, baby, baby, I am here. Don't worry, I am right here!" she keeps saying and big tears roll off her cheeks as she takes her hand. As her mother comes closer she sees Regina standing against the door of the room. Both her mothers are here for her she thinks and she closes her eyes again.

The doctor comes, talks to her, explains what happened, takes the tube out of her throat (which makes her cough and dry heave). He says a lot of medical terms, which mean that she was really lucky, she could have easily died, but she didn't. Her ribs are broken, not all of them but a few, her head is concussed and that explains why the room spins a lot when they lift her bed up a few degrees, so that she can sit somewhat up. They had to do surgery on her and she has like 12 million stitches in her side. Oh and also in her face, so chances are she looks like Frankenstein's (or Deafenstein's) monster. Her throat will hurt for a little while because of the tube that was in there, but honestly what doesn't hurt at this point? There is a tube with a bag coming out of her side (the stitched up side) to collect some kind of disgusting fluid, there is a plastic thing in her hand, giving her pain killers and some other stuff, there are tubes in her private bits even! Because she won't be able to go to the toilet for a while. And, because when the doctor told her all of this she got a little bit desperate and started to cry and choke a little bit and all of the machines around her went berserk, there is now also a tube in her face with little outlets in her nose, blowing oxygen into it. Life really sucks. Her mothers (plural) are there next to her, hold her hand, kiss her forehead, tell her how happy they are that she will be fine, absolutely fine. Yeah, she could have ended up dead or a vegetable, she guesses, but right now it is hard to feel happy. She doesn't badly hurt, but she feels like she would if there weren't like 3 tubes dedicated to pour medicines into her, it feels like when you know there is music playing somewhere close by but all you can feel is the drums sort of interfering with your heart beat, you know it is there but it isn't. It occurs to her that Daphne, and Emmett, might only hear music this way, and this leads her to wonder if they are here. She mouths "Daphne" in Regina's direction and she answers "They are all here, Daphne, Toby, your dad, desperate to see you." She smiles a little bit, nothing like near death experience to prove that you are appreciated after all. Loved.

Daphne and Toby are going together this time, all 3 parents and the one grandma have had some time with her and it was decided that the "siblings" should go and do the cheering up once they were done with the coddling. Bay looks just as awful as before she thinks, but she smiles at her, tries to look like seeing her sister like this is not upsetting at all. The tube in her throat is gone, but now there is one across her face, under her nose. She also looks somewhat greenish… that is in the spots where she is not bruised or scraped or covered by gauze. A cop is in the waiting room talking to the parents, the driver of the other car is not doing so great and his blood alcohol was way high. Her mother had looked pained at this, knowing very well that she used to drive drunk all the time, that she could have been the driver who didn't manage to press the brakes fast enough and nearly kill someone else's little girl. The doom-buggy did better than expected, the cop said, a smaller car could have been a total death trap under the same circumstances. It makes her feel sick to her stomach to think this. They were talking about suing and insurance when Daphne and Toby set off.

Toby is the perfect brother when it comes to tense situation she realizes as he sits down next to Bay on her bed and makes her laugh out loud within seconds with some joke she doesn't catch because his back is turned to her. "How are you feeling?" she finally manages to say and Bay half-grins (which is more like a grimace with her face so bruised and swollen) and replies quite cheerfully, using her free hand to sign along "as if a car had crashed into mine!" Daphne laughs out loud, and gives her leg, the body part closest to her, a little squeeze. They spend a good 20 minutes kidding around, Toby has a joke at hand every 15 seconds and although Bay complains that laughing hurts her, she doesn't really ask him to stop. Before leaving Toby leans down and whispers "you scared the shit out of me, sis. Don't ever do that again." and Bay's eyes fill with tears for a moment, then she smiles at him and makes a cross over her heart. "Promise". Daphne doesn't know how to go about hugging her, so she does the awkward old lady hand squeeze and they promise to be back tomorrow morning (it is after all 3 am and they are beyond tired). At the door Daphne turns around and goes back. "Emmett is in the waiting room. He was here the whole time… he was very worried. Do I send him in?" Bay's eye (the one that is not swollen shut) widens for a second and then she nods, understanding the words Daphne is not saying. "Thank you".

