Boom goes the car!

This is the story I made up on my drive home from fair last night.

She was driving home after a long day of fair. She wasn’t prepared for the deer to run right into the front of her car. It wasn’t there one second and then it was, just like deer tend to do. It hit the front of her car and then flipped up. It’s head stayed logged in her car by the lights, while it’s body came up and landed hard on her windshield. It didn’t stay logged there very long as she was moving down the highway. The blow didn’t even seem to kill it! It was thrashing about on her car and then it got itself unlogged somehow and landed on the road. Not losing her cool about being in a crash, and knowing her now stalled car wouldn’t be starting again anytime soon, Jade quickly steered it to the side of the road before the momentum of driving at 65 miles per hour came to a stop. Then she just sat in the car for a minute, trying to think.

The deer she could see in her rearview mirror. It was in the middle of the road thrashing about as car after car slowed down to drive past it. Jade wished she should put on her blinkers to warn people from farther away to be careful, but her car was dead. In fact, as she looked at the front of her car, she noticed it was smoking. Then she noticed the windshield. Jade couldn’t believe that she hadn’t noticed the windshield before. There were only bits and pieces of it left, the deer had broken it, the glass scattering everywhere. As Jade looked at the glass, she realized something. There was no way that she hadn’t gotten injured in this accident, and yet she didn’t feel hurt at all.

Bringing her arms up, she looked at them closely. They were all cut up and bleeding. It didn’t look too bad. The glasses that she wore she noticed were very scratched looking. With one of her bleeding arms, she pulled down the visor to look at her face. It was also all scratched up and cuts dotted it everywhere. It was almost unnoticeable as she looked over her face because of the angle of the mirror, but not quite. Jade saw the blood coming out of her neck, and a huge piece of the windshield still protruding from her neck. Taking a sharp breath, she didn’t touch it. She knew better than to mess with it, but she needed help. That was sure, she couldn’t take care of that on her own.

What was she supposed to do in this situation? Obviously she had to call the police, and she would need a ride home, but which was she supposed to call first. Her mom was a nurse, so she could tell her what to do about her neck, but then her mom would be all worried about her. Her neck didn’t appear that badly. Then again, why would her mother be worried about her? It wasn’t like her mom actually cared about her after what happened the day before.  Making up her mind, Jade just called them in numerical order. Her mother’s phone number of course was last because it was the one with the most numbers. Her eyes stayed focused on her neck as she waited patiently for an answer.

“Hello,” Jade immediately said when someone picked up on the other end. “I was just in a car crash with a deer. Just me and the deer mind you, no other cars were involved other than mine.  My car is dead, I don’t think I will be able to get it fixed easily with all the damage done to it.”

“Ma’am where are you?” the operator interrupted Jade quickly.

“Oh I’m between the race track and the dump on highway 461.” Jade stated. “So I know that you probably want to know all that’s going down here. Let me just get on that. I wouldn’t have called quite so quickly, I probably would’ve waited until I checked on the deer, maybe tried to get it out of the middle of the road, but I am injured and I don’t feel it. I mean, I can see my injuries and know that I should be feeling them. I can move my arms, and my legs, which I suppose is a good thing. There is glass everywhere because my windshield broke under the force of the deer’s body slamming into it. I didn’t think anything could break the windshield of a car. I mean they are so strong. Oh and my engine is smoking. I can see it through the nonexistent window, though it is hard to see because of my glasses. My glasses got all scratched up in the crash.”

“Ma’am,” the operator interrupted again, “help is on the way, what I need to know right now is are you still in the car?”

“Yes, of course I am. I don’t want to move too much in case I injure myself some more. I mean I won’t be able to tell if I hurt myself anymore because I can’t feel any of the pain,” Jade started again. She was surprising herself with her need to talk. Normally Jade was just one of those people that sat around letting others talk for her because she was socially awkward. This time though, she felt like she should be talking. She didn’t want to stop talking.

“What’s your name? and you need to get out of the car and walk back to where the deer is. It’s okay, you won’t get injured anymore than you already are. Just carefully unbuckle yourself and get out.”

“My name is Jade Merco,” Jade replied. “Are you sure you want me to get out of the car? It is probably dangerous for me to go check on the deer.”

“Jade I need you to get as far away from the car as possible right now. If your car is smoking like you say it is, it could quite possibly exploded. We don’t want you near it if that happens, so just go back toward the deer.”

