I listened to the voices speak for a while, but they talked as though I wasn’t there, and I wanted them to know I was. I concentrated very hard and slowly opened my eyes. I was in a whitish room, with figures moving quickly on the other side of the window, and next to the bed were two women whose faces I knew. It took me a second to remember their names. They were talking and didn’t see that my eyes were open. I tried to say hello, but it came out as a rasp and a dry cough. I realized there was a tube down my throat.

Their heads whipped around to face me, and they both broke out in massive smiles. “You’re awake!” Missy squealed as she lunged for me and gingerly hugged me as best she could through the octopus of wires.

“I’ll get a doctor.” Jane leapt from her chair and raced from the room. Her body sped past the window, and I saw her pointing back to the room. A figure in white glided across the view and into the door. A doctor.

She shooed Jane and Missy from the room while she checked me out and removed the tube from my throat. After a few sips of water I was able to talk again, albeit with a lot of pain. “How long was I out?”

“Two days.”

“Two days?” I was stunned. I was almost afraid to hear everything else that had happened. “Everything hurts.”

“Well, there’s a lot of you that’s busted, so that’s to be expected. How bad is the pain?”

“Bad.” I felt dangerously close to crying. It seemed like it got worse every minute I was conscious. She adjusted a drip hanging on a pole and made a note on a chart. I tried to turn my head to look out the window to my right, but there was something around my neck preventing me from moving it. “Is my neck broken?”

“No. Your left arm is broken in two places. Your left leg is broken. But your neck is only sprained.”

It hurt to talk, but I needed to know what was going on. “Anything else?”

“Concussion and collapsed lung. Looks like the seat belt didn’t hold you back as much as it should have; your chest hit the steering column pretty hard.”

I winced. “Yeah. Old car.” How stupid had I been not to get that fixed sooner? I was lucky it locked at all.

“Lost quite a bit of blood from a gash on your head. Broke a couple ribs. And a wide assortment of cuts and bruises. But that’s it.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll let your friends back in for half an hour more.” With that she smiled and left the room.