LJ Idol Season 10, Week 9: Trolley Problem
A little bit of warning with this entry -- there's a heavy mention of head trauma and gore as a result. If blood makes you squicky, you might wanna steer clear.
Ten days isn’t all that long, you tell yourself. Just a week and a half, no more, no less. Yes, it’s the longest the two of you have ever spent in each other’s spaces, but --
Ten days out of a nearly five-year friendship still isn’t much.
The day you bring her home, you apologize to her profusely for the mess your house irrefutably is. She reassures you that she doesn’t care; that it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she’s here, that you recover from recent injury and illness, that you two enjoy the time she’s here to the best of your abilities.
The trip was originally a Wednesday morning through Sunday afternoon affair -- extended another week because she wasn’t ready to go back home and you weren’t ready to let her leave.
The two of you spend Valentine’s Day together, running around the nearby college town, the one that’s inspired one of your shared Alternate Universes. There’s ramen and Pokemon Go and Duck Donuts. You’re providing her with a welcomed distraction; watching her face light up with soft smiles and beaming proudly whenever someone compliments her hair (it’s amazing, unlike your drab brown curls).
The day after, you reluctantly leave her to go to work. It’s a slow, tedious day. You’re up front and a prickly thorn in your assistant head teller’s side, because watching him flail amuses you and he’s cute when flustered, even if he is an idiot. You think nothing of it when a customer asks for a withdrawal slip and steps aside to fill it out.
The lobby empties, and something about the lighting feels off. There’s a scream, your eyes meet the customer’s, and she’s locked up, falling backwards.
The crack is unmistakable; skull against -- is it tile? marble? you’re not entirely sure -- and your coworkers on platform side are on their feet, one shouting orders to call 911, both of them reaching for phones, while you and your assistant head teller are frozen in place.
As one of your coworkers barks answers into the phone, you unfreeze, taking care of the occasional customer who isn’t staring wide-eyed or kneeling beside the woman who is -- by the account your coworker is giving 911 dispatcher -- bleeding from her ear, who hit her head, who likely had been seizing just moments ago.
A gentleman straightens up, his head barely visible over the edge of the counter. “Are there any more paper towels?”
And you find yourself stepping away from the teller line, stepping past the vault, past the private safe deposit box room, and into the server room, which you need a key to the branch to even step inside of.
Because you’re the only one who carries her keys on her; you’re the only one heard the request and moved.
It’s not until you’re walking back, packs of paper towels in hand, that you finally, finally, let yourself see the damage. The 911 call is still being made; Maribeth’s voice is still shrill, her accent thick and her panic palpable.
You’re on your knees, kneeling beside the woman lying in a pool of her own blood, handing out paper towels and taking a wad of them yourself and trying, desperately, to press them against the back of the woman’s head. Her hair is soaked. She’s breathing. Gagging. Rolling onto her side, trying to push herself up onto her feet and your eyes focus on the way the blood clings to her leather jacket, your fingers on how the back of her head feels wrong, your mind on how desperate you are to keep her on the floor.
Don’t stand up, don’t stand up, don’t stand up.
The fight of keeping her from climbing to her feet lasts maybe two minutes, your eyes taking in the details -- like how blood doesn’t at all move like water, when there’s a lot of it. Paramedics arrive, you shout at one of your coworkers -- another teller -- to go direct the EMTs to where you and two other customers are crouching on the floor.
You’re gone as soon as they come through the door, assessing the situation while you glance down at your hands -- which are soaked and coated red. You cut across the lobby for the bathrooms, scrub your hands clean and try not to think about the tiny cuts you have on the back of one of them, left there lovingly by your cat.
The whole ordeal lasts maybe fifteen minutes, from the porcelain smack of skull on tile to the moment you’re scouring your hands with soap and hot water, and all you can think is how much you need her, how glad you are she hadn’t gone back home yet, how glad you are you convinced her it’d be okay if she stayed another week.
You message her through your dreamwidth account -- tell her the bare bones of what happened. A customer fell and hurt herself. She bled a lot. You tried to help. And she messages back, Are you okay?
No, I’m not okay, you tell her. Your hands shake; you blink away tears -- keep your voice steady when you call GSI and Facilities, explaining to them what happened, logging the incident report for your manager -- at least verbally -- and begging that the cleaners come sooner rather than later.
You have three and a half more hours left of your shift, and every single moment is agonizing, because all you want is to see her. It’s a visceral need, an ache in your chest. She’s only up here because she’s having marriage problems with her husband. Because she needed to be away, needed you.
She sends you messages about how you don’t have to deal with your son nor making dinner, since she’ll take care of everything tonight. She sends you messages reminding you that it’s okay for you to leave work and come home early, even though she knows you’re not going to do that. It took her damn near threatening to walk out of your life for you to leave work early the day after your son gave you a concussion a month ago. Your stubbornness hasn’t changed at all since then.
Every time you check your messages, every time you read her words, tears fill your eyes and you blink them away. The branch is quiet; customers ask about the pile of what appears to be a sheet left by the EMTs and the paper towels surrounding it.
