Everything Merges with The Night Chapter 1
Rainie never asked for a head-on collision for her eighteenth birthday, it was a grand birthday surprise. But, it wasn't my fault, nothing ever was. I could never explain what the other vehicle was doing in the opposite lane against furious hailstones and deafening thunder claps. I didn't care. I knew I had killed poor Rainie.
I awoke in the blinding light of the stinking hospital room amidst relentless kisses from my wife. I couldn't even bear to look at her. Accidents be damned, I had explaining to do. I held my breath until she mentioned Rainie's name. Sweet, often bitchy Rainie complete with a broken arm as well as a broken leg to boot.
Me? Some cracked ribs and a serious back injury, they suspected. It felt as someone has inserted a Red-hot clothes hanger down the length of my hip and leg. Wonderful. Twenty-six years old and I faced life as a one legged crippled hoppity.
My workplace was understanding. The store in the strip mall, which Rainie worked, was not. They replaced the teens all of the time. If one died, another was waiting in line.
I was released a few days after Rainie, pending an open back surgery on slipped vertebrae and sciatic nerve damage. It was great to be back in the comforts of my leather sofa with the thirty- seven inch television and DVD player at my command. Viewing was futile as Rainie bitched about everything in the cosmos.
"It fucking hurts!" she snarled.