Before I could process what had just happened, Amber was already climbing out of the shattered passenger side window.
“Stay in the car!” a voice yelled out from a distance. A man in khaki shorts and a baseball cap was running toward us.
Amber ignored him and continued to climb out, wrenching first one scrawny leg free of the window, then the other.
I remained where I was. Something warm and liquid dripped down my forehead. I reached up to touch it, then stared at my fingers. Blood.
The man was beside my window. My brain was still struggling to process how I had ended up in a ditch, facing oncoming traffic, blood dripping from the top of my head.
“I’ve called for an ambulance,” the man panted. He smelled like orange blossoms.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again when I realized I couldn’t find words.
“Just stay put,” he said, his eyes darting nervously to the top of my head, which I now realized was pressed up against the smashed-in ceiling. “Hey!” he called to someone outside.
I slowly turned to look, my eyes moving before my neck.
Oh no.
Amber was trying to climb up out of the ditch. She lost her footing and fell, covering the bloody stripe down her left leg with dust.
Let her go, I thought. But the man in the baseball cap was holding her by the arm, bringing her back toward the car, easing her into a sitting position, checking her for injuries.
I reached for the door handle and pulled. But the door wouldn’t open.
Tears stung my eyes. No, no, no. This can’t be happening.
I could hear the ambulance approaching now, its siren rising in pitch like an ignored tea kettle. I pulled on the door handle again. Nothing.
The ambulance spat out two navy-clad men. I could hear Amber yelling something, the voice of the man in the baseball cap arguing with her.
My door flew open and I was being pulled out. I was on a gurney, head held still. Voices, more voices. I had no idea what they were saying.
I was up and inside the ambulance. Amber was yelling again. Closer this time. Like she was in the ambulance with me.
She smelled like a bar of soap.
I felt the vehicle accelerate.
I closed my eyes.
Somebody was saying my name. No, five more minutes. Not yet.
My name again. Louder now.
I opened my bleary eyes.
A woman’s face, smiling into mine. Brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She looked too young to be a doctor.
I blinked at her. Then the memories of the car wreck came back to me like a flood. I tried to sit up.
“Oh! Nope, not just yet. Just lie down a little bit, okay?” The ponytailed woman was still smiling. Like her facial settings had gotten stuck.
“Wha—?” I tried to speak, but my tongue felt heavy and sluggish.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, still smiling. I couldn’t smell anything from her.
“Uh…”
“You can come in!” the woman suddenly said, turning and looking over her shoulder toward a brown door. The door swung open and Amber walked in, a bandage on her left knee, her right arm in a sling. She brought the odors of gasoline and dog shit with her.
“How you feeling, Zodiac?” she asked, grinning at me.
This was making me very nervous. I had no idea what was funny or what she had to be happy about.
“You—” I started to say, but I couldn’t form a complete sentence. My brain felt like it was operating in slow motion.
Amber raised one eyebrow. “What about me?” she asked, her voice a threat.
Suddenly I was falling, falling, falling.
I woke the second time to a different face, a plump one with warm brown eyes and long dark hair falling around it like curtains.
“What’s going on?” I asked, proud of myself for having put together a whole question.
The large woman in front of me didn’t smile, but got straight to the point. “You’ve been admitted to Larkspur Medical Center in Phoenix. Your vital signs look good, and your only major injury appears to be that cut on the top of your head. There is some bruising as well, which you may feel over the next few days, so I recommend taking ibuprofen or acetaminophen for pain as needed.”
I blinked. Then I remembered Amber, and I felt a pit of dread forming in my stomach.
“That woman I came in with—” I started.
“Your fiancée? She’s right outside. Would you like me to call her in?”
The cold pit in my stomach dropped down into the floor, taking my stomach with it. “My… fiancée?”
The woman gave me a short, quick smile, then walked over to the door and stuck her head out. The next thing I knew, Amber was walking back into the room in a cloud of shit and gasoline.
“How you feeling, honey bunny?” she asked, suppressing a giggle.
The large woman walked out of the room, leaving me to my fate.
I glared at Amber. “My fiancée?” I demanded.
Gasoline. Overwhelming gasoline.
“Well, they asked what my relationship to you was, and I figured you didn’t want me saying, ‘This man kidnapped me and then tried to kidnap another woman with me in the car.’” She eased herself into the little black plastic chair next to my hospital bed and leaned back, her sling arm resting across her skinny chest.
I scowled. “I thought you wanted to go back to Phoenix. Well, here we are. Why don’t you just leave?”
Amber leaned forward, her face deadly serious. “You really did hit your head hard. It was you who wanted to dump me back in Phoenix, not me. I already told you there’s nothing here for me.”
“Well, there’s nothing for you with me, either,” I snapped.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Zodiac,” she said. In the air around her floated strawberries, soap, and dog shit.
Bonnie and Clyde-style shenanigans, here we come!!
The pacing is perfect: from disorientation and blood in the ditch to the surreal hospital scene that feels so off and confusing. Amber’s energy is unhinged and I'm here for it (i think!)