Chapter 31 - Crash

Isaac saw it all happen in front of him.  Even when the sky cracked open and rain surged down on them, he stood paralyzed as everything happened in slow motion nearly two hundred yards away. He saw her hit the pothole at full speed, launch into the air, and slam into the front windshield of an oncoming car.

He screamed out her name as adrenaline kicked in. Even as the rain surged down on him, shock drove him forward. His feet pounded the pavement as fast as they could carry him, and he prayed with all his soul that she was okay.

It took him about twenty seconds, but he made it to her as a few people began to get out of their cars, despite the rain, and gather around her.

“Mikay!” he screamed between gasps as he reached the gathering crowd.

“Don’t touch her! We might hurt her even more!” A man in the crowd tried to contain the scene and keep people away from her.

“Mikay!” Isaac yelled again as he pushed past the man and went to her side.

“Hey!”

He ignored them all as he quickly took in her warped state despite the water falling into his eyes. She was sprawled out on the hood of the car, her back against the bent metal, and her head half hanging off the edge. Her bike lay a few feet away, its front wheel bent and left side scratched from scraping across the pavement. Rain spattered against her leather jacket, and he fought back the urge to rip it open and examine the damage done to her torso.

He pulled off her wet helmet with rash judgment. He had to see her eyes.  He had to make sure…

She was still breathing, and heavily so.  She looked up at him with puffy, blood-shot eyes.  Her irises were red.  Her contacts had fallen out, and in her shocked state of being, he saw the utter despair swirling around in those deep red disks.  He had never seen eyes that color before, and although it startled him, he looked beyond them as if seeing her clearly for the first time.

“Hey kid—”

“Don’t touch her!” Isaac shouted, swinging his arm back as if to push them all away. “She’s my friend! I know her! Just back off!”

They stepped back and his attention returned to her. His breathing came in hasty rasps as he studied her blotchy face streaked with tears as the rain fell over them relentlessly.

“What were you thinking?” he demanded to her softly as his eyes began to sting.  “You could have been killed!”

Squeezing her eyes shut, she whispered in a gravelly voice, “I deserve to die. I want to die.”

“Mikay, that’s crazy talk,” he said, brushing strands of hair from her soaking wet face.

A sudden tremor shook his body from his fingertips against her skin to the tips of his toes. His blood turned cold, as if a ghost had passed through his body. Shivering involuntarily, he withdrew from her and stared at her with uncomprehending anxiety and dread.

“Hey, Isaac.”

Isaac snapped out of the memory that played over and over in his mind. His head was in his hands when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up, brushing damp hair from his eyes, and saw Brandon standing there. Brandon's indigo shirt and black jeans was a sharp contrast against the white walls of the hospital waiting room.

He held out a bundle of clothes in a steady hand.

"Thanks," Isaac said, reaching up and swiping the clothes. His hands were still shaking as he drew the clothes to his chest.

He hardly noticed the cold from his damp clothes now, but he stood up and went to the washroom around the corner to change. When he came out, Brandon was sitting in the empty seat next to the one Isaac had been sitting in for the last half hour. Brandon looked up momentarily from a hunched-forward sitting position before leaning back in his seat casually.

Isaac wrapped his damp clothes up in a ball and kneaded them together as he sat down beside Brandon.

"Anything yet?"

Isaac shook his head. "No, nothing yet."

Brandon sighed as he shifted in his seat. "These things can take forever."

“Yeah I know,” Isaac said with a groan. “Thanks for coming.”

“No problem, man. It’s not like I’m learning anything in English class right now, anyway.”

Guilt had been coursing through Isaac’s mind as soon as the shock of what happened passed. He blamed himself for the accident happening. Mikayla was upset and lost control because of him. If he had never been there, none of this would have happened.

"I just..." Isaac groaned and closed his eyes.

"What?"

"I just don't get it. Why would she be trying to run away?"

"What makes you think she was running away?"

"She had her duffle bag crammed full and strapped onto her bike. What do you think she was up to?"

Brandon shrugged. "I don't know. I wouldn't jump into making hasty conclusions though."

"Yeah, but... she wouldn't even stop for me at first. Her attitude was very dismissive and pushy—like she didn't want to be caught, or stopped."

"Isn't she always like that though?"

Isaac was too upset to even crack a smile. "I thought things looked like they were going well for her. I met her foster family, and they were cool--really cool. The kids adore her. I don't understand why she would want to run away."

Brandon rubbed his forehead. "What exactly did she say to you before she wiped out?"

Isaac held his breath for a moment as he thought about it before he audibly exhaled. "Geez, I don't remember. She kept telling me to fuck off and mind my own business.”

‘You don’t know shit!’ Her words rang again in his eardrums. She looked ready to cry. What happened? What made her decide to leave all of a sudden?

Her eyes, bright red and frightening, flashed in his mind, and he remembered the chill that spread through his body after he touched her face.

Had he been seeing the real her in that moment? Had he witnessed more of her secrets spilling forth as she lied helpless on the hood of a car?

Brandon broke through Isaac’s thoughts. "Yeah, I can see her saying that."

