“They’re not kids, Oscar. Have you seen the size of this guy in the passenger seat?”
“What’s taking so long? That’s my brother! Why aren’t you moving him? For God’s sake, get him out of there…please!”
“Andy, mate. Calm down. He’s going to be okay,” Jace said.
“We’re doing everything we can, I promise. Give us some space.”
Andy grumbled and groaned. “I can’t lose him. Jace. Not like this. The way I’ve treated him. The things I’ve said…”
“Don’t even think like that. This is Cohen. He’s stronger than that.”
The voices around me were distorted, fragments of conversation filtering in and out of my pounding head as my tight chest struggled to pull enough oxygen into my lungs.
“Henry?” unfamiliar voice number one said. “Henry Cohen. I’m Oscar, the paramedic on scene. I want you to know that you’re okay. We just need you to open your eyes before we move you out of here. Can you do that for me?”
Someone or something squeezed my tingling hand, making me try to squeeze back as reality slowly seeped its way back into my dark world.
“That’s it. Good. Good.”
“Is he awake?” I heard Andy ask. “Is he?—”
Oscar’s voice seemed to turn away from me as he responded. “I know you’re worried, but I can’t do my job if you don’t let me give him the attention he needs.”
“Come on, Andy, man. Give them room,” Jace said.
“I can’t cope with this,” Andy cried out, a sob tearing from him. He sounded worse than I’d ever heard him, his fear obvious even for my mangled mind. I imagined him pacing, tearing at his hair, his body tense and raging. He never had been good at being out of control.
“You with me, Henry?” Oscar spoke again, closer this time.
A groan of acknowledgement crawled up my throat, and the simple action made my rigid body ache from head to toe. My head rolled to the side, and I flared my nostrils, trying to breathe in as much air as possible, only to realise there was a fucking mask over my mouth.
What the hell had…?
The memories of the last moments came flooding back, the argument with Andy and his confession, the banking speeding towards us only to disappear beneath the car as we flew over the edge of it.
Then darkness, just like now.
“Open your eyes for me, pal, yeah?”
After blinking slowly, I opened my eyes to see a man crouched down in front of me, his face filled with concern as he took me in, a small smile forming.
I may have been fucked up, but even I could see relief flash across his face.
“Hi there,” he said. “You’re safe. You’re okay. Don’t panic. The oxygen mask is just precautionary.”
I blinked slowly again, trying to take him in with slightly blurred vision.
“You’ve taken a nasty blow to the head, and you’re probably going to be sore as hell for a few days, but other than that…”
“You’re one hell of a lucky kid,” unfamiliar voice number two said, his tone deeper, filled with an aged timbre that spoke of an older man who would no doubt see me as a kid no matter how old I grew.
Which almost hadn’t been another year older from the looks of everything around me.
“What my colleague Guy means is that it could have been a lot worse, but you clearly had someone watching over you this morning.”
My parents’ faces came into view as though they were in front of me, and emotion welled in my dry throat. The reality of their absence seemed to hit me harder than it ever had, because weren’t they the very people you ran to when life threw you over a banking like this? Weren’t they the hands supposed to pull you out of the wreckage and hold you close no matter how old you got, reassuring you that everything would be okay?
Instead, I had two strangers bringing me back to life, while the parents I wanted more than anything or anyone no longer existed in any form other than my memory.