“Okay,” Jade replied. She did as the operator said, with a pause in her talking while she followed orders. As she walked away from the car, she could feel herself dragging forward, like it was hard to walk. She couldn’t figure out why she felt so sluggish though. “Wow this is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I mean, sure I am really tired after a hard days work, but I didn’t realize I was this tired. OH! I hear the sirens.”

“Alright, I’m going to hang up now then, I have to take other calls for people too. I hope that you are all right Jade. Let the officers help you as much as they can.”

“I can’t believe they got here so fast. They must not have been very far away,” Jade kept talking into her phone as the line went dead. The sirens weren’t from a police car as she had originally thought it would be from, but instead it was from an ambulance. The ambulance pulled itself between her and the car and then the EMTs came hopping out and hurried over to her. Jade kept walking towards the struggling deer though. It was like she didn’t completely notice the EMT’s were there as she walked.

“Jade Merco,” she heard her name being spoken as a hand wrapped itself around her wrist. Jade looked warily over at the EMT, before trying to pull away.

“I called the police, not the EMT’s,” Jade stated and tried to keep walking towards the deer. “I have to listen to the operator. I was told to go check on the deer.”

“The deer can wait for the police to show up. We need to get you some help first Jade,” one of the EMT’s stated, not letting Jade walk on.

“I have to check on the deer for the operator!” Jade raised her voice slightly. Another EMT came into her vision as she glared at the first.

“How about you come with me back to the ambulance and Terri goes and checks on your deer?” the EMT suggested quietly. Jade just stared blankly at him for a second and then panic hit her.

“Oh my god, I’m going to have to get in the ambulance aren’t I? I can’t go anywhere in one of those. I can’t get in one,” Jade whispered quickly, shaking her head back and forth quickly. The EMT named Terri grabbed a hold of her face and held her head still.

“You don’t have to get in it right now. We need you closer to the ambulance though for us to check you over and patch you up. Just go with Lucian and he will patch you up bright as new. How about you call someone close by to come hang out with you while you get patched up,” Terri quickly advocated. Jade nodded in agreement and started to dial a number without thinking much about it.

“Hello Galena!” Jade greeted when one of her best friends from the race track answered her call. She didn’t actually want to talk to Galena, but she wanted to talk to someone else that she had left at the race track. She didn’t have his number though, so she was hoping that Galena could help her out. It wasn’t that she was avoiding talking to Galena or anything; she just didn’t want Galena to see her like this. Galena was really not good in situations like these, so it was better to just tell her once Jade was all cleaned up and all better. “Galena, before you ask why I am calling, I was just wondering if Zakiya was around still. I need to talk to him.”

“Sure, he actually just came back here looking for you. He wanted to see if you wanted to go down to the race track with him to watch the rest of the races since his girlfriend ditched him.” Galena handed her cell phone over to Zakiya without further questions.

“Jade, why are you trying to get a hold of me?” he asked almost immediately. He was surprised that she had even wanted to talk to him in the first place after spending the day with his girlfriend and him. He had picked on her the whole day they had been hanging out to amuse his girlfriend.

“You can’t tell Galena why I called you,” Jade quickly stated. “I think she jinxed it. Right before I left she told me to drive safe and watch out for the deer. I swear the deer wasn’t there until suddenly it was breaking my car’s windshield. Anyway, the EMTs have decided that I need someone to hang out with me while I get patched up and I’m closer to the race track than I am to home. Do you want to hang out with me?” Jade asked.

“Um, sure I’ll go find him for you,” Zakiya replied instead of answering her question. “Let me just get your number from Galena and then I will go find him and have him call you.” Then he hung up on her. Jade just stared at her phone.

“Hey! Ouch!” she suddenly squeaked, turning her gaze to Lucian. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Sorry,” Lucian smiled. “I was told you couldn’t feel pain, but I guess you are coming out of your shock now. You are about to be in a lot of pain. Just so you know, we are going to have to take you to the hospital to get that glass out of your neck. We can’t do it ourselves.”

“I can’t go in an ambulance. I’ll just get myself there,” Jade quickly replied as her phone started to ring. She looked down and saw an unknown number trying to get a hold of her. To avoid talking to Lucian, she answered the phone call. “Hello?”

“Hey Jade, Zakiya told me that I had to call you. He wouldn’t leave me alone until I called you,” a familiar voice said from the other end of the line.

“Cruzito!” Jade greeted warmly. “Hi! I guess Zakiya is squeamish around blood. Cruzito you’re my new best friend right?”

“I suppose I am, why?” he asked, a smile twitching at his lips as she talked. Zakiya already told him that Jade had been in a car crash and needed someone to talk to while she was patched up, but he was curious on what she wanted form him still. She could have asked Galena for his number instead of going through Zakiya to get to him. Now that his suspicion of Zakiya not wanting to do whatever she had asked him had been confirmed, he wanted to know what had been asked of him.

