Rachel's Accident

by

Barbara Peters

Rachel’s Accident

Copyright February 2016 by Barbara Peters

All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without explicit permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are wither the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. No part of this work can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

I had the strangest dream that night. A stranger came to my bed and told me I was in a hospital and had to work for him. What had the one to do with the other? I was completely confused by this s
tranger’s behavior. He seemed so big and intimidating at first glance, but had a nice and gentle voice when he opened his mouth and talked. And his eyes were the most beautiful I had ever seen.

All of a sudden the whole room vibrated and shook. It seemed
I experienced
the strongest
earthquake
I ever felt.
My body was being shaken along with the bed and the whole room.
His image blurred before my eyes as the hospital room vanished.

"Hey, wake up."

Strange, this
neither
sound
ed
like an earthquake
nor like the man from my dream
. It sounded
distinctly feminine,
like my roommate, Jessica. I was shaken again
,
a little rougher this time
. My poor bed was creaking and trembling along with me
. The earthquake that sounded like my
roomy
seemed to want to take my head of
f. It was throwing me around like rag doll, my head bouncing around wildly.

"Hey
! Wake up already!"

This time I managed a mumbled "Go away," in return. The earthquake should leave me alone already. I burrowed down deeper into the blankets.

"GET UP, YOU FREAKING LAZY COW!!!" she bellowed right int
o my ear, which made me jerk right up into a sitting position. She landed heavily on top of me knocking me right back again and the air out of my lungs along with it. I coughed and wheezed a bit until she got off of me again.

She then
had the
gall
to snatch away my blanket and throw me out of my own bed. Okay, this was definitely no
t an
earthquake.
It was far worse. I landed on the cold, hard floor with a heavy thud.

"What the freaking fuck is wrong with you? Leave me the fuck alone!" I thundered back.

Today was my free day. Why the hell was she insisting on throwing me out of my bed? It may not be the most comfortable bed, but it sure as hell topped the hard floor I was currently getting up from.

Jess assessed
me
calmly now.
"Can't.
Today's that important meeting you were talking about.
” She snipped her fingers since she still had trouble recalling what exactly this meeting was for. “R
emember? You told me to wake you up no matter what."

That worked like a bucket of ice water. I was now fully awake. "Oh, shit." I had completely forgotten about that. I glanced over at the alarm clock on my bedside t
able and cussed again. "Shit." It was a
lready past
six
in the evening?

Right, t
his was not morning.
I had only meant to take a short nap and then take
a
brief
shower before eating dinner. Now I could forget
about
both. God
damn it. Why did I have to be such a heavy sleeper? All these thoughts filled my head as I jumped out of bed to dress in something decent enough looking.
I would have just enough time to make it there if the traffic was agreeable with me.

When I glanced up again Jess was still standing there, blanket at her feet, with an amused expression
clearly showing on her face. "Thanks, I guess," I told her looking down at my feet
, a
little embarrassed and a lot awkward.

"No problem." She shot me a cocky grin. "Aren't you still late?" she reminded me.

"Shit," I cu
r
sed again, snapping out of it. I gathered my phone, keys
and purse and had to wrestle a little with the door to get it to open. It had a mind of its own and decided when to open easily and when not. More times than not it was stuck and today, of course, had to be one of those days. We were still trying to figure out a certain technique that would work every time, but with us living there for already half a year our chances were slim to none.

When it finally honored me by opening up
I rushed out and down the stairs and left the closing to Jess, which could be just as much of a pain.
I jumped into my
new/old
car and
turned the key in the ignition
.
It was newly bought from my savings, but it was an old and used car. I had to try twice to make the engine jump to life.
Two
minutes
later I was squealing out of the parking lot of my
small, run-down
apartment
building
and was on my way to the highway
to get downtown as soon as possible.

Only halfway to my meeting did I realize that I had forgotten to brush my teeth. I cursed myself up and down.
After sleeping I always had this unpleasant taste in my mouth.
First I had overslept and now this? I was sure I
smelled,
too since I didn’t get the chance to shower.
This was all just getting better and better.

‘What should I do now?’ I sure as hell couldn't show up to my meeting with
a bad case of
morning breath and an all around stink
. T
hat was just plain disgusting. It definitely wouldn't get her the job she so desperately needed. 'Okay then, let's find a drug store and buy some breath mints to tide me over and some tooth paste and tooth brush for later when I c
an
get to a washroom.’

Scratch that, I was going to find a gas station right now and then I was going to brush my teeth and take a makeshift shower with one of the basins there. To my dismay the washroom at the gas station I had pulled over had just run out of soap, in both toilets, of course.
But at least the guy in the store had some breath mints for me.

