She’d been covered in blood from head to toe, almost, but as bad as it had looked to the doctors, at first, given the severe bleeding from her head wounds, they saw with some relief that she had only ended up with those injuries, all of which were treatable.  Once she’d woken from her drug-induced coma, the array of various specialists who had looked in on her had assured her and Tina that her condition was the best that could have been hoped for, given the velocity of the crash.  Her own heart doctor and personal physician had counseled she really could have wound up with any number of worse things, including severe head trauma, spinal injuries or a variety of broken bones, organ failure or a heart attack, given her heart history.  In fact they had worried most about possible brain swelling, or organ bruising that couldn’t be detected, or hadn’t presented, as yet.  But, as they observed her, that concern abated.

Then again, Bette thought to herself as she listened to the doctors, she could have died on the spot.  It was the ultimate scenario they’d tactfully avoided mentioning to her or Tina and the various friends who had rushed to her hospital bed upon hearing the news.

While the days she’d spent in the hospital had passed by as if in a blur, once she’d left the hubbub and tumult of the hospital, and settled into quieter and more peaceful surroundings at home, nightmares about how close she’d gotten to much worse injuries, started.  Unable to stop replaying in her mind everything she could remember about the scene of the crash, even during waking hours while she was rehabbing, she would inadvertently break into a cold sweat, particularly during the first weeks after returning home with Tina.    Well, the first thing about it is people should stop referring to it as an accident… it hadn’t really been an accident, since the semi had purposely gone after their convoy.  We were attacked, damn it!

Finally, about a month after, she’d reached her breaking point.  She knew she’d somehow have to find a way to get past the whole incident, and her survival of it, and try to remember it without reliving the horror of it, if she hoped to get on with her life.  She’d told herself that it was time she started working on that, just as hard as she was working on her physical rehabilitation, if nothing else, or for no other reason, than to keep the pain away from Tina’s eyes whenever Bette flinched each time the brunette was startled by squealing brakes, a car horn blasting, or glass breaking.  She knew that if she wasn’t careful, the incident would end up essentially claiming not just her life, all the same, but Tina’s, too, if she couldn’t learn to get past it.