Somehow, they managed to get stopped without hitting the other car. The Volkswagen stuttered with the effort of screeching to a halt. She could smell the burning rubber smell emitting from the hot tires.

The other driver went on, likely clueless to the mayhem that had almost ensued. Shaken, Ellie sat there for a moment to regain her composure before continuing on this treacherous drive.

She looked over at the man beside her to make sure he was okay––or at least as okay as he could be, considering the morning they’d had. He filled up the seat and then some. In fact, the car felt somehow full with his presence. His knees were practically in the dash. He was still resting his head back with his eyes closed.

Just when she was beginning to wonder if he had slept through the almost-accident, he mumbled, “It was probably a woman driver.”

His words were so quiet, she almost wondered if he had actually uttered them. Eyes still closed, he began to chuckle at his own joke, confirming that he had made the insulting statement.

Forgetting for a moment their precarious situation, Ellie batted at his shoulder with the back of her hand. His “Ow!” of surprise was quickly followed by, “That was the one place on my body that didn’t already hurt.”

His words brought her back to the immediacy of the moment, so she slammed on the gas pedal and raced him to the emergency room.

Once there, he was quickly swept away on a gurney, while she was left to wait and wonder. The triage nurse quickly discovered that she wasn’t going to be much help when she couldn’t even give her the man’s name, so the woman moved on to her other duties, leaving Ellie wondering what to do next.

Ellie had physically cringed when the nurse had called the man “the victim.” She supposed that is exactly what he was…HER victim.

Finding an orange pleather chair, she sat down in the waiting room. Pulling her blonde hair out of the bun she always wore at work, she ran her fingers through the long strands and tried not to stress too much about how her victim was doing.

She wondered briefly what her regular customers would think about finding the bakery closed this morning, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She considered taking a few minutes to go put a sign on the door, but she didn’t want to take a chance on missing an update on the man’s condition.

After a few hours of waiting with no updates, she couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. She doubted anyone would come to fill her in on his condition anyway, since she wasn’t a family member, so she decided to take matters into her own hands.

Wandering through the halls, she searched for any sign of the man. Not knowing his name was an inconvenience. Should she just ask someone the whereabouts of the man who looks like he was hit by a car?

She peeked into several rooms, but it felt so invasive to look in at people when they were at their most vulnerable.

A kind-faced nurse finally took pity on her. “Who you lookin’ for, hon?”

“There’s a man, who was hit by a car,” she started lamely, letting her words trail off at the end.

“Oh, you mean Trey.” The woman’s face perked up immediately, making Ellie feel irrationally jealous. “I’ll go see if he’s up for a visitor,” the woman promised before her white rubber clogs squeaked off down the hallway.

Unsure what to do other than follow her, Ellie wondered about her odd flare of envy at the nurse’s familiarity with the stranger. Deciding that it shouldn’t be surprising that his nurse was on a first-name basis with him and the woman who put him here was not, she tried to tell herself she would just check on him and leave.

When the nurse turned into a room and closed the door behind her, Ellie hovered awkwardly outside. She wasn’t even sure if the woman had been heading directly to his room, but Ellie didn’t know what to do, other than wait. The nurse stayed in there for what seemed like an eternity. Just when Ellie was convincing herself that the nurse was evidently assisting someone else, she finally poked her head out of the door.

“He’ll see you now,” she said to Ellie, gracing her with a friendly smile.

Hands suddenly clammy, Ellie braced herself for what kind of condition he might be in. Her bracing didn’t help because she was not prepared for what she saw inside his room.

The man she had hit with her car was bandaged, battered, and bruised. One of his legs was elevated and his head was wrapped in white gauze that extended down over one of his shoulders. He was holding his head in his hands and groaning in misery.

She hated it that she had caused this much pain for him. Approaching his bedside, she told him sincerely, “I’m so sorry this happened.”

Doubting that he could hear her apology over his exaggerated moans of pain, she gingerly took his hand in hers to at least let him know she was there for him.

He winced in pain at her gentle touch. That was the moment when he went too far. She began to wonder if he was toying with her. The hint of a smile that played at the corners of his mouth confirmed her suspicion.

She dropped his hand as if it were a hot potato. “You’re faking?!?” She screeched the words, shocked that he would go to such lengths to make her feel even worse.

He was already unwrapping the extra gauze from his head. “No, I really got hit by a car today,” he deadpanned. The nurse was chuckling at his antics as she left the room.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Ellie pouted. “What happened is bad enough without making it worse.”

Taking her hand back in his own, he said, “I was just trying to lighten things up a little. It’s so serious in here.”

Looking around, Ellie responded, “It is a hospital.”

“So, that’s what that smell is,” he grinned.

“Are you ever serious?” she asked him, returning his smile, even though she was unable to believe his anger at her hadn’t set in yet.

“Almost all the time,” he answered, and for once, his tone did sound serious.

Her brows furrowed in confusion at his response, but she didn’t ask him to expand. Since the light tone of the conversation had dissipated, she asked him what she really wanted to know. “How are you, really?”

“I’m going to be around for a long time,” he promised. Even though she knew he meant to assure her that he was going to be alive for a long time, a strange longing settled deep in her heart that he would say he planned to be around her a long time. The errant desire didn’t make any sense. The last person he would want to be around was the woman who mowed him down with her car.

“There is something we need to discuss, though.” His deep voice sounded more somber than she had ever heard it in the short time she had known him.

Nervous about what might be coming, she swallowed and nodded at him to continue. “It’s about my hospital bills,” he started, and the churning in her stomach began anew.