My first thought on waking was that I needed water—ice cold water, with a lemon slice and ice cubes clinking around in a giant pitcher.
My second thought is that my first thought was dumb as hell because for all I knew I had lost an arm in the car crash and here I was wanting ice cubes. But my throat felt like sandpaper and my tongue felt three times as big in my mouth.
I moan groggily, open my eyes and a stark white room with blue curtains comes into view along with a man at the foot of my bed in a white lab coat. "Micha Williams?" He asks, sounding my name like I was the bad guy in this situation. I mean, he was entirely condescending like it was my fault that my car had crashed and nearly killed me and Asa Moon.
Asa.
I think back to the owl in the seat beside me becoming a whole-ass naked boy right before my eyes and saving me while he was at it.
"You were in a terrible car accident," The doctor informs me smartly, "You're fortunate that you and your little friend made it out alive. Anyone else would have died rolling into that ditch."
I glare at him a little, but I don't say anything, because his interpretation of luck and mine were two entirely different things. "What happened?" I manage to rasp finally, and I pick up my head a little, "I was in the car with someone else when we crashed. Are they okay?"
The door opens before the doctor can respond and my dad explodes into the room. "Micha?" He shouts, followed by a concerned-looking James Dean. "You're awake! It's a miracle!" Dad exclaims, the thunder of his voice making me wince.
"Bro," James Dean appears at my bedside, "You look like shit on a stick."
"You would know, right?" I reply, never one to pass up roasting someone even when I was dying.
"Micha, look at me!" My dad pushes his way into view, much to the doctor's annoyance when he tries getting a word in. "What the hell happened?" He demands, "One minute you were at home, the next I was getting a call from the police that your car flipped over during the storm!"
"I'm okay," I mumble, "Thanks for asking. Pretty sure I'm going to need to spend the rest of the year in bed, but who the hell cares, right?" So maybe I was being in a bitchy mood, but James and dad hadn't been in a car accident and lost a million years of their life.
The doctor clears his throat a little.
"Are we going to discuss the obvious?" He questions, and I slowly become aware of the giant lump under the bedsheets where my leg was along with the fact that I couldn't really feel anything but tight bandages. Holy shit, had I lost my leg in the car accident?
I remember meat tearing, and blood soaking my jeans.
"Let's take this slow, Doctor Tayi," Dad says, his voice pitching with apprehension. "Micha, the only reason you're still alive is because your friend ran all the way into town to ask for help before you bled out. We would have had no idea what happened if it hadn't been for him."
I keep staring down at the lump under the sheets, then I reach down and pull them back.
A scream tears out of me in an instant.
"My foot!" I shriek, and I reach down to grab my knee, "You took off my fucking foot without asking me first!?"
"It was mangled," Doctor Tayi quickly explains, "We had no chance of saving it. In fact, you're lucky that the rest of your leg was able to be saved. The damage was extensive, we did as much as we could to preserve what we could."
There was that word again. Luck. But how could I be lucky
I lay back and flop into my pillow, my hands coming up to rake through my hair. "Give me some morphine," I grit out through my teeth, "Give me something right now!"
"But you're already on several--" Doctor Tayi starts to argue.
"Just give me something to take the pain away!" I scream as I bolt upright, making even James Dean and dad flinch away. "You're not the one who just lost his foot!" I snarl at the old man, "You freakin' psycho-ass doctor!" If I'd had fangs, I would have bitten right through him and his pretentious expression.
The door opens as I'm yelling and I see Asa Moon step inside, his hands curling around the doorframe as he peeps inside. "Um...is this a bad time? I can come back later."
"Yes," Dad replies, clearly frustrated, and ten times more exhausted, "I'm sorry, Asa. Micha's having a little trouble right now. Can you give us a few moments?"
Asa starts to leave, but he was actually the only one I wanted to see. Everyone else didn't matter. They didn't know what I was feeling, or how scared I was that I was never going to be normal again. My chances of playing football had gone down the shithole, and worst of all, all the college scholarships that I'd planned on raking in during my senior year had just roasted.
"Wait!" I shout, and Asa turns around, catching the door before it closes.
"Can you stay here?" I ask him, "I want to talk to you alone for a few minutes."
Dad seemed hurt at that, but too exhausted to argue, so he claps James Dean on the shoulder and they both leave me there with Asa. A second later, Doctor Tayi nods in my direction, then exits after them. "A nurse will stop by in an hour," he tells me stiffly, "Try not to cause too much trouble."
I watch him leave, then flick my eyes over to Asa when he sits down at my bedside, a cardboard box in his hands. He had bandages stuck to his face and a little nose stabilizer thing for his nose, but he looked way better than I did.
"Hey," he voices awkwardly, and we both share a small laugh.
"Hi," I reply, and I push myself back into a sitting position, "So you saved my life, huh, owl boy?"
Asa quickly ducks his head, avoiding my gaze. "You still remember what you saw?" He questions, "I was kind of hoping that you forgot everything."
"There's no way I could forget something like that," I reply with a shake of my head, "You turned into an owl. Then you pulled me out of a broken window, and I weigh twice as much as you. How the hell is that even possible? Are you some kind of superhero in disguise?"
Asa lifts the cardboard box in his hands, then places it on my lap, his eyes peeking at me before he ducks his head again. "Open it," he tells me simply.
I hesitate, my hands hovering over the box, then I gently slip the lid off to look inside. For some reason, I'm expecting a box of dead mice or something gross like that, since he was an owl. But that's not what happens at all. Instead, I see a bunch of freshly baked cookies piled up, iced to look like owls. Or, at least they kind of looked like owls, some of the frosting had smeared and melted.
"I baked them while you were in surgery last night," Asa explains shyly, "I couldn't sleep worrying about you."
My cheeks burn bright red in response.
It was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me.
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