Re: Jules & Sera
Sera figured there’d be paramedics and they’d all have to be checked out, which should mean they’d catch any real problems. She looked mildly puzzled when Jules asked her not to say that she’d passed out, but what was the harm in that? Maybe Jules had her own reasons for not wanting that known. “Yeah,” she said, keeping her voice just as low. “I promise. I didn’t video you on the floor to put on Insta.” Her lips twitched upward. It was a small joke, but it was an attempt to add some humor to a crappy situation. “Should we go to the back?” she wondered, unsure if it would be better to wait here or to move out and maybe get some fresh air.
Jules couldn’t help but snicker softly at that. Sera hadn’t recorded her, but someone else might have tried. At least she knew she could trust Sera. “Thanks,” she said before glancing down the aisle to see people helping the others off the bus. “Yeah, I guess we should.” Grimacing as she got to her feet, Jules tried to spot her phone, but it was too dark. And the bus driver was hurt and needed help, and she didn’t want to get in the way of the paramedics who were coming down the way. “Make sure you get your arms checked,” Jules told Sera once they were on their feet. “Looks like you got cut up pretty bad.”
Sera grabbed her jacket and stood, waiting for Jules to get up. Once she had, they started carefully down the aisle. “Yeah, I will,” she said. “There’s glass all in my hair too.” Hopefully she didn’t have any kind of crazy head wound, but if she did she’d deal with it. “Nothing like a glass window breaking on you.” Her voice was a little shaky, but she knew it could have been a lot worse. She’d read several news stories online about buses crashing and people being killed. Hopefully they’d be lucky and everyone on this bus would be fine.
Jules had to fight the urge to start picking the shinier shards out of Sera’s hair for her. She didn’t want to end up inadvertently hurting Sera, or cutting herself. “I’m going to be that person and say we were lucky, considering…” They had been sitting up front. If the driver hadn’t turned when he did, the truck could have hit the bus exactly where Sera and Jules had been sitting. Yes, it could have been a lot worse. But fuck, her head fucking hurt. Most of the football players were off the bus now, and Jules let one of the paramedics help her down with her unhurt arm. They were told to go to one of the nearest ambulances to get checked out. “You sure you’re okay?” Jules asked Sera. “Do you have your phone and everything?”
“We were, I agree,” Sera said. Her arms were itching but she didn’t want to scratch and possibly make the wounds worse, so she forced herself to leave them alone. She was feeling a strange sense of both relief and unease. They were okay, but was everyone else? Hopefully the word would spread on Facebook and Insta if there was anyone she didn’t see who’d been on the bus. “I’m fine,” she said as the two of them headed for the ambulance as instructed. “We’re both fine.” She absently slapped her back pocket again to check for her phone but didn’t answer the question out loud. Maybe she was a little rattled.
"We are," Jules agreed, reaching out to put her good arm around Sera's shoulder to pull her in for a small hug as they walked. She was grateful she had been sitting with Sera, who had remained pretty calm despite all the chaos. It could have been worse for sure. Jules could have been sitting with Victoria, and her ears could have still been burning. But as scary as everything had been, everyone seemed to be all right, and that's all that mattered.