27. Chapter 27
Chapter 27
Faith
A s hard as I fight to move, my body refuses and keeps me pinned against the seatbelt. I flinch at the sound of hands pounding on the glass of the passenger side window mixed with the faint pleas of Derek's voice. My vision fades in and out, making out Ryan's face, then struggling to turn and look over at Derek, whose body is suddenly too still.
The agony from the crash intensifies, blinding me with pain. My ribs burn from the impact of the pole that slammed into my door while my head throbs from hitting something, maybe the window? I can't tell from the airbag that slowly starts deflating as I struggle to move my hands to fight back against Ryan, who is just seconds away from breaking into the car.
"Derek," I reach for him, his limp hand draped over the center consul. Was he reaching for me? Was he trying to shake me awake? I can't remember now, but I think I felt his hand. When I go to hold it, I feel something wet, and my blurry eyes widen when I make out faint streaks of blood on my fingertips.
Oh, no… no, no, no, I scream out as I fight to wake him up again.
"Get out of the car, Faith! I know you can hear me!" Ryan's voice is aggressive, full of anger, as he struggles to get between the pole that he crashed us into and the door that is too dented to open. The shattered glass distorts his face, and if it weren't for his screams, I'd have hoped he was a good bystander trying to help.
Knowing I can't face him alone, I turn back to Derek, who is already bleeding from the side of his head, evident from the smears of blood on the driver's side window. Suddenly, and without any warning, flashbacks of Chelsea's death come rushing to the surface, bringing with it a whole new level of panic and fear I have yet to experience.
"No, it's not the same," I try talking myself down. "His head isn't bashed in; he's not gushing blood like she did…"
But he's still bleeding, a sinister voice in the back of my head tells me. He could be dying right now, and all you can do is watch… just like before.
"Please, Derek," I plead, trying not to shake him too much. I raise my voice louder and louder, but he doesn't flinch when I beg him to wake up, stay with me, and hold on until I can get us some help.
Maybe it's the fear, maybe the adrenaline, or hell; maybe my head wound that slowly takes the light away and makes the world fade to black once again.
Suddenly, I'm no longer in the car; I'm looking at it from the side of the road as an observer. But something's wrong. Ryan is nowhere in sight, and all I can see is Derek from the driver's seat. But how? I look closer and see myself unconscious in the car while Derek desperately tries to wake me.
"It's quite the sight to see, huh?" a familiar voice says next to me. I jump as she reaches for my hand; Chelsea is just as beautiful and lively as she was before she died.
But it's not what I'm expecting.
Over the years, I never saw Chelsea as she was when she was alive. When she came to me in dreams or memories, her golden hair was always stained with blood, and her head bashed in from the brute force of the crash that took her life.
"Chelsea?" I ask my throat tight with tears and fear. “You can’t… why are you…”
She smiles softly and takes my hand. I don't expect her touch to feel solid, steady, and warm. I don't expect to feel anything, but when I do, for a split second, I would swear on my life she had come back from the dead.
"Don't cry," she says, soothing me with her gentle melodic voice.
"It's just… I forgot how beautiful you were…" I sniffle before the cascade of hot tears stung my cold cheeks. "It's been so long since I've seen you… like this."
"Normal?" she chuckles.
"Yes, normal," I nod. "In my head, you're always as you were when you… I guess I thought you were punishing me for something."
She shakes her head. "I would never make you remember me like that. You'd have no memory of that night if it were up to me. And there's nothing for you to be punished for, Faith. You didn't do anything wrong."
In the cemetery, like Derek did, I get validation I didn't know I needed, even if it's from someone I know is long gone.
"Does this mean that… I'm dead?" I ask, looking back and forth between her and the crashed cars.
"It's not your time yet," she answers, then nods towards Derek's truck. "We can't both leave him behind."
"I know you already know this, but I would take your place in a heartbeat. He wants you more," I insist, but she simply shakes her head.
"He needs you more," she corrects me. "I didn't want to leave him or you the way that I did. I fought as hard as I could to stay, but there was nothing I could do. But knowing he had you, that you had each other, I knew he'd be okay."
"Yeah, it just took four years," I scoff.
"To be fair, I didn't think he'd be so stubborn and cruel the way he was," she adds. "Thank you for not giving up on him."
