I tasted metal at the back of my throat, and I'd swallowed enough blood in my lifetime to be able to identify it on my tongue. You could swallow a pint of it before you got sick.

The next thing I tasted was rubber, and as I fought to move my tongue around the inside of my mouth, I felt wads of sticky cotton lodged in my cheeks.

"Hey...I think he's awake. He's moving."

I recognized Chris's voice instantly, and a wave of relief washed over me. When I finally managed to pry my eyes open, I was greeted with a harsh blast of white light.

"Oh my god."

Another voice. Jordyn. I felt the bed I was laying in shift as someone sat down beside my limp body. The lights were still screaming bright, and I only managed to catch blurry shapes of people as they congregated around me.

The more I came to, the more the pain began to settle in. My head, my ribs, my legs, my entire body in agony. My mind scrambled to collect my thoughts and memories, trying to figure out how exactly I'd gotten here. It was all a blank, black void in my head.

Then I saw it. My left leg, suspended in some elaborate wired mechanism, coated in a cast and bandages. I tried to scream. I tried to cry. My body said no. My body hated me for everything I'd done to it, and how the fuck could I even blame it. I hated me too.

"Dallas," Chris reached for my hand. "Dallas it's okay. Just breathe. You're gonna be okay."

I frantically shook my head and fumbled for the tubes stuck up my nose, desperate to breathe on my own and to feel my own pain and to wake myself up from this nightmare I was trapped in. All that came out of my mouth were incoherent moans and groans, swirled up in a chorus of beeping machines that escalated as my heartbeat skyrocketed.

"Can you go get Mr. Gunther?" Chris asked Jordyn, who nodded and dashed out of the room.

Chris turned his attention back to me and kept his hand down on mine. His voice broke with every word, and it was only then I noticed the redness rimming his eyes and his nose. He smiled through glazed eyes. "Just relax. It's...it's okay. D-don't uh...don't talk, you've uh...you'll open the stitches in your mouth."

I brought my other hand up to my face, gently poking at the swollen skin around my cheeks and my jaw. Chris then slid a pen and a small piece of notebook paper onto a tray beside my bed. My hands shook as I struggled to write out WHAT HAPPENED?

Chris let out a sigh and let his shoulders drop. "You don't remember?"

I shook my head.

"Okay well...you left Anthony's and um...I-I don't know the details, you hydroplaned or swerved or something. You didn't hit anybody else you just...kind of ended up in a drainage ditch on the side of Rockland Ave and..." Chris sniffed and rubbed his nose with the sleeve of his hoodie. He swallowed hard before continuing. "They found your car flipped over and..."

Tears began streaming down Chris's red cheeks as he shook his head again, choking out more words. "I'm so sorry. I'm...I shouldn't have left you, I should have been there-"

"No, no, no." I got as vocal as I could muster, frantically shaking my head at him and trying to clutch at his hands. I took the paper again and wrote MY FAULT.

Chris let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. He was about to say something else when my father burst into the room, his Cornell sweatshirt rumpled and his eyes glazed over with a sad, weary exhaustion. Chris gave him a nod before getting up from the chair beside my bed and joining Jordyn in the hallway.

"Hey champ," he said as he sat down. He leaned over and brushed a few strands of hair off my forehead, still damp with sweat from a fever I'd broken after my body had gone into trauma mode. He then put his hand gently to my cheek. "I think a nurse is going to come in and take those out soon. They told me those kind of stitches just dissolve so you'll be okay in a few days."

I gave him a tired nod, and I felt exhaustion wash over me, but I grabbed the paper and then pen again wrote I'M SORRY.

"No," my father shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I didn't stop to try and understand what was going on with you, and I'm sorry that I made you feel like you couldn't come and talk to me." He paused and sighed. "I think that's the worst thing I could have done as your father. You should never feel like you can't talk to me about something. Anything."

All I could do was nod in response, but I felt warm, salty tears roll down my cheeks. He leaned over again and dabbed them away with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

"I mean, I'm still furious that you were drinking and driving," he let out a hollow chuckle. "But I'm just so glad you're okay...it's a discussion for another time."

I took the paper again and clutched the pen in my trembling hand. I was in hot, searing agony, but there was also relief flooding me, simmering it all to a chill. Relief that I hadn't felt in a long time.

I NEED HELP.