“Well, the EMTs told me that someone should come hang out with me while they clean me up. Did Zakiya tell you that a deer ran into my car as I was driving home? I can still see it thrashing about. Though Terri, one of the EMTs, managed to drag it out of the middle of the road. I think Terri probably should have just left the deer alone. She could have gotten really hurt from it, but she moved it anyway. It doesn’t look like she got hurt either.”

“Jade,” Cruzito gently interrupted her. “I’ll come hang out with you on one condition.”

“Yay! What is it? I’ll do anything. Terri and Lucian are being really mean. Well Lucian is, Terri isn’t exactly over here yet. I’m sure once she gets over here she will be really mean to me as well. They won’t let me go talk to the police officer that has just arrived. I gave him permission to go through my car for my papers and license since I’m also not allowed to go near my car. I mean, it isn’t smoking anymore, why can’t I go near it?”

“Jade?” Cruzito interrupted again. “I can’t tell you my condition if you don’t let me talk.” He knew that she never talked this much, even though he had just met her this last week. He had spent part of the day in the concessions stand with her alone, and knew that she didn’t talk unless spoken to and even then it was hard to get her to talk.

“Oh right sorry, Lucian thinks I’m just talking because I’m in shock or something. So what is your condition?”

“My condition is, I need to know where you are,” Cruzito stated warmly.

“Oh yeah, forgot about that part. Okay, all you have to do is get on the highway and drive towards the dump. You know where the dump is right? You won’t be able to miss me. I’m sitting outside the ambulance on the bumper of it. They keep trying to get me to go in it, but I can’t go in one. That just isn’t right. Ambulances are for injured people, and I’m not injured. I just have some minor cuts and bruises.”

“Jade,” Cruzito interrupted her yet again. “Do you want me to stay on the phone with you while I drive or are you going to be good for a few minutes?” He would prefer not to be on the phone and driving, but he didn’t want to just hang up on Jade when she obviously was distressed.

                “I’ll be fine, but hurry because Lucian is making me drink blood bags because I’ve lost so much blood.” Jade replied. Lucian was giving her a glare when she was considering Cruzito’s offer and knew that Lucian would give her a hard time if she didn’t’ get off the phone soon. “I’ll see you in a bit!” Then she hung up on him, hoping that he actually was going to come.

 For the most part, Lucian had finished cleaning her up, other than the glass chunk in her neck that he refused to do anything about. He was dead set on taking her to the hospital for that one. She had also lost a lot of blood, so he didn’t want to let her go home without getting something in her. For some reason she was scared of getting in the ambulance. He didn’t want to force her in if someone was close by that might be able to talk her into getting in. He just hoped that this person would get here fast so that he could hook Jade up to a blood bag. If he wasn’t going to take her to the hospital for her neck, he would have given her something to eat, but he was taking her whether she liked it or not as soon as her friend showed up.

They sat there for about 10 minutes before a truck pulled up behind the dead deer.  That’s what Jade thought at least. The deer could very well have been alive still, it just wasn’t thrashing about anymore. Terri had long since left the deer and was in the ambulance doing something now. Jade figured that Terri was in there washing her hands after touching the deer, she didn’t know for sure though. When the truck stopped, Jade stood up wanting to go towards it. The truck looked a lot warmer than the cold summer air was and she was ready to go home.

Lucian held her back as Cruzito walked towards them however, not wanting Jade to do anything that could bump the glass farther into her neck. Jade just shot him a glare as she waited for Cruzito to reach them. She watched as he looked her over, his eyes staying on her neck on his approach.

“That doesn’t look like a little cut or bruise,” he told her with a frown. Jade just shrugged, not replying. “So you are done talking now that I’m here? Is that really how this is going to go down Jade? I thought we were better friends that than,” he fake pouted, his lips hinting at a smile.

“We only met this week,” Jade pointed out. “How can we be better friends than that. I will give you the benefit of the doubt on that one though, since we only met this week,” she finally replied, putting a bit of a flirt into her response.  “Can you do me a favor now that you are here?”

“What coming here wasn’t enough of a favor?” he teased, stopping half a car’s length from her.

