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Chapter Thirteen: Crash

Pain throbbed through Lindzi’s head. She opened her eyes, but one showed her nothing, and the other only a blinding light. She tried to move her hand to her head to comfort it, but it felt heavy, something was weighing it down. Her right hand was free, but it wobbled uncertainly as she tried to lift it. Pain lanced through her chest as her arm raised, forcing her to lower it again. As her exposed eye slowly adjusted to the light, she realized she was inside, staring directly into fluorescent lighting. The room reeked of antiseptic, and she could vaguely hear distant announcements being called on a PA system somewhere else. She must be in a hospital somewhere. But where? And how did she get there?

She tried to move her head or sit up, but every movement was agonizing. The entire left side of her body was either in hideous pain or disturbingly numb. Her right side ached, but mostly it just felt heavy. How long had she been here? How had she got here? The last thing she remembered was that she was in her car, racing around town, looking for Tony. Tony — where was he? Was he okay? Could he get her out of this? Was that detective still after her, still planning to force her to testify?

Lindzi struggled to sit up, trying to get a better look at her surroundings, but the entire left side of her body protested violently. She realized now that most of her was anesthetized, and that the rest of her was still recovering from sedatives. She’d always hated sedatives. They made her feel lost and woozy, not up and going like cocaine and caffeine. She felt exhausted as well, although whether it was due to the drugs in her system or the lack of drugs in her system she wasn’t sure.

She tried to roll over a little, to at least get a different view of her surroundings, but her body wasn’t cooperating. She collapsed and sighed, furious. “Jesus fucking Christ!”

“Kelsey, you shouldn’t use the Lord’s name in vain like that. Or swear.”

“Mom?” She didn’t even realize she wasn’t alone. How did her mother get here? Wasn’t she hundreds of miles away, back in Utah? Lindzi hadn’t so much as called her in years, much less left any kind of forwarding address. She strained to see her mother, but the aging vixen’s face appeared from the right, sliding in and obscuring the blinding bright light from the lights above.

“Your father’s here too, hon, he just stepped out to get us something to eat.” Lindzi’s mother gently reached down, caressing the right side of her face. It was different from the way she’d been touched for the past few years. There was no lust to it, it was just a touch, a physical confirmation for the eyes. “The doctors said you’d be waking up sometime this afternoon, so we dropped everything and came right over as fast as we could. Your father drove all night and he’s very tired.”

“What...What day is it?”

“It’s Thursday, dear.”

Then Lindzi had been out for about an evening. The last thing she remembered was driving at top speed back to the house. She had gone there after the cops let her leave, but Tony, he wasn’t back yet. That made sense, though, seeing as he had been arrested. She could remember getting into her car and immediately heading out, but to where? To the police station? She didn’t even know which station he was being held at, and even then, what could she do? It was all a blur after that, but she must have crashed her car, why else would she be in the hospital? Damn it, she really liked that car. It was the first big thing Tony had ever given her.

“What happened? And where am I?”

“You ran a red-light and another car ran onto you. You’re at Rampart General Hospital.” Her mother sat down, disappearing from Lindzi’s view. “The man in the other car is fine, by the way. The doctors said you’re lucky to be alive after a thing like that.” She clucked her tongue. “I thought we raised you better than that.”

Lindzi wanted to leap up and begin arguing, but the pain racing through her body forced her to stay where she was. Raised her better? Raised her rougher was more like it. They had never beaten her, certainly, but the the only way she could get their attention was to fuck with them, and she had certainly done big heaping helpings of that. It had been an eighteen year uphill battle to get them to even acknowledge she existed. Bad grades, cutting out on Sunday school and cheerleading practice, going off to pout rather than joining in on family activities, smoking behind the school gym, they had gotten her plenty of attention, it even if it wasn’t the kind they gave her siblings. They were certainly paying attention to her now, though. And she hadn’t even started swearing at them.

Still, she wanted to yell at them, tell them to get the hell out of her hospital room, that she could take damn good care of herself, and that Tony would be here any minute to bail her out. But none of that was true. Who knew where Tony was, and wherever he was, he was most likely bailing his own ass out. As for her “usual” tactics, she could hardly hope to seduce some doctor into taking her side in her current state. For all she knew, the left side of her face was completely mangled, just like her arm and leg, which were encased in plaster and bandages.

So what was she supposed to do now? Just lay there and wait for her parents to start yelling at her? She wasn’t eager to choose that option, but what other ones did she have? If she asked them to leave they probably wouldn’t, and anyway, who was going to pay her hospital bill? She didn’t even have insurance. Even if she sucked every dick in the building, she couldn’t hope to charm and fuck her way into walking out on a bill this big.

The door opened, footsteps echoing from the hallway into the hospital room. “Oh, you’re awake. I should have gotten three sandwiches.” Lindzi could hear her father sitting down, although where he was in space she wasn’t sure. If only she could sit up, could get some kind of view of this place.

