Silence

Two

The usual commotion of an ambulance started in the back-the man hopped out, closed the doors, and started driving while the sirens began to blare again; the woman frantically hooked up the guy to monitors and an oxygen machine and often conversed with people through her radio; I sat awkwardly and sympathetically looking at the guy; and the guy gazed at me through sagging eyelids. He can't die, I thought. He probably has a school to go to, just like you. And friends to be with, and siblings to annoy, and parents to take care of him. Parents... I then proceeded to take out my phone and text my mom the following with shaking fingers:
Will be gone a while-found kid in bad bicycle accident and called an ambulance. I went with him because there was no one else around, and he can't speak well. I'm fine. Will explain rest later.
After I sent it, I put my phone in my bag once more and began to feel the adrenaline wear off. Panic filled me and I felt like I wanted to cry because I felt so bad for him. If only I had found him sooner...
No, that was pointless. I couldn't focus on what I should've done. I've learned with regrets that if you focus on the past too long, you'll just miss the present and spend your life regretting instead of doing.
"Miss, what all do you know? Can you tell me anything?" the woman asked.
"Well, he was in a bike accident, obviously. I didn't take off his helmet to keep the pressure there, by the way. I found him under a thin layer of leaves under a tree, so he hadn't moved since he crashed, and he couldn't have been there for more than twenty minutes because I had just walked by that park twenty minutes before on my way to the library. The bike wasn't on top of him, and he obviously wouldn't have had the strength to push it off of himself if he couldn't even move, so he either flew off from the side or the front, but my guess is he was going too fast down that hill and flew over the handlebars and into the tree. He was probably able to flip himself onto his back and rest his head on the tree to elevate it and help the bleeding, but that was with adrenaline, so he probably used all his will doing that. Besides that, I don't know much else," I said. She stared at me with her mouth open for a split second before returning to packing his head under his helmet with gauze.
"Thanks, that helps a lot, actually."
The next seven minutes on the way to the nearest hospital were pretty much the same thing-tending to him, talking on the radio, and awkwardly sitting. When we finally arrived, they whisked him away and bustled me into the waiting room, which was filled with sick, injured, and crying people. I decided then was a good time to call my parents and let them know what exactly had happened. I fished my phone out of my bag again, and dialed my mom.. She picked up after one ring.
"Honey? Are you alright? I got your text." Her voice was panicked, and I could almost see her and my father tensed up in the kitchen waiting for my call.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm perfectly fine, there's nothing wrong with me," I said clearly.
"Oh good, good. Your father and I got your text so we figured we didn't need to drive up to the hospital. I mean, unless you need us there for any reason."
"No, not until I have to leave."
"Alright. What happened anyway?" Oh boy, how did I explain this exactly?
"Well, I think this guy was going down that big hill-you know, the one on Oak Street that's on the way home from the library- and he lost control, hit something, and flew over his handle bars and slammed his head into a tree. His helmet was beat up, and he had blood coming from under it, but I didn't take it off because I figured it was best to keep the pressure there."
"Well, it's a good thing you did leave it on, especially if he was bleeding. Keeps the swelling down," my mom said. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention she's a nurse. "So how did you get involved in this exactly?
"I found him and called an ambulance. They needed to know what happened before they got there, I'm the only one who can talk. He can only sot of whisper, and even when he does it's very hard to understand because it's very wheezy and he has to take a breath every two words," I explained, trying to not imagine what was going on right now.
"That doesn't sound good," my mother said.
"No, it doesn't," I admitted.
"Well, did you recognize who he was?"
"Mom, there was so much blood on his face and he was in so much pain I couldn't see who it was."
"Alright. Keep us posted, okay?"
"Will do."
"We love you."