"I know," he nodded. "I know. And I'm going to take care of everything, okay? We're going to figure this out. I promise."

For the rest of the day, as I phased in and out of a restless sleep, I laid in that itchy hospital bed, watching shadows dance on the ceiling as the only indicator that time was even passing, I replayed everything in slow motion. Everything began coming back to me in a furious flood, and I looked back and watched every single thing I did and said, everything I drank and popped, realizing how many times I could have stopped or asked for help before going over the edge. It was a bad movie with a miserable ending. Hollywood would hate me.

My own ambition blinded me, the way a racehorse wears blinders at the Belmont to keep their focus straight and narrow ahead. Harder, faster, stronger to the finish line. It's the only thing that matters. It's their only purpose.

But what happens when you don't? When you trip and fall in the rain and the muck and the world around you decides your usefulness has run its course.

I had to figure it out, otherwise I'd get put down just like those racehorses do.

✗✗✗

Broken bones were an easy fix. Wear a cast, don't put weight on it, maybe some surgical pins required, and you'll be fine eventually. Bones are designed to heal when they break. Some other things, like nerves and tendons, muscles and hearts, required more work.

I'd completely severed multiple nerves and ligaments in my knee from being pinned under my car, and I'd need several reconstructive surgeries over the next few weeks just to restore my ability to walk again. Playing football wasn't even in the realm of conversations I was having with doctors. It was all about taking one step at a time - literally.

I was unsurprisingly charged with a DUI, and after all the dust had settled, the stitches were removed, and physical therapy had started, I'd be starting court-mandated rehab - minimum 60 days. I could have been pissed off about losing my entire summer, but part of me almost wanted it - needed it - to have someone lead me by the hand and say "this is what you've got to do to get yourself better."

I got regular visits from Chris, Jordyn, Rochelle, and even Anthony over the week leading up to graduation. On graduation day, Chris showed up still in his tacky black gowns and plopped a graduation cap on my head, moving the white tassel from one side of the cap to the other.

"Congratulations," Chris said with a grin. "You are officially free from the shackles of New Livingston Day School."

I took the cap off and slowly turned it over in my hands. "How was her speech?"

Chris sat in the chair beside my bed and propped his chin up with his hand. "Nice, actually. She mentioned you."

I sat myself up as best as I could. "Really?"

"Yeah. Something about how she's sharing Valedictorian with you, because you deserved it just as much as she did and...some other sappy shit."

I forced out a chuckle, but my heart lifted in my chest.

"You know Dallas," Chris said as he walked over to the window and opened the blinds. Afternoon sun cut across the squeaky linoleum floors of my hospital room, and it filled the air with warmth. "I think part of her really did love you. In her own way."

By the end, mine and Kaia's so-called romance had soured like old milk, punctuated by secrets and competitiveness, and worst of all...guilt. That was probably why she hadn't come to see me, and I couldn't blame her. I was just as guilty.

"Yeah, maybe," I sighed out. "It doesn't matter. That's all scorched earth now. The grass won't grow there anymore."

"Even half-dead you're still so poignant," Chris said with a grin, putting a hand to my forearm. "Are you okay, though?"

"Yeah. I'm fine," I nodded, but the tears collecting in the corners of my eye made my lie all too apparent.

"You know, maybe it's just time to start accepting that you're not fine," Chris said and offered a casual shrug. "Contrary to what we've been made to believe, not being fine is okay."

"God you're so annoying," I replied with a chuckle. I rubbed my eyes and sighed. "Don't you have like graduation parties to go to and shit?"

Chris scoffed. "Uh...are you aware of the fact that this hospital has wheel-in Nintendo 64 consoles you can plug into the TVs? I think I'd rather spend my night kicking your ass in Mario Kart."

This time a full-blown laugh escaped me, and even though it hurt my bruised ribs, the pain was worth it. "You fucking wish."

Chris was right, as usual. I wasn't fine, and maybe I wouldn't be for a while, but the thought that maybe somehow, someday, I would be...that gave me hope.

tell my friends that i'll make my way out again
and i don't have to explain myself to them
i don't have to run them through the thought process
of where my blind ambition stems
they just want to see me for who i am
for who i'm gonna be

blind ambition / the dangerous summer

✗✗✗

alternatively, WE DON'T DO THE SAME DRUGS NO MORE

the dad patrick redemption arc was the really only one that mattered tbh