[COMPLETE]
When Hanna Haddad embarks on what's supposed to be another uneventful summer as a lifeguard on Cape Cod, a trip to the past comes as an unnerving surprise. The discovery of her estranged mother's journal opens up the world of tragedy and...
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I came to after what felt like hours. In reality, only a few seconds had passed, but the sight in front of me threatened to make me slip away again.
Colin slumped against the steering wheel unresponsive, one cheek caked in red. I checked around him for possible injuries, gasping when I saw his left arm, bloody and obviously broken. The shards of glass sticking out only made my head spin more—or maybe one was a piece of bone. Hand nearly vibrating, I reached for his neck and tried to feel a pulse. It was faint but there, working to keep him alive.
I staggered out of the car, feeling like I could barely breathe. When I inhaled and exhaled, I realized it wasn't from anxiety or pure shell shock. My chest and ribs had taken a beating from the dashboard, but when I palpated the area, nothing felt broken. I didn't have time to think about what kind of internal damage I might have sustained, fishing for my cracked phone on the dashboard and dialing 911.
I investigated the area as I waited for the paramedics, noticing the car had vanished. It must have zoomed away when I'd been out of it, escaping with less damage than it had inflicted. Was it just a mirage? Surely, the bloody and broken version of Colin in front of me wasn't a result of one, I reasoned, but everything still felt dreamlike.
I stayed by his side until the ambulance made an appearance, afraid to touch him in case I made any of his injuries worse. Tears welled up in my eyes as the worst-case scenario ran through my mind: attending his funeral.
No, you can't think about that, I recited as I paced the area outside the damaged car. There was no way that the fun-loving, intelligent individual with whom I'd spent the whole evening could be gone in an instant. I won't allow it, I thought, even though I knew I had no power over the outcome.
Everything felt like a blur when EMS entered the picture. A simple assessment from a kind-eyed male paramedic had confirmed nothing much had happened on the outside, although the inside may have been a different story. I zoned out as he spoke of internal hemorrhaging and the deception of adrenaline, eyes glued to Colin, sobbing as they pried him out of the car and transferred him onto a stretcher. He was slipping in and out of consciousness, but the firm grip on my hand reminded me he was alive.
"I'm sorry, but you can't ride in the back with him." A female paramedic held up a palm as they loaded him into the car, and I broke down more.
A police officer, who had been lost in a sea of medics, stepped front of me. "Ma'am are you sure you want to refuse medical treatment? Even if you're not experiencing any symptoms, not going to the hospital may complicate the story with insurance." I stuttered out an answer, telling him I would head to the ER after our conversation. I needed some clarity on what had happened in the first place, barely able to process a fraction of it. "If not, I need to ask a few questions to file a report. Can you describe to me how this accident occurred? Do you remember the vehicle that struck yours?"
I nodded, trying my best to picture it. "It was a white sedan. Maybe a Toyota or Hyundai? Everything happened so quickly, and before I knew it was gone." He nodded, writing some notes. "We'd been driving for so long with no one on the roads, and some twenty minutes in, the car came barreling towards us the wrong way."