"All she does is fight back, or run away,” Isaac mumbled. “I thought, maybe, things were getting better. She was starting to open up to me.”

“I know, bro,” Brandon said, reaching over and giving Isaac’s shoulder a squeeze. “I don’t know why she did it, but I’m sure she had her reasons. People don’t just run away from home for no reason.”

“Yeah.”

They fell silent as Isaac closed his eyes and remembered looking into the swirling red pools of trepidation that had been Mikayla’s eyes the moment he had touched her.

She clamped her eyes shut as her body began to convulse with sobs.

Hurriedly, Isaac returned to her and gripped her slender frame steady with both hands. He worried she was convulsing because of a seizure or something internally damaged from the accident.

It was then that he noticed the black liquid dripping down the front of the car from under her.  His eyes widened. He knew it had to be coming from her, but he didn’t know what it all meant.

Isaac exhaled as he opened his eyes and looked down at the rumpled clothes in his hands. There were stains on his pants from him leaning against the car and her black blood running down the side. He placed them on the floor under him and leaned on his elbow on the arm of the chair.

He understood now.  It finally made sense to him.  The multiple foster families, the running away, the attitude, the disguise, the pushing away, the secrecy, the red eyes, the black blood, the horrible feeling of dread that sent shivers up his spine when he touched her skin…

What did it mean?

She wasn’t normal. She wasn’t normal and she didn’t want anyone to know. Something must have happened that risked revealing the secret that she carried, and that must have triggered her to run away from home—and all the other foster homes for that matter.

But what could be so bad that she felt forced to leave a home with a family that seemed to care about her?

Unless it was to protect them against something that only she knew about?

Isaac’s eyes widened as he sat up straight in his chair.

What if that was it? What if it had been to protect them?

Could it be? All this time… Could she have been trying to protect us from something she couldn’t share? Hiding herself and her secrets beside a façade…

And I kept pushing her, and pushing her… he thought as his heart clenched at this realization.

The fear he saw in her eyes, the pain that choked back her words…

Isaac couldn’t imagine what she must have gone through. Her father died when she was an infant, her mother committed suicide, and finally her grandmother died a couple of years ago… There was so much death in her young life. How could she have coped with that?

Could the deaths of her family members be related to her secrets?

He shuddered just thinking about the mysterious possibilities. He now knew three things that she had been trying to hide: her real eye color, her black blood, and her touch.

Was that why she always wore gloves and covered herself from head to toe? She couldn’t touch anyone without turning their blood cold and feeling like something terrible was going to happen.

That was pretty weird and creepy, he thought, chewing on his thumbnail.

He concluded that all of these things explained her behavior and attitude problem at school, and why she seemed a little more chill and open at home without the crowds of kids around to listen in. This was probably why she also looked uncomfortable around people.

She also seemed to be unusually strong for someone who looked like she was nothing but skin and bone. The kids at school were still talking about how she threw the desk against the wall—but the talk was more fearful now than astonished because her suspension was almost over and she would be returning to school soon.

He shook his head. Who knew when she’d be returning to school now? He still had no idea how serious her injuries were. Even the paramedics looked perturbed when they came to the scene. Isaac went in the ambulance with them, but they forced him to wait in one of the waiting rooms after that.

And now the agonizing wait to find out just how bad it was stretched on for hours and hours.

All he had to occupy his mind was the memory of what he had seen.

He pressed his hands against the hood of the car next to her shoulders, and stood over her to protect her from the rain that plummeted cold and hard against them.

“Please,” she begged him, her voice but a faint wisp of air.  “Go away.”

He shook his head, flicking water around, but was determined to stay by her side. “No, I’m staying here.”

She closed her eyes as more tears trickled down, her expression twisted in a grimace.

He worried she was in pain, and he asked her where the pain was coming from, but she just cried harder. He thought she was saying something between the sobs, but he couldn’t make out a word of it.

“Mikay,” he said as he tried to shush her, “It’ll be okay. The ambulance is on its way and we’ll get you to the hospital. Just relax, okay?”

“It’s all my fault,” she moaned softly as sirens drifted closer to them.

“Hey, hey,” he soothed, “Accidents happen. Don’t worry about it. I’m here, okay?”

As the police cruisers and paramedics pulled up, their lights blinking, and sirens blaring, she apologized to him, and kept blaming herself over and over again.

“It’s okay,” he said again, as he caressed her cheek, ignoring the tingle as his hair stood up on the back of his neck.

He hesitated, choking back on his emotions as he stared at her helplessly. Then, he lowered himself closer to her and her eyes widened in fear. 

“No,” she gasped.

He pressed his lips upon her forehead and kissed her tenderly. When he pulled back, her eyes were squeezed tightly shut and a trail of tears trickled down from the corner of her eyes. “You,” he swallowed, as her eyes opened again at the sound of his choked voice, “Deserve so much more than this.” 

 ----

Author's Note: I hope the back and forth scene hopping/flashbacks weren't too confusing. Let me know if it is and I'll see how I can make things smoother...

Isaac kissed her! D: *ducks and hides*