“No it wasn’t,” Jade smiled. “My favor is that I need you to tell Lucian here that he can get this chunk of glass out of my neck just fine without needing to take me to the hospital.” A smile stayed trained on her face the whole time. She was starting to wish that she had some painkillers though. The pain of her injuries was slowly starting to wash over her and she was not enjoying it. She wasn’t going to let anyone know how much pain was starting to come though. Cruzito could tell though. He could see in her eyes the amount of pain that she was feeling as she tried to stay strong and not cry.

“If Lucian says you need to go to the hospital then you need to,” Cruzito replied easily, knowing that it was true. EMTs know best in situations like these, even if she wanted to deny it.

“No, no, no,” Jade shook her head rapidly, wincing slightly as she did so. Cruzito quickly placed his hands on either side of her face, forcing her to stop moving her head. “I can’t go in that thing. I can’t go in that thing,” she repeatedly stated, a fearful expression on her face.

“Nothing is going to happen to you in the ambulance. I’ll go with you okay?” Cruzito offered quietly when he had her full attention. “I promise you will be perfectly safe in the ambulance.”

“Why should I trust you? I only met you today!” Jade hissed at him, her panic still clearly visible. It had slightly lessened at the thought of someone that she somewhat knew being there if she was forced into the ambulance.

“You can trust me just like you trust Lucian to fix you all up,” Cruzito assured her. “I’m not going to hurt you or let the ambulance hurt you. So why don’t you get in while I go lock my truck up and we will be on our way?”

“Don’t forget to tell your girlfriend what you are doing then!” Jade called after him as he turned to walk back to his car. He flipped her off over his shoulder, knowing just as well as she did that his girlfriend was likely to skin him alive for ditching her to take Jade to the hospital. Lucian followed Cruzito to his truck while Terri ushered Jade into the ambulance. Jade put up a fight though and refused to get in still, so Terri decided to wait until Cruzito came back.

“She says she’s only known you for a day and yet she called you?” Lucian questions. Lucian and Cruzito actually knew each other, since Lucian used to go to Cruzito’s school. Even though Lucian was at least five years older than Cruzito, they still had been friends back in school and still were somewhat friends.

“Yeah we worked the concessions stand today at the race track together during the lunch rush before my girlfriend dragged me off to watch the races,” Cruzito smirked. “Mel was not pleased that I was working alone with Jade.”

“Well thanks for coming man, we don’t want to force her into the ambulance when she is flat out refusing, in case it injures her more, but she really does need to get to the hospital. She’s lost a lot of blood and we aren’t sure how far in the glass is and how much damage it has done. It’s better to take it out when we have all the equipment we could possibly need.”

“Aye captain,” Cruzito rolled his eyes. It totally wasn’t already obvious that he was needed here rather than having his girlfriend hanging on his arm. He locked his truck and grabbed his jacket from the passenger’s seat before they went back to the ambulance.

“She still won’t get in,” Terri informed them upon their return and Cruzito turned his gaze to Jade’s panicked face.

“Let’s go Jade, the sooner you get in the sooner you can get out,” Cruzito commanded gently, taking her hand and leading her towards the ambulance. Jade followed hesitantly, but let him take her to it. It was when they reached it that they came to the problem. No matter what he said, she just wouldn’t get in herself.

“I can’t go in there, I can’t go in there, I can’t go in there,” Jade whispered over and over as Lucian and Terri tried to reason with her. Cruzito just sat with his legs hanging out of the ambulance as he held onto Jade’s hand. Finally he got annoyed with Terri and Lucian’s persistent yammering at Jade to get in and he just pulled her closer to him by her hand.

“Jade, look at him,” he ordered quickly. “If you don’t get in this ambulance this second, I’m going to leave you to do this on your own and don’t think for a minute that they will give up on getting you in this ambulance. What do I have to do to get you in here? Why are you so scared of it?”

“Please,” Jade begged, trying to pull her hand away from him. “ I can’t go in there.”

“Why? Give me one good reason why you can’t get in this ambulance,” Cruzito demanded, glaring at her. He was annoyed with her insistence at not getting in.

“I can’t tell you,” Jade whispered loud enough for him to hear, but not for Lucian and Terri to hear.

“If you don’t have a good reason then you are going to get in right now,” he stated, still glaring at her. She had tears in her eyes as she tried to reason with him. She didn’t tell him the reason she couldn’t get in the ambulance was that last year she had been in one. Yesterday she had been in one because her brother had been injured in a freak accident. He had died in the ambulance. Sure she was hours away from where this freak accident had happened and this wasn’t the same ambulance, but she still couldn’t bring herself to get in an ambulance again.