“She fell back and hit her head. There was a lot of blood.” You don’t mention how the back of her head felt to customers. You don’t mention that just moments ago your hands were covered in blood. You watch as a mother tells her daughter that someone got very hurt, after you explain to her what happened. Listen as their eyes widen and they whisper, “Oh, god, I hope she’s okay.”
Some part of you doesn’t care whether she is or not. Some part of you wonders where your own sense of self-preservation is at, because you know that today will haunt you for a good long while -- though the idea of standing and doing nothing like you’d done so at first is way worse. At least you did something. At least you threw away part of yourself in the vain hopes that someone else might survive.
When you finally leave the branch, it’s in a flurry of having your manager open unlock the door for you so you can bolt to your car, already digging your phone out of your black purse decked with white owls. You’re texting her over Facebook Messenger before you unlock the car, telling her you’re on your way home, and for a moment -- a brief, fleeting moment -- it feels like she’s always lived there with you and not seven hundred miles away with a husband she doesn’t know if she wants to remain married to and a kid she’s utterly convinced doesn’t love her, though you’re hardpressed to believe it.
Because who wouldn’t love her? Who wouldn’t want to spend every minute they could with her? Sure, she can have her moments where you want to fucking smother her with a pillow, but you’re pretty sure she’s felt that way about you sometimes, too.
And right now, as you step into your house, your eyes flit to the couch: empty of both her and your son. They move to the kitchen, to your son’s back -- the only thing visible other than the table, and you stride over to him, wrap your arms around his little body and breathe in the scent of his hair. He’d had a skull fracture once, when he was three, and all you can think is how panicked you would have been if he’d bled like the woman on the floor.
He could’ve been hurt like that. He hit his head on a glass doorknob, having climbed out of the bath tub and onto the kitchen sink. The edge of that doorknob still cuts into your hand, even though it’s been nearly four years since he’d hit his head on it and another three since you’ve even lived in that house.
He doesn’t say anything, his attention acutely focused on his kindle and the bowl of ramen, just lets you hold him for the minute it takes you to gather yourself -- only for it all to come apart when you look up and see her standing in front of the stove. She reaches for you, pulls you down into a hug, cradling your head to her shoulder, and all you can wonder for a moment is how am I taller than her? Aren’t I shorter? Except you’re still wearing your shoes and her arms are warm and your shoulders are shaking under tears you’re not really going to shed but feel comfortable enough to, if you were going to.
Stay, part of you wants to whisper. Stay here with me. Never leave. I need you.
But she has a family that needs her more, and you wouldn’t ask her to make that choice.
You never would.
Ten days isn’t all that long, you tell yourself. Just a week and a half, no more, no less. Yes, it’s the longest the two of you have ever spent in each other’s spaces, but --
Ten days out of a nearly five-year friendship still isn’t much.
The day you bring her home, you apologize to her profusely for the mess your house irrefutably is. She reassures you that she doesn’t care; that it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she’s here, that you recover from recent injury and illness, that you two enjoy the time she’s here to the best of your abilities.
The trip was originally a Wednesday morning through Sunday afternoon affair -- extended another week because she wasn’t ready to go back home and you weren’t ready to let her leave.
The two of you spend Valentine’s Day together, running around the nearby college town, the one that’s inspired one of your shared Alternate Universes. There’s ramen and Pokemon Go and Duck Donuts. You’re providing her with a welcomed distraction; watching her face light up with soft smiles and beaming proudly whenever someone compliments her hair (it’s amazing, unlike your drab brown curls).
The day after, you reluctantly leave her to go to work. It’s a slow, tedious day. You’re up front and a prickly thorn in your assistant head teller’s side, because watching him flail amuses you and he’s cute when flustered, even if he is an idiot. You think nothing of it when a customer asks for a withdrawal slip and steps aside to fill it out.
The lobby empties, and something about the lighting feels off. There’s a scream, your eyes meet the customer’s, and she’s locked up, falling backwards.
The crack is unmistakable; skull against -- is it tile? marble? you’re not entirely sure -- and your coworkers on platform side are on their feet, one shouting orders to call 911, both of them reaching for phones, while you and your assistant head teller are frozen in place.
As one of your coworkers barks answers into the phone, you unfreeze, taking care of the occasional customer who isn’t staring wide-eyed or kneeling beside the woman who is -- by the account your coworker is giving 911 dispatcher -- bleeding from her ear, who hit her head, who likely had been seizing just moments ago.
A gentleman straightens up, his head barely visible over the edge of the counter. “Are there any more paper towels?”
And you find yourself stepping away from the teller line, stepping past the vault, past the private safe deposit box room, and into the server room, which you need a key to the branch to even step inside of.
Because you’re the only one who carries her keys on her; you’re the only one heard the request and moved.
It’s not until you’re walking back, packs of paper towels in hand, that you finally, finally, let yourself see the damage. The 911 call is still being made; Maribeth’s voice is still shrill, her accent thick and her panic palpable.