Disappointed, I made my way back to my car. ‘Spraying myself with a little of the air freshener
in the car
won’t kill me, right?’ Sin
ce I was still in a hurry I spe
d out of the gas station and back on the highway while fumbling around with the air freshener
in one hand and the steering wheel in the other.
This just wasn't my day. Strange, how it really never was.

Before I even realized what was going on I heard a loud crash and a crack. My body was tossed around only held back by the safety belt that I
had been
aware enough to put on. I saw stars behind the lids of my eyes. Then the world around me got blurry, showing me only the outlines of the scene unfolding around me. The next thing I knew everything went black.

I hadn’t seen it until it was too late. I had been driving my brand new car (well, at least it was new to me, apart from that it already had a few years and miles on its back), a Ford Mustang, which I had gotten for my birthday a few hours before; my shining n
ew driving license in my purse.

Since I hadn’t had much time when I was in my ‘early’
teens I only had gotten to take
the exam when I was already nineteen - unlike everyone else, of course. I had felt extremely old sitting among fifteen-something year olds staring at my nerdy self.

Yes, I was a nerd. Unfortunately not one of the cool ones, though, and I had the fat, the face and the glasses to proof it. Whatever, I loved studying. What’s wrong with that? Everybody always looks at me strangely because of that. Well, actually, it was also the reason for my late exam-taking.

But no more about that now.
No one wants to hear about that, stupid. Get a grip. Let’s get back to the important stuff, then. No time like the present, right?

Ugh, man, I hated hangovers and Jess, my
roomy
, knew that quite well, too. She was the one who had to listen to me bitching about it every time I got drunk and felt really peachy the morning after. But right now that damn woman was trying to wake me in the middle of the damn night jostling me and talking to me. Didn’t that girl have any sense of self preservation? She knew that I would chew her out for that in a few minutes and probably strangle her while I was at it.

I’m not a morning person. For me ten in the morning still counts as the middle of the night, especially when I’m hung over. I don’t care about other peoples’ opinions on the matter. I heard her murmuring into my ear again with a deep baritone. Huh, that was weird. I sure as hell didn’t remember Jess having such a manly voice. How odd…okay, no, that was definitely not my roommate Jess. She would never use such a soothing tone with me. She liked to torment me with her shrill voice, laughing and nagging at me until I finally had enough and got out of the damn bed.

Did I take someone home with me last night? I stopped mystified. When did I ever bring anybody home with me? That never ever happened before, for obvious reasons. My room was always a mess and no matter how much I tried to make it look better I never even managed to make a dent in the chaos before I just gave up out of pure exhaustion.

It definitely didn’t help that it was the cheapest place I could find, which meant Jess and me practically sat on top of each other when we were home.
Hence, why we never were home, at least not at the same time.
This was actually not just a big obstacle to overcome since we worked different shifts at our jobs. Jess had the morning shift while I had the evening and graveyard shift. You can imagine that being woken up at the ungodly hour Jess went to work was in my opinion a respectable reason to commit homicide.

I wrinkled my brow with confusion and concentration trying to think hard who that person talking to me could possibly be…and immediately regretted doing it. Dang, that hurt like a bitch. How much did
I have to drink last night? I couldn’t remember a damn thing. My brain didn’t see the need to kick in the right gear so I was left with a fuzzy, pain filled blank.
Nothing that could even remotely give me a clue about what went down the last few hours, not to mention minutes.

Then I realized that my head wasn’t the only part of my body that hurt like crazy. I grunted in pain as someone shifted around me, jostling me again. Still dazed and half asleep I felt big arms enveloping me, holding me to a warm and firm wall of muscle. It moved under my head. Why was he moving so damn much? He…right, it was definitely a
he
, considering that voice.

The fog slowly lifted from my mind allowing me to think clearer, but that small feat was accompanied by a lot more pain. I moaned in agony. “It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay. I’m so fucking sorry. Just hang in there,” I heard the deep voice murmur into my ear.

I tried to open my eyes and take
a
look at the man who possessed such a wonderfully pleasing voice. A sting of pain shot through my head right behind my eye sockets making me whimper. I felt a tear rolling down my cheek.

“
Shhhh
, it’s okay.”

The jostling and moving halted for a second. Then he moved again, probably trying to set me down on the ground. I heard a loud scream as my life turned even more into a living hell. Immediately he righted himself again settling me back against his chest. I grunted. My breath came in short, shallow bursts wheezing through my now sore throat. Oh, that must have been me doing the screaming, then.