Wake Up (1/1)

While in the emergency room, Joohyun learned that she was suffering from a mild concussion, five cracked ribs, and was starting to feel the beginnings of neck and back pain creeping up her spine.        Joohyun isn’t sure what makes her feel more broken; Seulgi’s last words to her replaying over and over again in her head, reminding her of how much she loved Joohyun - or the multiple fractures she was nursing in her ribcage, making every breath sting.        “You’re lucky,” her doctor said as he wrote her a prescription for painkillers. He’s giving her an almost chiding look, although it wasn’t her fault there was a drunk driver going seventy-five miles per hour in a forty-five who’d hit them straight on.        “I was expecting a lot worse from such a severe accident,” he continued a moment later, when it’s clear Joohyun isn’t going to say anything in response.         Joohyun hardly listens to a word he’s saying, she’s more focused on the next gurney that comes rushing in through the set of double doors beside her. Was that Seulgi’s motionless body underneath that sheet?        She snaps out of it when the doctor places a comforting hand on her shoulder.        “After all, your car did flip over three times, Ms. Bae.”        Empty and tired beyond belief, Joohyun can only hum in response, staring down at her hands. It gave her an odd feeling to think about the entire ordeal. She was too scared to bring up the other passenger in the car. She remembered bits and pieces, the puddles of blood, the bloodied windshield.        No one had said anything to her about Seulgi yet, and Joohyun almost couldn’t bring herself to ask. She didn’t want to believe it was true, so she pretended that everything was okay. She almost succeeded in tricking herself. Almost.        Seungwan is the first to visit her. Her usually bubbly best friend is absolutely tear stricken, and if Joohyun were in her right mind, she would’ve been surprised. But Joohyun knows she probably looks in worse shape than her, though they both had done their fair share of crying. Her eyes swollen and puffy, and her irises were rimmed with red around the edges.        Yet the Canadian still managed to burst out into a familiar smile the second she’d stumbled into Joohyun’s cold, sterile room. It was 2AM by then, but Seungwan told her the second she heard what happened, she’d gotten into her car and started driving.         “Yeri and Sooyoung are on their way,” Seungwan murmured, massaging one of Joohyun’s cold hands with her own to warm the injured woman. They sit together, the weight of silence cloaked over them. After a minute, Joohyun can take it no longer. She has to know the truth, no matter how devastated she would be.        “Seungwan-ah…,” Joohyun whispers, her voice still hoarse from screaming. “Do you know what happened to Seulgi?” At her question, Seungwan’s body suddenly became wracked with uncontrollable sobs. Joohyun had seen her speaking urgently with one of the nurses outside, hence why she had asked.        Seungwan let go of Joohyun’s hands in order to cover her own face, and Joohyun looked on with an emotionless expression, trying to control herself in order to hear the Canadian’s next words. Joohyun noticed that it seemed like a dam had broken inside of her best friend and the floodgates ran freely down her cheeks and dribbled down her chin. “I’m sorry, unnie,” Seungwan says once she’s finally able to control herself.         “Seulgi’s in critical condition right now. She was rushed to the hospital before they could even tear you away from the site. That’s all that they would tell me, I swear.” Seungwan buries her face into the thin sheets of Joohyun’s hospital bed in shame, bawling.        “I begged for more information, but that’s all they’d give me since I’m not a relative,” Seungwan whispers, her voice tinted in disgrace. Joohyun feels the jabbing of her ribs with each tiny intake of breath she takes, but she can’t help the rush of her heartbeat at the news. She runs a hand over Seungwan’s hair, smoothing out the silky strands with the quick work of her fingers.         “I wonder if she’ll make it,” Joohyun whispers, more to herself than to the young woman sitting in the chair beside her bed. The look Seungwan gives her next is enough of an answer alone, and Joohyun tries to stop her chest from heaving too much while life crumbles before her.        Everything hurts so much. The medical staff had hooked her up to a steady drip of drugs for the night, but she could still feel the way the sensation was radiating through her. Joohyun was suffering the physical pain of her bones jabbing at her insides, but also from the fact that she might’ve lost Seulgi as well…and that pain was almost unimaginable.        “She told me she loved me,” Joohyun whispered, salty tears streaking down her cheeks. “Right before it happened. She must’ve seen the driver before…,” her voice was too weak and the sadness too strong for her to finish her thought, but Seungwan understood what she was saying.        Sooyoung and Yeri join them half an hour after Seungwan, looking even more shaken than Seungwan had. Both of the younger women have dark circles underneath their eyes, and had brought with them three cups of coffee from the hospital’s cafeteria.        The four of them can’t bear to exchange any words amongst themselves. They sat in silence, only broken by choked whimpers and weeping, holding each other’s hands for comfort until each of them drift off into fitful bouts of sleep.         **         The first chance she gets the next day, Joohyun asks her nurse about her girlfriend’s condition. “Do you have a patient named Kang Seulgi?” She remembers asking, a hollow feeling settling in the pit of her chest where her heart was skipping. Her three friends had all left earlier that day, before she’d gotten the chance to say goodbye.        The only remainders of them were a vase of vibrant red roses on the bed stand and a change of clothes from her apartment waiting for her on one of the chairs drawn up to her bed. “Did she...,” Joohyun swallows hard underneath the nurse’s blank, waiting gaze, “Is she alive?”        The nurse finished scribbling down notes on her clipboard before answering. She was giving Joohyun another routine check-up to see if her symptoms had worsened, and it looked as though they hadn’t. She gave the injured woman a fraction of a smile once she’d finished writing.        “You were in the car with her, right?” The nurse retorts with her own question, evading Joohyun’s, peering down at her quizzically. The injured woman nodded her head weakly, then winced as her brain rattled in her skull.         