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The police car was cold, and way too quiet.
Corbett’s ears were still ringing from the clank and thud of the door opening. She’d always had a bit more sensitivity when it came to a lot of things, her senses being one of those things. Loud noises startled her. She’d mostly gotten used to it by now, but right now it almost felt like otherwise. A shiver runs down her spine as she presses her face to see what’s happening through the tinted window.
She watches as people hurry around, how things are slowly but surely removed from the warehouse she’d been kept in. People running in, taking a while to come back out but then eventually doing so. Blue eyes follow over to the ambulance, where the man who took her out of the room sat with a blanket or something around his shoulders.
A frown grows on her face. What was the thing that mysterious woman had said? She couldn’t quite recall.
It felt like she’d been in there for days, if not weeks. The reality of it is she was only there for a few hours, but the loneliness and boredom refused to settle. She wanted to scream, to cry out for her mother or father. Would they have paid her any mind?
Corbett wasn’t sure how to feel. Every second spent in this car made it all feel so much worse. Thin pyjamas were not ideal for sitting in the cold night, face pressed to a colder surface. She really wanted her mother. She wanted to be held, or tucked back into her bed, with the promise that it’d all be fine. She knew that it wouldn’t be fine, really, but still. The comfort would be nice.
She didn’t really want to count the things that the doctors checking her out said as comfort. She didn’t know them. Their hands were cold and the gloves felt weird. It didn’t count. They were just trying to make sure she wasn’t hurt. Comfort from her mom or dad was so much different than some doctor who was obligated to check, to tend to her medical needs. She wanted it to be her family. Somebody she knew. Someone that didn’t have to check but still wanted to.
But everything was all wrong after her brother died. There was no sugarcoating it. Her mom and dad used to yell so loudly at each other. They’d promise a story, leave, and then the screaming would start. It was a change. Corbett knew it was a change. She knew what it meant when they sat her down and told her that her brother wasn’t coming back. It meant her family wouldn’t be the same again.
She supposes that this just proves it. Her loneliness in this car just proved that her family would never be the same again, because they still just weren’t here.
Or maybe that point was proven when her mother left.
Corbett didn’t know. She didn’t exactly care either. She just wanted it over. She wanted to go home, to be able to miss her brother while still having both parents. She wanted them to be normal again (this was something that not even Santa could promise her).
Holidays weren’t the same. Her father only seemed to get angrier by the day. Her mother left little to no word. She was alone. Now, maybe if Dylan were here, she’d be fine. It’d all be fine. If Dylan were here, he’d probably tell her that they were going to be fine. That she was brave. She didn’t feel too brave right now. She just wanted to feel like her age again. It wasn’t right that she was almost older than her brother.
He was always supposed to be the older one.
She closes her eyes, and rests her head entirely against the glass. It’s way too silent for an emergency, she thinks. It’s not normal. She’d take it though. Her hands clutch the bear tightly. At least this was still something she had. Corbett’s eyes shut, and slowly she falls asleep.
…Until she hears commotion from outside. Curiosity gets the better and she looks back outside. She doesn’t know what she was expecting to see. Maybe someone told her mother that she was here. Maybe she’d finally get that hug she’s been waiting forever for. Maybe it was her dad. She didn’t really mind so long as he wasn’t mad.
But, no. Her eyebrows furrow as she watches people rush out with a man on a stretcher. He’s bleeding from his neck, and he looks like someone just dipped his top half in a pool. As well as this man on a stretcher who’s bleeding, they rush out with more stretchers. She doesn’t know what they had on them. They looked like rubbish bags. Why someone would put rubbish onto stretchers, she doesn’t know.
From the snippets of shows she watched without her parents knowledge of her parents, she knew that something like that wasn’t meant to happen.
Corbett presses her face against the glass, squinting. She couldn’t make out at all what they were. It seemed pretty silly to use stuff that sick people needed to get rid of trash. The man who saved her seems unaffected by the bags wheeling past him, in fact, he doesn’t pay any attention at all to them, but rather to the bleeding man.
She picked up on it quickly. The way his gaze seemed soured, and the clench of a fist that she recognised as some form of annoyance.. When she started unconsciously following others’ body language, she didn’t know, but it turned out to be useful.
Corbett’s mind raced. Why was he annoyed? Was it at the man on the stretcher, or did he also think that rubbish on a medical piece of equipment was silly?
Her blue eyes completely focused on the man, she barely even acknowledged someone getting into the car and talking to her. Corbett simply nodded, before letting her thoughts take her away again. She watches as the commotion gets smaller and smaller. That quietness and cold feeling only seems to get worse as the car gets further away. Corbett catches a glimpse of the bags being loaded into a van, and she realises it looks more humane than she’d prefer.
She turns her head away from the window, watching the travel from the windshield. Maybe she’s being brought home to her mother and father, who’re waiting for her. Maybe they’re waiting with an apology and a hug.
She thinks she’d really like that hug after all of this.