You’re on your knees, kneeling beside the woman lying in a pool of her own blood, handing out paper towels and taking a wad of them yourself and trying, desperately, to press them against the back of the woman’s head. Her hair is soaked. She’s breathing. Gagging. Rolling onto her side, trying to push herself up onto her feet and your eyes focus on the way the blood clings to her leather jacket, your fingers on how the back of her head feels wrong, your mind on how desperate you are to keep her on the floor.
Don’t stand up, don’t stand up, don’t stand up.
The fight of keeping her from climbing to her feet lasts maybe two minutes, your eyes taking in the details -- like how blood doesn’t at all move like water, when there’s a lot of it. Paramedics arrive, you shout at one of your coworkers -- another teller -- to go direct the EMTs to where you and two other customers are crouching on the floor.
You’re gone as soon as they come through the door, assessing the situation while you glance down at your hands -- which are soaked and coated red. You cut across the lobby for the bathrooms, scrub your hands clean and try not to think about the tiny cuts you have on the back of one of them, left there lovingly by your cat.
The whole ordeal lasts maybe fifteen minutes, from the porcelain smack of skull on tile to the moment you’re scouring your hands with soap and hot water, and all you can think is how much you need her, how glad you are she hadn’t gone back home yet, how glad you are you convinced her it’d be okay if she stayed another week.
You message her through your dreamwidth account -- tell her the bare bones of what happened. A customer fell and hurt herself. She bled a lot. You tried to help. And she messages back, Are you okay?
No, I’m not okay, you tell her. Your hands shake; you blink away tears -- keep your voice steady when you call GSI and Facilities, explaining to them what happened, logging the incident report for your manager -- at least verbally -- and begging that the cleaners come sooner rather than later.
You have three and a half more hours left of your shift, and every single moment is agonizing, because all you want is to see her. It’s a visceral need, an ache in your chest. She’s only up here because she’s having marriage problems with her husband. Because she needed to be away, needed you.
She sends you messages about how you don’t have to deal with your son nor making dinner, since she’ll take care of everything tonight. She sends you messages reminding you that it’s okay for you to leave work and come home early, even though she knows you’re not going to do that. It took her damn near threatening to walk out of your life for you to leave work early the day after your son gave you a concussion a month ago. Your stubbornness hasn’t changed at all since then.
Every time you check your messages, every time you read her words, tears fill your eyes and you blink them away. The branch is quiet; customers ask about the pile of what appears to be a sheet left by the EMTs and the paper towels surrounding it.
“She fell back and hit her head. There was a lot of blood.” You don’t mention how the back of her head felt to customers. You don’t mention that just moments ago your hands were covered in blood. You watch as a mother tells her daughter that someone got very hurt, after you explain to her what happened. Listen as their eyes widen and they whisper, “Oh, god, I hope she’s okay.”
Some part of you doesn’t care whether she is or not. Some part of you wonders where your own sense of self-preservation is at, because you know that today will haunt you for a good long while -- though the idea of standing and doing nothing like you’d done so at first is way worse. At least you did something. At least you threw away part of yourself in the vain hopes that someone else might survive.
When you finally leave the branch, it’s in a flurry of having your manager open unlock the door for you so you can bolt to your car, already digging your phone out of your black purse decked with white owls. You’re texting her over Facebook Messenger before you unlock the car, telling her you’re on your way home, and for a moment -- a brief, fleeting moment -- it feels like she’s always lived there with you and not seven hundred miles away with a husband she doesn’t know if she wants to remain married to and a kid she’s utterly convinced doesn’t love her, though you’re hardpressed to believe it.
Because who wouldn’t love her? Who wouldn’t want to spend every minute they could with her? Sure, she can have her moments where you want to fucking smother her with a pillow, but you’re pretty sure she’s felt that way about you sometimes, too.
And right now, as you step into your house, your eyes flit to the couch: empty of both her and your son. They move to the kitchen, to your son’s back -- the only thing visible other than the table, and you stride over to him, wrap your arms around his little body and breathe in the scent of his hair. He’d had a skull fracture once, when he was three, and all you can think is how panicked you would have been if he’d bled like the woman on the floor.
He could’ve been hurt like that. He hit his head on a glass doorknob, having climbed out of the bath tub and onto the kitchen sink. The edge of that doorknob still cuts into your hand, even though it’s been nearly four years since he’d hit his head on it and another three since you’ve even lived in that house.
He doesn’t say anything, his attention acutely focused on his kindle and the bowl of ramen, just lets you hold him for the minute it takes you to gather yourself -- only for it all to come apart when you look up and see her standing in front of the stove. She reaches for you, pulls you down into a hug, cradling your head to her shoulder, and all you can wonder for a moment is how am I taller than her? Aren’t I shorter? Except you’re still wearing your shoes and her arms are warm and your shoulders are shaking under tears you’re not really going to shed but feel comfortable enough to, if you were going to.
Stay, part of you wants to whisper. Stay here with me. Never leave. I need you.
But she has a family that needs her more, and you wouldn’t ask her to make that choice.
You never would.