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“Good call, man. It’s worse than I thought it would be. You be safe.”
“You, too.”
Caleb and I make it back out to the car, and I make him laugh when I seat belt the pizza in on the seat beside him.
“This way, it’s safe,” I say with a wink, and then climb in and start the car. We’ve just made it to the end of the parking lot when Caleb gasps.
“Oh, no! They forgot the breadsticks!”
I push on the brake and look back at him, but the car doesn’t stop. I slide out into the road, and an oncoming car, going way too fast for these conditions, can’t stop in time.
They hit me hard, broadsiding me and sending me into another car across the road.
Caleb screams before everything goes black.
“Drew!”Someone’s jostling my shoulder and yelling in my ear. “Drew, wake up. Wake up.”
I can hear Caleb crying, and I open my eyes to find him unstrapped, tapping my cheek.
“Get back in your seat.”
“We’re stopped,” he says. “We crashed. I grabbed your phone and called 9-1-1, and they’re coming. You’re not dead.”
“No.” But my shoulder is singing with pain, and I can feel blood running down my face. Fuck, I hope I don’t have a goddamn concussion. “I’m not dead.”
I can hear sirens in the distance and try to focus on Caleb.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, it didn’t hit me,” he says, but I can hear the fear in his voice. His eyes look a little shocky. “You passed out.”
He starts to cry now, and I reach back to take his hand. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m okay. Are you sure you’re not hurt anywhere? You’re not bleeding?”
“No.” He wipes his nose with his hand. “I’m not bleeding. Did I do the right thing?”
“You didgreat.” I try to move my left arm, but it is completely out of commission. “You’re so damn smart, kiddo. I’m proud of you. You did exactly right. I’m sorry I can’t get out and help you, but my arm is kind of hurt right now.”
“You have blood on your face.”
“Yeah.” I swallow hard, trying not to think about what that might mean. So far, I’m not dizzy, and my head only hurts where it’s cut, so I’m going to hang on to that. “I’m gonna be okay. I don’t think we should get out of the car until help gets here.”
“I think they’re here,” he says, pointing out the window. When I look, I see a firetruck and two ambulances arriving. Now that I’m looking around, I see that two other cars are dented up, but the drivers are out and talking to the first responders.
One of them points to me, and a fireman hurries over as fast as he can on the ice and tries to open the door. It’s so crunched up that it takes him four tries.
“My arm,” I say immediately. “Head laceration. I don’t know about concussion. But I want you to see to my son first. He’s in the back seat. Caleb, they’re going to help you now, okay?”
“I’m not hurt,” Caleb insists as the men hurry around to his side and open the door. “It’s Drew. It’s my daddy.”
He’s crying in earnest now, pointing to me, and it tears at my heart. I want to wrap him up and assure him that everything’s going to be okay.
“We’ll take you both in the same ambulance,” the EMT assures me as he helps me out of the car. “Let’s get you in there and out of this ice.”
The men work fast to get both Caleb and me into the ambulance, and as they do their best to get us to the hospital, they see to the cut on my head.
“Your shoulder is dislocated,” I’m informed. “They’ll set it at the hospital. Caleb seems to be fine.”
“I told you,” Caleb insists and lays his head on my chest.