“The doctor said she’s not to have anything but fluids for now, dear.” Someone poured water into a glass somewhere. “Here, give her this.”

Lindzi’s father moved up, now blocking out what little she could see on her left. She couldn’t quite tell if his face was scrunched in disgust in her condition or just his usual disappointment in her. He held a glass to her lips, tipping it slightly. Lindzi realized how thirsty she was. It must have been ages since she last drank. Did she drink any coffee back at the house? She wasn’t sure. The water poured into her mouth, quenching her at first, then overflowing, streams of liquid falling down her chin and neck and into her bandages. She sucked at it as best she could, but it was much too much, and soon she began to choke, coughing and splattering the water all over. She hadn’t felt this close to drowning since she’d been baptized, and she began to flail wildly, ignoring the pain.

“Oh look Kelsey, you’ve spilled it all over your bandages.” Her father pulled back the glass, glowering at her. Wasn’t this just fucking typical? He was the one who fucked up — he should have poured more gently, or even given her a straw. But instead, it was Lindzi’s fault that she was now wet in addition to being in pain. After coughing the water out of her lungs she clamped her jaw shut, refusing to give them the satisfaction of making a scene. That’s what they wanted, wasn’t it? For Lindzi to act out, so that they could be the good parents of a spoiled brat. It was the grocery store checkout aisle all over again.

They sat down, but Lindzi stared straight ahead, refusing to engage either of them. Her usual tactic in a fight was to slam the door and leave as soon as she’d made her point, and with her arm, ribs and leg all in casts, she could hardly do anything close to that. Maybe if she was quiet enough they’d get bored and go away. That worked surprisingly well with bullies, she’d found. If they weren’t having a good time, they went off to bother someone else.

“You know, since your older sister moved out, we do have room for you back at the house.” Her mother’s voice was distant and seemed to echo even in the small room. “You’ve been gone from us for so long, Kelsey. Come home with us. Please come.”

It was the same whining plead that she had voiced over the phone that one time Lindzi had been dumb enough to call. She didn’t talk like a parent concerned for the welfare of Child #5 out of 6. Instead she talked like a toddler begging for some new toy or candy bar. Is that all Lindzi was to them? A badge of success for them to show off to all their church and business friends? Did they care about her because she’d run away, or just care that her running away made them look bad?

She didn’t know, and she’d never know for sure, but as she heard them continue to whine, and beg, then finally shift into demanding her return, she had a pretty good idea. She couldn’t believe this. She was 21 years old. She hadn’t been home in over three years. All her life, all her childhood, all she’d wanted to do was get away from her shitty house. And for a few glorious years she had, free to smoke, free to have caffeine, free to snort coke off the dick of a guy she didn’t even know or care about. Now she’d be going back to caffeine-free diet drinks with a side of bland mash and a pointless dressing-down for dessert.

She wished the car crash had killed her. That she had been free to leave once the dream ended. Maybe that’s what she’d been trying to do, trying to escape through death. If she had the vial of coke that son of a bitch detective had taken from her, she’d certainly be jamming it up her nose right now, plus anything else she could to get out of here. Unconsciousness or death, it didn’t matter, so long as her parents shut the fuck up and stopped fucking complaining about her.

“Well dear, what do you think? Do you want to move back in with us?” It was her father this time, the stern “bad cop” to her mother’s whiny “good cop.” He wasn’t asking, he was telling. Lindzi bit her lip. She didn’t want to give in. For years, she gave in. Sure, she was a miscreant in school. If something got stolen or broken, it was probably her fault. But she’d never done anything truly wrong. She’d acted out and acted up, but she’d never broken anything that couldn’t be easily replaced, nor stolen anything that she knew would be missed. Still, they acted like every minor misdeed was as bad as when her oldest brother had stolen (and crashed) the family car because he had gotten upset at the lack of attention his engagement was getting at Christmas. And even then they hadn’t reduced her to a quivering, panty-wetting ball of terror like they had when she’d fallen hard during her ballet recital.

But what other option did she have? She wasn’t going to be able to support herself, she’d never done that, she’d just traded her father for a “daddy” with a more liberal policy towards drugs and alcohol. Going back meant no more fun, no more blowing random guys or getting filmed taking it up the ass, but it also meant being able to fucking eat, having a roof over her goddamn head, and no bills to fucking deal with. She couldn’t take care of herself, and if all those sex ed classes had taught her anything, they’d taught her that, once a girl is fucked, she’s fucked for life, and if she didn’t marry the first dick that went in her, every other dick she’s gonna take is going to be “just visiting.”

