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Cosima woke slowly, unsure of her surroundings. The only things she was aware of was the rough gravel and dirt beneath her, the tall grass around her, and that the sky had changed considerably. It wasn't dark yet, but it would be soon. The next thing she became aware of was the pain. She was in excruciating, unbelievable, near blinding pain through her entire body, but it seemed especially concentrated in her left arm and temple. She threw a nervous look down at the arm and groaned when she saw the jagged rut near her elbow. It was broken.
Trying her best to stay still, Cosima looked around for her board and spotted it a couple feet away. Slowly, so, so slowly, she sat up. The slight motion sent her head swimming, but she powered through it. She leaned forward and grabbed her board with her good hand. She turned the board long-ways and used it as a crutch to help herself stand up.
The pain in her temple intensified once she was standing. She swayed a little, but was thankful that her helmet had taken the brunt of the impact. She'd have probably died if she hadn't been wearing it.
Once she was a little steadier on her feet, Cosima used her good arm to reach into her thigh guards and pull out her cellphone. Cosima stared in awe at its shattered screen. She couldn't believe it. The impact had broken her phone. She was going to kill Rudy. Rudy. She thought. Rudy had done this to her, Cosima remembered. He had pushed her off the road.
Cosima, still very disoriented, was certain of one thing: she needed to get to a hospital. She took a tentative, shaky step onto the road and immediately found herself in front of a set of headlights.
For a moment, Delphine had thought it was a hallucination. The road was too isolated for there to actually be a person standing in the middle of it. She came to her senses just in time and slammed on her brakes, finally coming to a stop about a foot in front of the pedestrian.
Delphine let out a hoarse, terrified scream, clutching the wheel with white knuckles. I almost hit a person. I almost killed a person with my car. She appraised who she nearly ran down.
It was a woman. She was wearing a safety helmet and other protective gear. She braced the hood of Delphine's car with one of her hands, the other hung limply by her side. She was staring at Delphine through the windshield, a stunned smile on her face. The two women made eye contact for a second before Delphine realized that something about the woman was off.
Delphine lunged out of her car and towards the front of her vehicle. The first thing she noticed was the longboard on the ground next to her, she picked it up and stood by the woman, who turned to her, still wearing that dazed smirk, and let out a quiet, "Dude," before she turned back towards the car and threw up on its hood. Delphine let out another shocked scream before she grabbed the woman, who was swaying now, and led her to her car,
"What is your name? What happened?" She asked frantically. The woman was mumbling something, Delphine leaned in close,
"Sarah…" the woman murmured. Delphine opened the passenger door,
"Sarah? Your name is Sarah?" She asked. The woman shook her head,
"Call Sarah," she said, mumbling some more. Delphine strained to understand her, and eventually realized that the woman was listing numbers. A telephone number. Delphine threw the longboard into her backseat and sat the woman in the passenger seat. She took out her cellphone and opened it to the keypad,
"I need you to say that again, please," she asked the near unconscious woman. Her new passenger luckily understood and repeated the numbers, this time slow enough so Delphine could enter them into her phone and dial.
Delphine put her phone to her ear before she buckled the woman in and closed the door. The phone rang four times before a harsh "Hello?" came through the phone line. The woman on the other end was British. Delphine got into the driver's seat and started the car,
"Is this Sarah?" She asked.
"Who's this?" Sarah inquired, her tone suspicious.
"My name is Delphine, I found a woman in the road. She told me to call you" Delphine explained. She could hear Sarah silencing people in the background,
"Cosima? You found Cosima?" Her tone was frantic. Delphine looked to the dazed woman in her passenger seat,
"She has glasses and dreadlocks. I found her with a longboard. Is that her?" Delphine asked.
"Yeah, that's her," Sarah sounded relieved, "is she hurt?" she asked, sounding tense again. Delphine appraised Cosima. The name suits her. She had some scrapes where her pads didn't cover her, and the grisly angle of her arm was not lost on Delphine,
"Her arm is broken and she definitely has a concussion, but that's all I can see. She might have other injuries," Delphine described, "I'm taking her to the Regional Hospital, we should be there in about twenty minutes," she expanded. She could hear Sarah speaking to others in the background, but couldn't make out what she was saying. Finally, Sarah returned to the line,
"Put Cosima on," she instructed. Delphine looked to the woman, she was sitting in the passenger seat, staring out the window with a murky expression,
"Quoi?"
"You heard me. Put Cosima on the phone," Sarah ordered. Delphine pulled the phone away from her ear and nudged Cosima with it,
"Cosima," at this, the woman looked to Delphine and gave her another woozy smile, "Cosima, Sarah wants to talk to you," she explained. Cosima took the phone with a shaky hand and brought it up to her ear. Delphine kept her eyes on the road and didn't even try to not eavesdrop on the girl's conversation,
"Hey Sarah, how's it going?" Cosima asked, far too casual for the situation. It's probably the concussion. Delphine couldn't hear what Sarah was saying on the other end, and had to fill in the blanks with Cosima's responses, "Nah, I'm good. I feel fine, just a little banged up." Delphine shook her head at the woman's sugarcoating, "Well, me n' Rudy were racing, and I look over and he's like right next to me," Cosima continued as enthusiastically as she could in her current state, "and then he sticks his arm out and WHAM! I fly off the road, hit my head on something super hard and pass out for a while, no big deal," Cosima pauses as Sarah says something loud enough that Delphine can hear her voice, "and yeah, I come to a few hours later and this super nice lady picks me up and puts me in her car," Cosima finished. She looked over to Delphine in the driver's seat before whispering into the phone, "She's cute, too. Like, hella cute. I can't wait for you to see her," she said louder than she probably thought she did. Delphine blushed a little and focused more on the road. After a few more seconds Cosima held the phone out for Delphine to take. Delphine took the phone to her ear and was greeted by Sarah's gravelly voice,
"Alright, we'll see you at the hospital," Delphine didn't know who Sarah was referring to by 'we', but she assumed it was the people in the background that the woman had been shushing the whole time. Delphine didn't have time to respond before Sarah hung up, leaving Delphine in silence.
She looked over to Cosima and found her dozing off. Delphine nudged the girl on the shoulder to wake her. Cosima looked at her with foggy eyes. The look Cosima gave her sent a wave of something through her body. Sympathy? Affection? Delphine didn't have time to sort it out,
"You can't fall asleep. You might have a concussion," she explained to the injured girl. Cosima nodded in understanding before closing her eyes. Delphine nudged her again and reminded her once more of her concussion. Cosima nodded again, but still tried to fall back asleep. Delphine sighed as she realized that the words weren't getting to Cosima, and she continued to try to keep the woman conscious the entire way to the hospital.