His mother left once the parents came back reporting that she was ok and awake, still somewhat groggy, but pretty much herself and not in pain. She had asked him if he wanted to come along, but he had shaken his head and she had accepted it, kissed his cheek and left. Now he is sitting here, in his little corner, every now and then Regina will come and put a hand on his shoulder, Adriana gave him a hug out of nowhere and even Mr. K gave him a manly pat on the back, that kind of hurt a little bit, but nobody asks him to leave, to respect their privacy. He is not sure any of them knows he was dating Bay or if they think he is just the most concerned friend of all times (or possibly somewhat creepy, what with the little cry fest he had in his corner). Daphne and Toby have gone to see her, the two people at a time rule sucks, and a police man is talking animatedly to the adults; so he just sits here and feels tired, exhausted even, but absolutely sure that he cannot go home and sleep, not with her there, possibly not even knowing that he is here.

Daphne comes back and signs for him to go. "She wants to see you". Nobody makes any move to stop him, so he swiftly walks over to Daphne, hugs her tightly and then leaves the waiting room, slowing down as he approaches the door of her room. She is sitting reclined in her bed, looking a lot better than before he thinks, if only because she is smiling at him and not looking 5 inches from death. "Hey, you" she says and he grins, takes two steps and sits down on the bed, careful not to sit on any tube or cable. He doesn't know what to say and so he just takes her hand and grins again. She takes her hand from him and signs "you came to see me." When she touches her face to sign "see" she kind of flinches and he involuntarily flinches along. "Don't sign. It is ok. Of course I came. I was so worried, they wouldn't tell us what was going on. I didn't know if you would… live." he signs and makes sure to mouth extra carefully, the last few words difficult to get out as he fights the lump the tension and tiredness created in his throat. He won't cry again, not in front of her, he tells himself and tries hard to swallow the lump. She looks at him, tenderly, then cups his cheek with her one good hand. "If I could sit up without risking my wounds to open again, I would kiss you." she says, fast enough so that he would not necessarily catch it all, but he does. And he bends down and kisses her awkwardly, the plastic tube on her face in the way, afraid that if he puts any kind of pressure on her bruised, swollen, stitched up face, she will be in pain. Their lips barely brush against each other and she pouts a little bit when he moves away. "That was not worth losing my spleen for!". He rolls his eyes and gives a huge grin as he throws his hands into the air.

Her parents have been in and out of the room 20 thousand times and have finally left, assured by her that she will be fine for a couple of hours while they catch up on some sleep and shower. The nurse also told them that she would be fine and probably asleep within 15 seconds. Plus she would be moved out of intensive care to a regular OR recovery room in just a few hours. Emmett however refused to leave, said he would be fine not sleeping for one night. Her parents looked unsure about this as well, but honestly, if there was ever a situation in which a boy staying the night with her would lead to nothing, it was tonight. And her mother saw how Emmett held her hand, how he lifted the cup of water to her lips so that she could suck a tiny bit of water through the straw and she understood that she was in good hands. Bay could not stay awake for another second once her parents, siblings and grandmother left, and she just kind of passed out.

Pain in her side and a wave of nausea wakes her up and she has to breath sharply to control it, she presses the help button and the big nurse is back, injects something into her tube collection and she feels her body relax almost immediately. Once she can breathe calmly again she looks around for Emmett and spots him closer than she realized when she was fighting not to throw up in pain. He has fallen asleep on the bedside chair, his arms crossed on the side of her bed, his head resting on them. She lifts her right hand and carefully strokes his hair, trying to be gentle enough not to wake him. Her whole body feels numbed by the new pain killer, as if there was bubble wrap all the way around her, protecting her from her own pain. Even her mind feels bubble wrapped, her thoughts starting to get less sharp as the full effect unfolds and she is about to fall asleep. One thought though is clear as day. She is falling, plummeting even, in love with this boy.