Her whole shitty life spread out in front of her. Years more living in that tiny room surrounded by religious knick-knacks and two shitty younger siblings, working some shitty back-room job at her dad’s car dealership until they managed to either pair her off with someone’s idiot son or became resigned to her turning into a spinster. She might or might not be allowed to rent her own apartment at some point, but her parents sure as hell weren’t letting her go out on her own anymore. They probably wouldn’t even buy her another car. “You crashed the last one,” they’d say, couching their desire to imprison her in a veneer of safety.

She turned her head slightly to the right, then the left, looking at each parent just barely out of the corner of her eye. The tears came hard, sliding down her cheeks in ones and twos, then in a steady river. She could feel them pooling up in the bandages on her face, her own saltwater mixing with the fluoridated liquid from the tap. This was it, then. Not to die fast and young, ODing on cocaine on some stud’s floor or being wiped out by some rare and deadly STD, but instead to become old and anonymous. Sure, she’d remain young, remain Lindzi, on all those old VHS tapes in all those musty basements and college dorms for a little while, but soon enough they’d be thrown out by jealous wives or unhappy mothers and she’d go back to being every bit as unknown as she had been back when she ran away.

It was this ignominy that hit her harder than the realization she’d have to move back in with two awful, judgmental parents. For one brief, shining moment, she’d been the bitch everyone wanted to be with. No matter how shitty she acted, how much she annoyed and inconvenienced everyone, they still wanted to get balls-deep in her pussy. Even the girls wanted her, like that stupid squirrel back at the gym. Now nobody would want her, other than to point out to their own daughters why they should obey the thirteen articles of faith, or else end up unknown, unwanted, and stuck in a shitty dead-end job.

Her parents moved in as she sobbed, patting and caressing her as best they could within the restrictions of her bandages. “I’m sorry.” The words were mumbled and mangled as they crawled out of her mouth, but she was certain the meaning got across. She was sorry she’d run away. Sorry she’d thought she could be anything more than the unwanted Child #5 of 6 in the family where everyone else succeeded. Sorry she had shoved drugs up her nose, down her throat and in her arm so that she could feel good. Sorry she’d sucked and fucked every guy she ran across. Sorry she’d gotten most of it on film, so every dipshit in LA knew what her cunt looked like, and wished, for the seven to eight minutes they spent masturbating, that they could be balls deep inside of it. Sorry she hadn’t died in the crash, thus preventing her parents from having to take back their shame, rather than simply writing her off as the black sheep whose immoral end kept the rest of the flock in line.

“There there, honey, you’ll be fine now. You’re safe.” Lindzi’s mother tried to hug her, sending fresh waves of pain coursing through her broken body. She tried to hold back, but soon found herself screaming, though whether in physical or emotional pain she wasn’t sure. She just let it out, wailing every bit as loud as she had back when she was on set, but her cries filled with pain instead of pleasure. Her mother let loose and dropped her at the sound, her own footsteps followed by a rush of older, heavier ones.

“Ms. Morgan, you must be careful with your daughter for the time being.” The doctor’s voice was stiff, stern, and clearly tired of this shit. The exhaustion dripped from his every word. It was comforting, to have someone in the room who wasn’t being disingenuous. “She suffered numerous broken bones and internal hemorrhaging in the accident, and hugging her like that risks popping her stitches or un-setting her bones.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Just leave her to us for now, Mr. and Ms. Morgan. Visiting hours ended fifteen minutes ago anyway. You can come back tomorrow, and hopefully by then we’ll have a better understanding of when your daughter will be safe to discharge. She looks worse than she is, but we’re confident that, minus some scarring and possibly a slight limp, she should be as good as new in a few months.”

Good as new? Not unless this doctor could hook her up with a new agent, director and a reliable cocaine connection. Even if her body hadn’t caught up yet, Lindzi had died, and what was left was going back to being named Kelsey, back to eating sugar-free breakfast cereal, and slowly waiting to die and go to a heaven that couldn’t hope to match the past three years of her life.

“We’re going to need to change your dressing, Lindzi, and that might sting a bit. So we’re going to need to put some pain killer into your IV drip.” Lindzi felt nothing at first, then a slow, creeping numbness that seeped through her right arm and across her body, crawling this way and that. She’d never been too fond of heroin — like all downers, it tended to make her lazy and relaxed, rather than up and ready for action. But in her current circumstances, she was ready for anything that got her high, and the euphoria tickling through her brain was better than the dissipating agony in her leftward limbs.

She closed her eyes, doing her best to ignore and shut out what the doctors and nurses were doing. This might be the last high she got in a long, long time, and she wanted to enjoy it. It wasn’t as good as cocaine. It wasn’t as good as an orgasm. And it was a pale shadow compared to the thrill of being wanted, adored and fucked by every guy in the room while the camera was rolling tape. But it made her feel different. And as shitty as she’d felt before her parents left the room, that was enough.