Oh Christ, he was hurt!<br/>Hurt bad…<br/>For a moment Mai was rendered utterly incapable for shock. She sat cross legged, stunned in the grass, dew and dirt eating into her leggings, eyes car-headlight wide, breath heaving beneath her bosom, lungs still dry and burned from having the wind knocked clean out of them, blood starting to gum up in the dip up her upper lip. It had been years, but… but shit, she recognised the unconscious shape in front of her.<br/><br/>Oh she’d know that flick nose, those moth-wing eyelashes,<span style="font-style: italic">that face</span>anywhere, even if he did look three shades more gaunt than she’d left him…. there was an odd, matted darkness creeping into his hair that had nothing to do with the red dye and it took a quantum fucking leap of the mind for it to suddenly dawn on her what was wrong here.<br/>A sharp gasp.<br/>Her hand instinctively curled around her mouth to trap it.<br/>Slow dawning horror.<br/><br/>Blood!<br/>He’d busted his head and she had no idea just how bad the injury was. Mai’s subconscious suddenly threw a series of nightmarish images at her, possible outcomes, terrible little demo scenarios of what could conspire here. She could practically see his funeral pan out before her, his family and friends tearful, screaming at her ‘why hadn’t she saved him!?’, the little picture above the coffin was from when she’d known him with that little quirky smile she’d known all too well… her stomach seemed to cave in on itself. Bile rose in the back of her throat, cold sweat sucked her shirt into the small of her back and a dull buzz started to shriek in the peripheral of her hearing. She stumbled to her feet, clutching at the trunk of the tree for support,<span style="font-style: italic">“pleasedon’tdiepleasedon’tdiepleasepleasedon’tdie”</span>she wasn’t even aware when she’d started it, but those words became a terrified mantra, she found herself whispering them over and over, breathlessly as though if she wished it hard enough it wouldn’t happen, murmured them enough that they lost all meaning. It COULDN’T happen!<br/>God, no!<br/><br/>What… what was it she had to do?! What DID you do for something like this?!<br/><br/>Shit!<br/>She hunkered back down next to him, pressing her index and middle finger against his throat, feeling for a pulse, panicking when, at first, she couldn’t find it. Then there it was. A soft thrumming under his skin, like the same way the walls pulsed when upstairs played their music too loud.<br/><br/>Relief flooded her system. Sense came back to her in a cool wave. He was alive! What now?<br/><br/>Mai groped her pocket shakily for her phone, but she might as well have been fishing for eels in a barrel of jelly for all the goddamn trouble it was giving her, her hands were still slick and trembling from shock.<br/><br/>Cursing profusely when she missed the right buttons, she called an ambulance.<br/><br/><br/>They were pretty damn snappy. Clever buggers kept her on the phone until the car arrived, talking calmly, asking all sorts of silly questions, most of which she couldn’t recall if she wanted to, they even understood her when she could scarcely hiccup the words for sobs. Guess they were used to it…<br/>They even let her ride in the ambulance on the way. She sat in the little stiffly awkward seat next to the bed, stroking his cheek, WILLING him wordlessly, but furiously to wake up, to be okay! Although the paramedics exchanged strange looks when she could tell them Arts blood type, but not his home address… maybe that’s why they didn’t allow her into the recovery room afterwards….<br/><br/>About an hour later she found herself sat, ankles crossed, hands pursed in her lap, staring at the ceiling. Sterile what squares; the kind soaked through with such a pungent, chemical stench that in skipped your nostrils and burned clean into your skull. The kind of smell that lit up your senses like the circus and left a taste in the air like you’d had your mouth washed out with soap…<br/>After a lifetime of watching medical soap operas over dinner (her dad was a die hard TV junkie)  it was everything she’d come to expect from doctors waiting rooms and more. Mai felt like she’d been sat there long enough that she’d live the rest of her days being able to recite this place off by heart for as long as she lived.<br/>Little rows of plastic, green chairs, and the occasional padded model for use in real emergencies, kept her company. There was a rubber cheeseplant in the corner with holes, but more from teething toddlers than snails she supposed, stacks of shiny leaflets flashing cartoon drawings of STD’s and helpful information about teenage pregnancy in every colour under the rainbow, but no matter how many colours they used it couldn’t lift the mood. It was the wrong time of day and the only human presence was the occasional nurse breezing past on their way between jobs.<br/>Sighing dryly she decided to break the cycle of counting ceiling tiles. Mai dug out her phone, “Hey dad…” she squirmed in her seat as the questions started, “Well no… I…” pause, her eyebrows almost met in the middle. He’d accused her of bunking off lessons… it wouldn’t be the first time, she’d almost been kicked out of her last school… “No of course I’m still there!” she snapped in retaliation, feeling her cheeks suddenly heat up, “As it so happens I’m staying late for after school club!” as soon as she’d said it her heart sunk. What had made her lie? It wasn’t like it was her fault an old friend had thrown himself out of the fucking heavens and landed straight on her, but… well, her father had always hated Art in the first place, he was frighteningly defensive of Mai after her mother left, “So I was calling to say I was going to be late!”<br/><br/>How would she explain the cut nose later? Well at least it would be entertaining, “Uh huh…. Yes I will,” she rolled her eyes at another incoming lecture, “Alright! I’ll see you later then! I’ll make my own way back. Bye bye, I love you too!” after she hung up  she stared at the phone in her hands for a few minutes wondering what kind of trouble had she just caused…<br/><br/>It didn’t matter.<br/><br/>All that mattered was that Art was okay, if they weren’t going to let her see him she’d stay there until she caught him on his way out.