"I'm not sure why," I admit. "I thought it would be easy to never see him again, but now…"
"The idea hurts like hell, huh?"
I nod.
"It's because you're in love with him," she says like it's the simplest thing in the world.
"What? No… I…” I try denying it, but I know she's right. "So, what do I do?"
"You love him and hold onto him," she says. "Can you do that for me?"
"I think so," I nod.
"Then you'll be alright," she smiles. "And don't forget, I'm always with you guys, in more ways than one," she winks.
She wraps her arms around me, the weight of them feeling both real and unbelievable simultaneously. I close my eyes and breathe every second I have left with her, knowing it's quickly fleeting.
Like someone snapped their fingers, I'm back in the truck, listening to Ryan's heavy fists pounding on the passenger-side door. My face is turned towards Derek, whose body remains too still for my liking, which means I'm on my own.
The car rocks as Ryan tries pulling my door open, and panic sets in; what he's about to do to me is going to be more painful than this. I can feel the cold, slim can of pepper spray in my left pocket next to the seat buckle. With another rough rock of the car, I pretend the motion makes me slump towards Derek, putting my back to Ryan and giving me enough cover to carefully slide the spray into my hand carefully and for my thumb to rest against the seatbelt buckle.
Just play dead, I tell myself. Wait until the door opens, kick him in the crotch as hard as possible, and run for help.
My hand is stiff under the sharp pain of whatever I hit it on when the car crashed, but I force myself to slide the can out, gripping the cool metal that somehow steadies my heartbeat long enough for me to take in a deep breath that burns my ribs. It takes everything in me not to wince, to bite back a scream that could tip Ryan off at any moment.
With the pepper spray in my hand, I unlock the nozzle and press my thumb into the seatbelt buckle, releasing it and catching it in my hands to make it look like I'm still stuck right where Ryan wants me.
Suddenly, the heavy pounding of his fists slows down, and I can hear a reluctant release of something on the car door. With every pull of the handle, I can hear the metal loosen its grip against the car.
"Come on, Faith," Ryan calls out. "I know you can hear me."
The rush of icy air breaks in as the door finally releases its grip, marking my cue to release my seatbelt and fight back.
With the hardest kick my body can muster, I shove both my feet into his groin, watching him go down like a pile of dead weight. With him doubled over, I spray his face, aiming directly for his eyes to steal any ounce of vision he has. For good measure, I stomp on his ribs as hard as I can, pushing through my pain to get away from him. My heart beats faster, and I pray that the truck I see will stop. I waved my arms and yelled at the couple driving in from the opposite direction.
"Are you okay?" the man behind the wheel of a white Ford asks.
"That man on the ground," I turn and point to Ryan, who's already trying to get to his feet. "He's trying to kill me."
"I'm calling 911," the woman in the car says, holding the phone to her ear.
"It's okay, I'm a cop," his voice filled with anger; stay here. As he turned to get his gun from the truck, he held my wrist with his hand.
"Faith!" Ryan calls out as he stumbles to his feet and spots me, or what's probably a blur of me.
"Is he armed?" the man asks while checking his gun for amo.
"He could be," I admit, having never imagined Ryan with a gun or knife, but at this point, I shouldn't be putting anything past him. "My boyfriend is still in the car."
"Paramedics are on their way," the wife says when her eyes spot Ryan behind me and widen with fear.
"Faith! Get back here right now, DAMN IT, why are you so defiant!" Ryan's calls out, limping his way to me.
Before I can even think about running, the man puts himself between Ryan and me.
Ryan and I stood just inches apart, the tension between us thick. Ryan didn't care who this man was; to him, he was just another obstacle. He moved to shove the man aside.
"Police! Hands in the air, now!" the officer barked, flashing his badge and training his firearm on Ryan, who froze mid-step.
"Move out of my way. You have no business here. This is between me and her," Ryan growled, his voice laced with anger.
The cop didn't respond with words. Instead, the sharp click of his gun cocking echoed through the air, a chilling reminder that he was ready to fire.
His red, angry eyes struggle to look into mine. He doesn't move at the officer's orders, but instead, he stands eerily still as if he's contemplating what he's willing to risk next.
