I'm So Vain

23

I turned the radio on in the car as I pulled out of our neighborhood. The signal was weak so I turned it off as I put on my turn signal. The hospital was about a half an hour away, and by now I knew the way by heart. I took a left at Lakeshore and began chewing on my lip and tapping my index finger on the steering wheel. My heart was beating a million miles an hour as I changed lanes, and I let out a slow breath. I asked myself that same question again: Why was I doing this? But I knew the answer. It was all because of Penny. My relationship with her...it was like an obsession. She moved, I moved. She liked my shirt– I worked it into eight instead of two outfits. She didn't like my nose, and there I was...driving to the hospital. I took another left, then, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a hithchhiker on the side of the road. I turned my head to catch a second glance at her bright pink hair. 

They say that the reason drunk people often get the least of the injuries in car accidents is that they're oblivious to what's going on around them. The people they crash into, on the other hand, see what's coming for them. They tense up, bracing themselves, and they receive the worst of the damage.

I turned and saw it in my rear view. It was a big car, a suburban of some kind. It was white and the driver was a middle-aged woman with dark skin and dark blonde hair. It was one second and then it was gone, and in that second I realized that in my nervousness about my upcoming surgery, I'd forgotten to put on my seatbelt. After that everything I saw was a flash and everything I heard was loud and everything I felt was excruciating. Then I hit something, hard, and everything disappeared; everything was black.

I didn't have any moment of confusion when I woke up: I knew exactly where I was. I was in a hospital. But for a split second, I thought I had just woken from my post-operation anesthesia nap. Then I felt the impact of my body hitting the ground, and as I took a hurried, jagged breath in, my hand flew up to my nose. But the hand that flew up was hooked up to my IV, and my mom, who was sitting next to me, pressed my hand back down quickly. "You're up," she said to me with a sad smile. I tried to pull myself into a sitting position, and then quickly bit down on my lip to prevent the scream that flew up my throat as pain filled my body. My mom gripped my arm, apparently a part of me that was mostly unharmed, and I let my body go limp on the bed. "Do you know what day it is?" she asked, her eyebrows furrowed with concern. I started to nod but then thought better of it, and answered, "Friday. Surgery day." She looked at my hand, which I now noticed had a brace on the middle finger. "What happened," I asked stiffly, my eyes on the ceiling as I traced a crack to the wall. "You were hit from behind," my mom explained, "you broke your ribs against the steering wheel, and a few fingers. Since your car is old and doesn't have air bags, you were thrown from the front window. You slid on the gravel, so you didn't get any brain damage that the doctors can see, but your..." she paused, looked away from me, to the anesthesia bag hanging by my bed. She cleared her throat and continued, "Your face grazed the asphalt pretty badly. You had to get...quite a few stitches. And, um, some other...things." I didn't even think about what she had just told me, but instead asked, "Is that it, then? Just my ribs and my face?" 

"Your wrist is broken, too," she said, "but not shattered. Your legs are mostly fine, though of course they'll be soar for a while." 

"Princess is up?" my father's voice asked, and he walked in and smiled at me. "Hi, baby." 

"Hi, dad."

"You Ok?"

"You tell me." He nodded. "I'll go get the doctor," he said, and my mom smiled at him and squeezed my uninjured fingers. My eyes fell on her purse, and then the compact mirror inside. I thought about asking her to let me see it, but instead closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths through my nose as  I waited for the doctor.