For Starting Over

Last Words

I tugged at the starched sheet, it’s uncomfortable stiffness made my eyebrows furrow before searing pain cut across my face.

- Shh! Sweetheart! Don’t move your eyebrows too much… you’re okay! Just a nasty gash.

Mom’s voice cut into my darkness. Her hands caught my fingers as I searched for the offending body part.

-Are we in the hospital?

-Yes.

-Did I faint?

-Yes.

-Am I hurt?

-A little bit. Your face caught the edge of the countertop when you passed out, and your hand and chest are a little cut up from the mug you used to break your fall.

I winced a bit, then regretted it instantly.

-Mrs. Aster?

A husky female voice called for my mother, I could smell disinfect.

-Yes?

-Dr. Wilson would like to check her out if she’s awake. He wants to see if she has a concussion or any else we might have missed while she was unconscious.

- Oh, yes, of course.

All during the exam, my mind kept floating back to the newspaper headline. I knew he was… gulp… dead… of course there would be news about it.

Dead. Dead. Dead. My heart seemed to beat the word with every squeeze of the organ.

-Alright. Everything looks okay… now, I know this is an uncomfortable question…

Dr Wilson redirected his attention to me briefly, his stern blue eyes then returning to the job of assessing the stitches across my forehead while he spoke,

-Have you been in … touch… with your wolf senses lately?

I blinked slowly, trying to mentally search for that special part of me. Gone. I couldn’t find her, I couldn’t even remember the last time I was aware of her presence in my mind.

-Not since… the accident…

I started, but closed my eyes against the new emotional pain spreading behind the physical pain.

-The accident in the kitchen?

-No, his accident…

I tried again, gulping slowly. I felt, rather than saw, my mom motion Dr Wilson towards the door of my hospital room. She spoke in rapid hushed tones but I caught the pieces…

-… boyfriend was… did you hear about… last Sunday night… killed instantly… she hasn’t… I’m not sure what all… it’s been very difficult .

The pieces told the tragic truth… but not the whole messed up tragic truth.

Alexander, my boyfriend… my first and only… was killed when his car collided with a semi-truck. He was driving home from my house after a huge, enormous, screaming fight. A fight that ended when he yelled that he needed time to think and I screamed that I needed space to figure things out for myself.

And now I had all the space and time to think… and all I could think about was him, that stupid fight and the fact that I wanted to take all those angry words back and never ever say them.