"Faith, get your ass over here right now and stop playing these fucking games!" he yells louder, but I don't dare move closer. Instead, I nearly jump out of my skin when I feel the cop's wife gently put her hands on my shoulders and bring me to her side of the car, giving us another barrier for Ryan to get through.
"Put your hands in the air, now," the officer calls out again, his gradual footsteps closing the space between them. This time, Ryan listens. "Lay on your stomach, put her hands behind your back, and interlock your fingers." "Listen, man, you have this wrong. Whatever she said to you isn't what is happening. That guy in the truck ran us off the road. That asshole over there deserves to die." Ryan's words do not affect this cop's moves or decisions being made.
The wife reaches into the same consul and grabs a pair of cuffs that she tosses to her husband that Ryan remains still for when they're snapped onto his wrists. Once I get the all-clear, I rush past the two of them back to Derek, who still isn't opening his eyes fully. With the driver's side door still locked, I slide through the passenger side to get to him. I can see too much blood on the driver's side door but no blood on his shoulders or hands, meaning the impact was all head. It's even worse when I crane myself around to see the left side of his face is almost covered in crimson, but the bleeding seems to have slowed down. Either it's a good thing because the injury isn't that serious, or his heart is starting to shut down.
The nurse in me knows never to move someone's head with a head injury until proper medical intervention can be given, and it takes everything in me to listen to that rule. All I want to do is turn his face towards me to assess his wounds, but instead, I hold onto his hands that still maintain their warm touch. I check his wrist to find a pulse strong enough to feel and steady enough for me to breathe a short sigh of relief.
"The paramedics are on their way," I tell him, knowing there's a chance he can hear me. "I'm not sure how, but I managed to stop a car that happened to be driven by a cop. He's already got Ryan in cuffs." I can feel the tears start to come from the corner of my eyes. Please, Derek, don't go, stay with me, babe.
Like an immature child, I wait for Derek to speak, to tell me how relieved he is that things will be okay. Instead, I'm met with fear and dread as the sound of distant sirens draws closer to us.
"Can you hear them?" I ask. "You're going to be okay."
I look around, and two more cars stop when they see the carnage of the crash. As the sirens get louder, I wait for Derek to hear them, react to them, and turn his brain back on. I need to see that he's awake.
Police and paramedics arrived, but there was still nothing. It kills me when the cops pull me away and sit me in the back of an ambulance so the fire department can cut through the door to get Derek out. At the same time, another paramedic assesses my injuries, which I couldn't care less about. Questions about the crash blur with questions of 'Does this hurt? Can you feel this?' The honest answer is that I can't feel anything. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe not. Maybe the adrenaline is keeping me from focusing on the pain that I know was there a few minutes ago, but my brain doesn't have time to deal with it right now. All I know is that I can't watch another person I love die because of me.
While I give them my statement of what I can remember, my eyes flick back and forth between the officer, Ryan, handcuffed in a nearby cruiser, and Derek, who I anxiously wait to see move when the paramedics get him out. Three men surround the driver's side once the door is pried off, and I can see an exchange of head nods and pointing to other pieces of equipment like a neck brace that they carefully put around Derek as one slowly tilts his chin up to put it on him.
"Come on, Derek," I mumble. "Open your eyes, just open your eyes," I say as I peek around the officer to get a better look.
But his body is too still, even when the roar of the jaws of life cut through the driver's side door to pull him out onto a gurney. His eyes are still shut, his face still stained with blood, and his neck is locked in a firm brace as the rest of his body is strapped in while he's wheeled into the ambulance.
"Please, I can't leave him," I say when I start making my way to him. The officer shuffles after me, and at first, I think he won't let me near him, but instead, all he asks for is a signature on my statement.
"Can I ride with him?" I ask one of the paramedics.
"Is she cleared?" he asks the paramedic who assessed my injuries.
"She needs x-rays and blood contrast, but that's it," she answers.
"Hop in," he says, pointing to the spare seat at the doors.
Before they shut, I yelled a quick thank you to the cop who stopped to help me and those who remained at the scene. However, I'm not sure what's more chilling: possibly seeing Derek's last moments or catching Ryan's gaze, knowing he's been watching me this whole time. As we drive off, I can see Ryan's cold stare hold my gaze as long as he can before the ambulance disappears behind a corner, leaving him to deal with the mess he's made.