Cam and Victoria
It was dark on the bus, the only light shining in from the cars that passed, far enough outside of town that there were no street lights. Victoria had moved across the isle from her seat to Cam’s, close enough that they could hear each other with their voices down low. She sat facing him, with her back to the aisle, one leg pulled up on the seat and under her. It was always fun flirting with Cam, even if she didn’t consider him boyfriend material. If she hadn’t been dating Todd at the moment… But she was. At least he was on the other bus, so she leaned in a little closer, her hand on Cam’s thigh as she began to whisper in his ear, when suddenly the bus was swerving and she was thrown backwards off the seat and into the aisle with a sharp scream.
Victoria was always a good time. It didn’t matter who she might be dating… or maybe he should say, if it didn’t matter to her, it didn’t matter to him. He knew the value of being discreet in certain situations though, so he kept it low key. The hand on his thigh felt like a reward for that and a delicious precursor to whatever dirty things she might decide to whisper in his ear, but then the entire world seemed to turn upside down. Crashing, clanging, the squeal of brakes. Cam was thrown against the window but not before Victoria nearly split his eardrum with a loud shriek. He wasn’t sure what was worse: the whack to his temple or the scream. He’d have a knot, but he judged he wasn’t too badly hurt even as he braced himself against the seat as the bus lurched to a gravity-defying stop in the ditch.
“Victoria!” he hissed urgently, leaning over to try to see if she was all right or knocked out.
There was a moment of silence when Victoria hit the ground, the wind completely knocked out of her lungs. Her hands shot out and grabbed ahold of the seat to keep her from sliding, and she made an attempt to catch her breath. She blinked and looked up at Cam, the world still spinning a little. “Holy fuck,” she gasped, groaning as she pulled herself upright. Her head was pounding and she raised her hand to her temple, her fingers coming back wet. Even in the dark, she could tell it was blood. Irrationally, she began to scream. Blood had never bothered her before, but it had never been her own.
Cam reached to help her as she started pulling herself up, involuntarily screwing up his face in a grimace when she started to scream again. “That’s not helping,” he said from between mostly gritted teeth. Leaning down to his partially unzipped sport bag, he pulled out an extra undershirt-- which was actually clean and not sweated through-- and made an attempt to dab at her head where it was bleeding. The bus was a sea of chaos, people screaming, crying out, talking frantically. He supposed it was better than silence.
She was bleeding to death, she was sure of it. No, it didn’t hurt that bad, but maybe that was because she’d already lost so much blood. The rational part of her brain rolled her eyes, and yet the panic was so strong that she continued to freak out until Cam touched something to her head and she flinched. It didn’t hurt, but it did surprise her. She’d kind of disappeared onto her own little planet there for a minute and when she came to, she found herself out of breath. “How bad is it? Can you tell?” she asked, feeling herself over for any other injuries. She felt fine, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t missing something.