Joohyun had been told that it would be weeks before she’d feel anywhere near normal. Joohyun wasn’t looking forward to the long road of recovery that no doubt lay ahead of her. “I think you should see her before you leave,” the nurse says softly.        She caps her pen and looks at Joohyun with pity dancing in her dark brown eyes, “She’s staying in Room 151, just down the hall.” Joohyun sighs with relief, and leans back onto her pillows, “Thank you.”        Her nurse lingers a few minutes more by the door, studying Joohyun. “Is there something else?” Joohyun asks, tilting her head to the side. The nurse opens her mouth as if to say more, but it appears as if she can’t get the words out.        A minute later, she flashes an almost embarrassed smile at her patient, then ducks out of the room, telling Joohyun where the checkout counter was. “There’s soap and shampoo, as well as a towel in the bathroom for you,” the nurse adds over her shoulder.         Joohyun grabs her change of clothes and slowly walks over to the restroom, locking the door behind her.        Her biggest shock since the accident occurs once she’s finally able to look into a mirror. She can hardly even recognize the weak, frail person blinking back at her with wide, heavy eyes. She sheds the dainty hospital gown she’d been wearing and a sharp gasp emits from her, causing another wave of pain to rippling across her chest.        Remembering the breathing techniques that the nurses had given her to use when she needed to control her lung movement from further harming herself, she took a deep breath in, then out slowly as she took in the damage of the accident. Joohyun’s body was stained black and blue, her once fair skin blooming with bruises that ranged from the size of her fist to that of a textbook.        Angry red scrapes and cuts were scattered across her at random, and a few even marred her face. She traces a finger over the shallow wounds on her cheek, remembering the way the glass of the windshield had splintered all around her.         By far, Joohyun’s torso was the worst off. The crude outline of where her seatbelt had been before it’d lashed her against her seat was accented by harsh dark marks outlining the locations of her cracked ribs. She drew a finger over the cruel marks covering the skin all the way from her upper stomach to the top of her right shoulder blade.        Testing out the area by gently prodding her skin, Joohyun involuntarily hiss with pain. The area was more tender than she’d been expecting. She also inhaled deeper than she’d meant to, causing another wave of pain shot through her. “Fuck,” she muttered to herself, gritting her teeth as she started up the shower.        Doctors and nurses alike had told her to practice shallowed breathing patterns in order to relieve the stress of the fractures as much as possible, but it was harder than it sounded. Breathing was a bodily function no one has to consciously think about in order to do, unless if you were holding your breath.         Forcing yourself to pay attention and change something second nature was a huge obstacle Joohyun wasn’t entirely sure she could manage, but she knew she’d need to start learning if she wanted to make it through such a simple task as bathing herself. After successfully calming her breathing, Joohyun turned to start up the water for her shower.        Using the cheap, one-use-only slippers set near the shower stall, Joohyun stepped into the spray of steaming water with a pleasant sigh. She’d feel totally relaxed if not for the way her exhaling sent another jolt through her. Brushing aside her growing annoyance, Joohyun opted to give her hair a rich lather of cleansing soap and conditioner.        After she’d rinsed the residue off, she turned to the matter of soaping body wash all over her. It pained her to look at the discoloration of her skin, so she faced forward instead of letting her own gaze wander over herself.         Once she’d scrubbed herself clean, she towel-dried her hair and changed into the fresh set of clothes. Joohyun took the towel and rubbed a little circle in the fogged up mirror to see herself a little bit better. She looked a little bit better now that she looked more like herself, she thought as she gave her reflection another once over in the mirror. She stepped out of the bathroom and steeled herself to walk towards Seulgi’s room.        Spotting the delicate vase of roses still decorating her bed stand, Joohyun made up her mind to bring it to the other woman. After all, if Seulgi was to be in the hospital longer than her, she could use something to brighten up the clinically decorated room. The older girl had a feeling that Seulgi would need them more than she did. Gripping the glass tightly, Joohyun left the room.        Though she wanted to get there as quickly as possible, the pain in her chest was still bothering her enough to make her pace a slow shuffle. The moment the nurse handed over her prescription painkillers, Joohyun had pocketed them instead of downing the first dose right there, and she was regretting her earlier decision. She could always take them in Seulgi’s room, she thought to herself.         Her footsteps slowed as she reached Room 151, and there was a sudden lurch in her stomach. She remembered Seungwan whispering to Sooyoung and Yeri about Seulgi being in critical condition before she’d drifted off to sleep. Joohyun knew she had to steel herself in case Seulgi’s injuries were far more severe than her own. Could she handle the sight of Seulgi even more broken than herself?        Joohyun had always viewed Seulgi as the stronger one out of the two of them. Whenever she needed help reaching something from a shelf or from the top of the fridge, Seulgi would always come to her aid. If she were struggling with something heavier than she could manage, Seulgi would come swooping in and cheekily help her with it.        It was Seulgi who held her when Joohyun’s father had passed away last year, when she felt too weak to stand and the tears didn’t stop for weeks of sorrow. It had been Seulgi who’d given her the encouragement and support she needed to start making her dreams as an upcoming model and actress a reality. Seulgi’s strength is what has gotten Joohyun out of her introverted shell, and the older girl could only hope that she would be enough for the both of them.        Her fingers wrapped around the ice cold door handle and swung it open weakly. Joohyun was about to find out. She put on her best attempt of a smile on her face as she stepped into the room, but the action was quickly forgotten at the sight of Seulgi, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully in bed. Her hands were folded together on top of her stomach, and her heartbe