Her parents had taken her to a car show yesterday and were examining what an old ambulance had looked like. They had tried to get her to look at it with her, but she wouldn’t even go near it at first. Eventually she had gone to it, but it had taken such an effort and made a huge scene in the parking lot that the security had asked that Jade be removed from the car show. Her parents hadn’t taken kindly to being kicked out of the car show, but they understood why Jade had been so scared. They were in the process of finding a therapist to help her, but hadn’t found a good one yet.

“I can’t tell you,” she sobbed quietly. “I can’t go in there.”

“Have you told your parents what happened yet?” Cruzito asked suddenly, trying to get her mind off what was required of her.

“They won’t care. They are too busy to care about anything to do with me right now. They hate me. They absolutely hate me,” she managed to choke out, still being too quiet for Lucian or Terri to hear her. As she spoke those words, her eyes closed, trying to hold in the tears. Cruzito took the opportunity to stand up and pull her into the ambulance with him. She didn’t even react right away.

                “How about I call them and tell them what has happened?” Cruzito gently offered her, as Lucian and Terri jumped in and quietly closed the door. Terri climbed up to the front and got in the driver’s seat while Lucian and Cruzito guided Jade to lay down on the stretcher that was in the ambulance and secured her down. Then Cruzito buckled himself into a seat and Lucian did the same. Terri turned the lights and sirens on and they were off.

                Jade’s eyes flew open when she heard the sirens and she looked frantically around. She started to struggle to move, when Cruzito took her hand in his, squeezing tightly to get her attention. Her eyes shot to his in a frantic movement. He couldn’t believe how much panic there was now in her eyes. He couldn’t even tell that she was in a lot of pain anymore with the panic overcrowding everything else. He was sure that Jade didn’t even feel her injuries at all anymore because of her panic.

                “Jade, do you want me to call them for you and tell them to meet us at the hospital?” Cruzito offered again. Jade just nodded in response, unable to say anything in her panicked state. “Jade calm down, nothing is going to happen to you,” he ordered in a gentle reassuring voice as he took her phone out of her hand. He scrolled through her numbers until he came across her mom’s number and then he called it.

When a grumpy voice answered with a snappy “What!” Cruzito just raised his eye brows at Jade, who was still staring at him. “Hello Mrs Merco,” he greeted. “ I am just calling to inform you that your daughter is being taken to the nearest hospital right now after a car crash.”

“Please tell me she isn’t being taken in an ambulance,” Mrs. Merco sighed. Cruzito could just imagine Jade’s mom pinching the bridge of her nose as she said it.

“As a matter of fact she is,” Cruzito replied. “It took a whole lot of convincing to get her to get in. Is there a reason that you know of why she is a state of panic right now?”

“Of course there is you idiot! Her brother died in one last year! She was the one that had ridden in the ambulance with him when he died. Ever since then, she has been completely terrified of ambulances. We didn’t realize until yesterday at an old car show how bad her fear was though. She won’t be calm for hours now. I’m not sure how she will react to going to the hospital either. I’m on my way there now. Who am I speaking to by the way? You don’t sound like one of those damn EMTs.”

“I’m one of her friends from the race track,” Cruzito replied with conviction.

“Okay, well just be warned that she will probably not handle the hospital well at all. I think the ambulance will be the worse of the two, but I’m not positive so be warned. I’m on my way,” with that Mrs. Merco hung up, calling her husband as she grabbed her keys and raced away from her house in a hurry to get to her daughter.

Cruzito looked down at Jade, handing back her phone quietly. “You aren’t going to die in here Jade,” he quietly stated. Jade’s eyes filled with tears when she realized what her mom had told him. The tears quickly overflowed and started to run down her cheeks. She was so scared of being in the ambulance right now, but she didn’t say anything as she shook her head in denial of whatever her mother had said.

                “Your mom is on her way to the hospital. She says you’re more than likely to panic there as well,” Cruzito may have been talking to Jade still, but he was saying it more so for Lucian’s information than hers. “Is that true?”

                Jade took a minute before replying with a dead expression on her face. “I promise I will not panic at the hospital as long as I get out of this thing I will not panic.” Her voice getting quieter as she spoke until it was too quiet for Lucian and Cruzito to hear. They just left it at that though because they had arrived at the hospital by then.

                “Well it’s your lucky day then,” Cruzito smiled, “we have arrived at the hospital, let’s get you out of here.” Jade was rushed out of the ambulance on the stretcher even though she said she could walk just fine. She was rushed to the emergency room and into a surgery room where the glass shard was removed and they realized just how deep it had gone. It was lucky she had been taken to the hospital, or there wouldn’t have been a chance for her to live. Now the question was, would she survive the surgery or not.