RAW by Kelly Favor Page A

she was going to convince the police that Elijah had done nothing wrong. But before she could even get back to the truck, they were taking her by the arm and escorting her to the ambulance. “We really need to run some tests, Caelyn.”
    “I’m fine,” she said.
    “Let’s just make sure.”
    “Please, I need to see Elijah.”
    “We’re just going to run some quick tests.”
    And then she was placed in the ambulance, and they were strapping her down to a stretcher, taking her vitals.
    She was crying again, crying because it really was over. Now she wouldn’t ever be able to get to the police station before they booked and charged Elijah for theft.
    Caelyn wasn’t sure she’d ever been this low. But somehow, on the ride to the hospital, she felt a strange kind of peace—or maybe it was just being numb from the shock of everything that had happened.
    Out the back window of the ambulance, she could see passing scenery, a glimpse of blue sky, a flash of green trees. Inside, the paramedics were trying to talk to her, continuing to check her vitals, and wanting to know more about the car accident she’d been in previously.
    She wasn’t much interested in the conversation, though.
    When they arrived at the hospital, she was brought in on the stretcher and then checked by a doctor. After some consultation, they told her they wanted to give her a scan to make sure there was no bleeding or any other abnormalities with her brain.
    Caelyn gave up hope. She let them scan her.
    She stopped answering their questions. None of it mattered anymore. Elijah was gone. He was in jail. He wasn’t coming back.

    ***
    Her mother had been called. Apparently, the paramedics had called her to let her know that Caelyn was being taken to the ER.
    Caelyn wasn’t even sure if they’d gotten her mother’s number by using the address on Caelyn’s drivers license or some other way.
    When her mother showed up at the hospital, Caelyn could hardly look at her.
    The doctor explained to Caelyn’s mother that the brain scan had come back clean.
    “She doesn’t have any bleeding or ongoing trauma that we’re aware of,” the doctor said.
    Caelyn’s mother, wearing a dark coat, and looking tired, just nodded weakly.
    “She’s been acting very strangely,” her mother said. “Are you sure she’s okay?”
    The doctor, a thin woman with a nest of brown straw like hair atop her head, just sighed. “Your daughter experienced a traumatic brain injury. She’s probably not okay in the way you’d like her to be. Also, her boyfriend was arrested, so she’s upset and stressed, which makes things appear worse.”
    Caelyn stared at the ceiling, a deep rage burning inside of her. But she knew better than to speak, as the doctor and her mother debated her health and mental state.
    She knew that if she did what she had half a mind to do and started screaming and throwing things around the room, they’d end up locking her up in the mental ward. And that would be exactly what her mother wanted—proof that Caelyn wasn’t mentally competent to decide what to do with her own life.
    She didn’t intend to give her mother the satisfaction, and the hospital wasn’t going to release her into her own care. Physically, she was weak and getting weaker.
    The strain of losing Elijah had done her in.
    “We’ll take her home,” she heard her mother say, but it was dull in her ears.
    “Would you like that, Caelyn?” the doctor asked, her birdlike hands fiddling with the chart as she took out a pen to write a new prescription. “Something for anxiety,” she said. “To be taken as needed.”
    The prescription was handed to Caelyn’s mother, who pocketed it like some drug deal.
    Caelyn hated her so much. She hated her with everything in her body.
    The only person she hated more intensely was Deena. And it wasn’t even close.
    They brought a wheelchair over and instructed Caelyn to sit in the chair, and then she was wheeled out of the hospital and to the curb,