Bzzz. Bzzz.

Seth's eyes opened with some difficulty, and he took in a sharp breath at the white room around him. He turned his head to his left to see an IV bag hanging over him. He swallowed and slowly ran his mind over his body. Head, fine. Not even a pounding. Shoulders, good. He rolled them. They didn't even pop like they sometimes did in the mornings. Back. Check. Hips. Fine. Legs. No problem. He wiggled his toes and fingers, then looked over to the direction of the buzzing.

His phone sat on a small table beside the hospital bed. Seth reached over, expecting some portion of his body to flood with pain. His screen was absolutely blown up with texts, and the top one was from Madeline.

Hey, Seth, are you okay? I heard about your accident.

Seth threw the phone as the void returned to his chest, the awful, numb, angry void. His phone bounced off the wall and clattered to the floor, the Otterbox that had already endured the crash protecting it from any harm. Seth looked at the IV in his arm, now wishing he'd looked at the time on his phone before throwing it. A clock on the wall told him it was either 5 PM or 5 AM, but beyond that, there was no way of telling the time where he was.

A door opened and an older woman in a doctor's coat, her salt-and-pepper hair pulled back into a bun walked in. Her blue eyes were recognizable immediately. Emma's mother.

"Dr. Crews." Seth shifted to sit up a little bit.

Dr. Crews walked over to his bed and eyed him. "You gave everyone quite the scare, Seth. Rather touch and go on the first day."

Seth sighed. "I feel... fine. Like I feel like I wasn't injured at all."

Dr. Crews raised both eyebrows briefly. "You showed quite a remarkable recovery. I suppose all those years of kickboxing have made you a rather tough individual, but I can honestly say I've never seen anything like this."

"How bad was it?"

Her expression darkened. "You were clinically dead, Seth."

"He doesn't need to hear that!"

Seth closed his eyes wearily at the voice of his father, who walked into the room wearing, of course, a business suit. Briefcase still in hand. Not a single chestnut-brown hair out of place on his head. Seth looked up at his father from the bed. "Hi, dad."

"Son." Kevin walked over to stand between him and Dr. Crews. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. I can hear the diagnosis, you know."

"Nonsense. You're in a bad state right now. You don't need thoughts like that messing with your recovery."

"He's actually not, Mr. Blackwell," said Dr. Crews. "He's in perfect condition right now."

Kevin raised a single eyebrow. "Very well, you're the doctor. Continue, then."

Dr. Crews struggled to conceal an aggravated look. "You were clinically dead, Seth. For a solid hour. You should have massive brain damage, but you don't. I'm going to be honest here, since you're a good state, but I already have doctors from the American Medical Association wanting to run some tests on you. Nothing invasive, but should you agree to it, they would compensate you by paying for both your medical bill and damages to your truck, to include a new one if it’s totaled… Which I’m quite positive that it is."

"It's my truck, actually," said Kevin.

Seth looked up at his father. "I paid off the title last spring."

"Yes, but you're not eighteen. We've talked about this."

Seth bit back any response. "I need some time to decide. When can I get out of here?"

"We just need to run a physical on you. We can have you checked out in two hours, the tests will probably be in a couple weeks if you agree to them," said Dr. Crews. "Emma said she would like to drive you home."

"That's sweet of her," said Kevin. "But I can drive my son home."

"I'd like to ride with Emma."

Kevin gave Seth a dark look. "I'm not sure I want a teenager driving my son right after he's been in a car accident. I don't want to tempt fate."

"I want to stop somewhere, and I know you're busy. Alright?"

Kevin thought for a moment, then nodded. "Alright, son. Just be back before dark. You don't need to be out late in this state."

"Okay." Seth looked back to Dr. Crews. "How's Nicole doing? She was on the opposite side we got hit... Did she get hurt at all?"

"Nicole?"

Seth scrunched his eyebrows down. "Yeah, I was giving a friend a ride to the gym. Short girl. Brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin?"

Dr. Crews' face lit up. "Oh, the girl that pulled you out of the truck?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"A girl from your school was walking home when the wreck happened. She must be a weightlifter or something, because she pulled you out of the truck before emergency services even got there."

"No, she was-" Seth stopped, held back his words, and re-spoke. "I guess I'm just a little confused. Maybe I do have brain damage."

She shook her head. "I assure you that's not the case. You have a perfectly clean bill of health."

Seth nodded. "Alright. Can we get me out of here, then?"

"Of course." Dr. Crews smiled at him.

"I'll see you at home, son." Said Kevin before reaching over and tousling Seth's hair. He walked out of the room and Seth resisted the urge to wipe the feeling of being touched off the top of his head.

Dr. Crews stared after him, then looked back at Seth. "You and your father get along well."

"Yeah. Let's just do the physical. Please."

"Alright, just let me remove the IV first."

Seth switched into auto-pilot as he thought about getting out of school however many days prior. He remembered Nicole getting into the truck. He remembered her sitting there on his tailgate so clearly. The fiery spark in those brown eyes staring up at him while telling him she would do whatever she wanted. He could remember it. It had happened.

Hadn't it?