Inktober 2025 - 8 - Reckless

Carla entered the hospital room with a cross look on her face. Frowning, lips pressed together, she went up to her fiancé and slapped him on the shoulder with her pair of gloves.

"Ow!" he complained playfully.

Laughing hurt a bit, with the few ribs he had cracked in the accident, but he managed. Most of the damage was with his right leg, which was in a cast and currently propped up.

"Serves you right for being such an idiot!" she told him angrily, crossing her arms, now.

"Would you please calm down? I ride a motorbike; it's hardly bungee jumping."

"Calm down? Don't tell me to calm down! Look at the state of you! Do you have any idea how much worse this could have been?"

She gestured to him, lying there, with scratches on his temple and jaw, all bandaged up beneath his hospital gown. She wanted to be relieved that he was conscious and not permanently injured, but all she could think about was the fact that he could have been. She could not believe he even took the risk.

"I broke my leg. I'll survive."

He purposefully omitted to tell her about his ribs. They should heal fast enough. All he had to do was hide the bruising from her as best as he could. And if he couldn't, maybe by the time she noticed, she would have calmed down about all of this.

"I do not want to lose you, you big dummy!" she pleaded.

"I know. It's sweet. I love you too. But I was careful, see? If I hadn't been, it would have been much worse, as you said."

Trying to use her own logic against her would not work, but he could not help but try.

"I'm serious, Pierce. I already lost you once; I'm not doing it again."

"Wait a second… You think five-year-old me caused that bus accident??"

"Of course not, which is exactly my point: if a stupid accident outside of our control could tear us apart at any moment, why tempt fate?"

"Well, fate is what brought us back together, so…"

"Yeah: 25 years later," she growled.

"What are 25 years in the grand scheme of things?"

They were literally soulmates. They were going to spend eternity together. They would always reach for one another.

"I'm not spending another quarter of a century pining for you, Pierce."

It was all right for him: he had never felt the sting of her absence. She was the one that had spent all that time with a mythical arrow stuck in her soul, while she waited to finally meet him.

"Then don't. If I die, you have my permission to move on."

"You think you're funny, but you're not."

"Look, think about it this way: if I weren't as daring as I am, I wouldn't have had the guts to come up to you in that bar, that night."

"I thought fate pushed you to me…"

"Well, fate can't do everything, can it?"