I sat at Sally's hospital bedside with Mother. It had been three days since the accident, Sally had been smashed up pretty badly, and it was touch or go if she'd survive.
"Come on, Sally, pull through, pull through," was mother's mantra. She repeated her words over and over, her head rocking trying to will a kind of life-force into her prone off-spring.
I just looked on to Sally's bruised face momentarily cursing myself for letting her get so excited. I immediately put a stop to that, "we always blame ourselves," was a lesson I had learnt the hard way over the last six months.
A pretty nurse came to us, and politely asked us to leave. I struck up a conversation with her as we went and observed a small smirk from Mother's mouth.
"What?" I asked in confusion at Mother's expression as we slowly made our way along the hospital corridor.
Mother sighed, "You'll understand one day," she sighed, "I just hope Sally comes through to be my witness."
A masculine figure urgently approached, his heavy steps accented by the echo of the corridor. He got to us and gasped.
"Am I too late? I've only just heard, I've been away."
It was father gasping for breath in his urgent dash to make it to Sally's bedside. His forehead was sweating under his black dishevelled greasy locks.
"We've just been asked to leave," Mother casually replied as father pushed out a supporting hand upon her shoulder as he bent double to deeply inhale.
"Its good to see you."
Father looked up from under his fringe, his collar and tie untidily displaced in his dash, his creased raincoat opened wide for air.
"Is she okay?"
"She's in a bad way, but the doctors say she'll be fine, she just needs rest." Stoically lied mother. I looked at her dumbfounded, wondering her motive, knowing the precarious balance Sally's health was in.
"Thank god for that," Father huffed slowly managing to straighten up, "Sorry, good to see you as well."
Father didn't come home with us that night, which left me disappointed. I got a lift home with Mother still wondering.
"Why did you lie about the state of Sally?"
"Your Father's weak when it comes to emotional subjects, Sally will be fine, why torture your dad for a night?"
Mother's optimism was infectious despite her prophecy being completely groundless.
"How can you be so confident?"
"Do you really think they'd only just let us in to see her if she was in a precarious position?"
There was some truth in Mother's logic, but it wasn't a certainty. It was good to know she cared for Sally and Father's worried mind, and despite seeing Sally's shattered body, I slept well that night.
The next morning Mother's prediction was proved correct, and after college, I raced to the hospital to see Sally. I approached her bed and seeing Sally in such a beat up state made me want to hurl. One leg was suspended in plaster, as were her two arms. Her face was black and blue with a few stitches here and there.
I crept around in silence just in case she was asleep and caught her peering out from her black eyes?
"How do I look?" she immediately asked, and I pondered on how relentlessly we humans were in our vanity. Never mind surviving and to a slightly lesser degree asking "Am I critically ill" it was always about body image first.
"Sally, you're alive, and you're wondering about how you look?"
"Well?" she groggily murmured.
"You look just as beautiful as you always do," I misinformed as bandages obscured most of her body.
"Liar!"
"On Halloween!" I joked.
"Oh, don't." she croaked as her body moved slightly, "Tell me the truth."
"Well, you're out of the Cheerleaders group and keep away from people of a nervous disposition."
"OH!" cried in pain, don't make me laugh," Sally winced, trying in vain to touch her wounded ribs with her incapacitated hands.
I felt slightly sick at her powerlessness in her restricted movements.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" I asked on taking in the full repulsion of her disposition.
"James, I want you to close the door to my room and then fuck me."
I leant back in my chair, momentarily shocked, "Can't you have grapes like everyone else?" I quipped, "Sally, this is the morphine talking."
"I don't want to die a virgin," she cried, tears rolling down her cheeks. I got up and wiped them for her to stop her painful struggle.
"You're not going to die," I ridiculed as I wiped her cheek.
"Please fuck me, you wanted to when I posed for our photographs, why not now?"
"There are seven good reasons I can think of straight away, " I laughed, "Two broken arms, three ribs, your pelvis and your leg!"
"Any old excuse with you."
"If you twist your body I may be able to slip it up your ass though!" I joked.
"James!"
"Oh so not that much morphine then?" I chuckled heartily slowly trailing off into silence.
"How's Father?" Sally eventually asked.
"He's okay, Mother lied to him about your injuries to keep him calm."
"They've met?" She quipped hopefully a small smile coming to her face.
"Yes, father was racing to see you but arrived too late, they had a brief chat in the corridor."
"Do you think he'll come back?" Sally asked with mournful optimism.
"It's too early to say. Some time ago you hinted that it wasn't all Mother's fault even though she had just angered you. You talked as if you had something to hide.
"I did, didn't I?" mused Sally precariously picking her words.
"Does it have to do with the reason Dad left?" I inquired.