"Love you guys, too." I hung up the phone, and took some time to appreciate everything for a moment. Just the mere fact that I was even alive was a miracle then, and in a way, it was. Life is a miracle in itself, and to be alive is an even greater one. The fact that you can be born as literally any living thing in any part of the world made me really appreciate the fact that I was a human being in America where I had the freedom to be Christian like I was and go to school like I did and wear the band shirt I was wearing, and not a shrimp in someone's cocktail right now or something. That's a beautiful miracle itself. Even if I didn't have as much money as I wanted and I didn't have everything I'd ever wanted and I'd never been the lucky one to win any contest or the lottery or anything like that, I was still so thankful for everything I did have, even if I didn't appreciate it to its full extent sometimes or hated it in its entirety. The world was just a beautiful miracle for me at that moment, and I silently prayed that there would be one more miracle on that planet-that the man would live.
I wasn't leaving the hospital until I knew that he was in a stable condition because knowing myself, I would've spent the rest of my life wondering about the man I'd found. Did he live? What was wrong with him? Was there anything else I could've done? So I sat in the waiting room, by myself, and waited for news. It dawned on me then that I had left my books on the curb. I hoped someone had taken them back to the library. I decided I was going to go to the library and apologize tomorrow and pay for any damages. I'd never ruined a library book. I was always very careful with them because they were works of art. Some art doesn't require a canvas and a brush; some art requires black ink on a white sheet of paper string together to form art that you imagine in your mind, and everyone's perception of this art is different, and that was why I liked reading, I had decided. I sat there and pondered several other things, keeping my mind off of the worst case scenarios of his crash, and watched the people come and go. It's amazing how invisible someone who sees everything is. I just sat there in the same chair for hours, sipping my now cold coffee, eating my spare granola bars I kept in my bag, pondering various thoughts and reading various things on my phone and the magazines they had in the waiting room,  and I watched as the people went about their business without so much as glancing at me. But I saw them. I saw the little girl with her mother and father crying and holding her arm who walked out later that day with her arm in a splint. I saw the teenage girl (slightly younger than me) with her bleached blonde hair and her overly made up face roll her eyes and sit on her phone as her mother walked and bounced her extremely ill baby brother. They never saw me, but I saw them, and that's why I believed I spotted that guy when no one else did; no one ever sees me or looks for me, so I look for the people who are overlooked, like me.
Four hours passed before a doctor came out and talked to me.
"Hi, miss, Angel and Michael-they were the EMTs-told me you were the girl who found my bike accident patient?" she asked. I stood, then nodded, nerves building up in my stomach with every passing second.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Doctor Pallor," she said with a handshake.
"I'm Laina, nice to meet you, too," I said, shaking her hand.
"Well, Laina, it's a very good thing you found him when you did. He must've jammed one of the handlebars into his ribcage when he crashed because he broke his rib and it punctured his left lung. He was bleeding and had a collapsed lung, which explains why he was having so much trouble talking. We drained the blood from his lung and he has a tube in right now to keep it that way. He also had a slight gash on his forehead, so he has two stitches there, but it's nothing bad, there; no fracture in the skull, neck, or spine. He's in a stable condition and expected to make a full recovery. He's asleep right now, but he'll be awake in the morning if you'd like to come back and see him then. We don't usually let anyone but the family in the ICU, but you're all he's got." I was so relieved to hear he was okay, but her last sentence startled me. You're all he's got. What did she mean by that?
"Uh, doctor, what do you mean I'm all he's got?"
"Well, since he can't really talk and no family's been in to see if he's here yet, you're the only person he knows, and you seem to calm him down. Did you know him or something?"
"I-I don't know, I couldn't tell by the way he was beat up earlier..."
"Alright, well, go home and get some rest; you can come back to see him in the morning, okay?"
"Yeah, sounds good. Thank you for saving him."
"Hey, I just doing my job. You're the one who saved him here, Laina." She left with a smile back into the other part of the hospital. I them called my parents and asked them to pick me up, and explained to them what had happened to him.
"Wow, he was so lucky you were there, sweetie," my mom said. "And we're so lucky it wasn't you."
"Yeah, I know..."
"Well, we'll see you in a bit, okay?"
"Okay."
"Love you."
"Love you, too."
And then I waited to see my mother and father's white car pull up in the parking lot of the hospital, the thought of Doctor Pallor's words still on my mind.
You're all he's got.