Playing The Game

Playing The Game - Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Sitting in my car on the side of the road, head on the steering wheel, I was surprised no one had called the police to report a dead body yet. I’d been sitting in the exact same spot, in the exact same position, for an hour.

I had started driving to my house, but changed course when I remembered that my mum would be home all day today. My next destination had been Allie’s house, but I realised that I couldn’t go there in the state I was in.

So I’d just driven around town, eventually going outside of town and ended up in the middle of nowhere. With no petrol. Yes, I had run out of petrol. How pathetic.

Barely any cars had passed this way (I must’ve driven pretty damn far out of town. I hadn’t really been watching where I was going), and the few that had I didn’t bother to flag down for help.

And now here I was, doing nothing, not bothering to even try to think of anything I could do to get out of this situation.

My phone was blowing up with texts and calls from my mum and Allie and Mandy and Rhys. I knew they’d all be worried, but I didn’t really have the energy to care at this point in time. Nothing from Joel, though. But I wasn’t surprised. As if he would care. He was the reason I was stuck out there. Well, that and the fact that I’d forgotten to fill my car up with petrol.

Oddly enough, I didn’t hear anything from Mason. We were really good friends now, though we didn’t see a lot of each other, what with his career and him being with Mandy and all, but we still talked a lot, and it wasn’t like him not to call when something was wrong.

But I didn’t really think too much into it.

I sat there for at least another hour before I decided that I couldn’t sit there forever and I had to do something, so I grabbed my phone, even though I probably wouldn't have any reception out there. I started to type in my mum’s phone number, but before I could get in the last two digits, I heard an almighty crash. I felt the impact of the car before I saw it, but I managed to catch a glimpse of it just as my head smacked against the window and I blacked out.

I guess I saw it just a bit too late.

* * *

As I slowly came to, pain shot through me and I winced.

What the hell? What happened to me? Why do I hurt so much?

I tried lifting my eyelids, but they were so heavy, and I was soon exhausted. Wiggling my fingers, I found that it didn’t hurt to move them, but when I attempted to move my whole hand a sharp pain spiked in my wrist. I gasped and my eyes shot open. A bright light blinded me. I blinked and tried sitting up, but my head began to throb, and I felt a hand push me back down.

The person called out “Nurse!” and I recognised the voice, but I was too dazed to remember who it belonged to.

I obeyed the hand and lay back down, closing my eyes again.

“Rubi? Rubi!” the voice cried.

I strained to reopen my eyes, and this time I managed to look at the person who had spoken. Allie. I looked behind her and saw my mum, Rhys and Joel.

The first thing I noticed, after taking a good look around the room, was that I was in a very unfamiliar room. It wasn’t mine, and it didn’t belong to anyone that I knew.

The second thing that I noticed was the cast on my left wrist. I could also feel bandages wrapped around my torso and head.

The third thing was that Mandy and Mason weren’t here with me. My other friends looked down at me with concerned faces, but those two were absent.