by Gillian Lydick

My boyfriend, Nick, is one of the most accident-prone people I’ve ever met. He’s broken both his hands about 15 times, He’s broken his toes, his collar bone, dislocated his shoulder so bad, it was only attached by tendons and ligaments, and his arm was dangling from his shoulder. He has broken his nose countless times, and has had quite a few concussions. He always says he has the worst luck in the best ways. When bad things happen to him, they have the best outcome. His car got hit while pulling out of a driveway, and he was hit where he needed to do body work to his car anyway, and the door that was hit needed to be replaced. Worst luck, best way.

 

December of 2016, three days before Christmas, we were in a car accident. Nick was sitting in the front, and got hit in the face and chest with the airbag. I broke my nose on the back of his seat, and our best friend, CJ, bruised some ribs on the airbag and the steering wheel. Nick experienced minor whiplash, but otherwise was okay.

 

Christmas day, he was at his house, opening presents with his mom and brother, Matthew. He’d gotten exactly what he wanted: a new compound bow. He went into the kitchen to see how it felt. Testing out this bow earned him a concussion and a hospital trip. A year later, I decided to interview him. We sat in my dorm-room bed on a Saturday night, the lights off, except for the Christmas lights that line the border of the room, my roommate, Kylie, sitting on her bed across from us, and our friend, Paige, sitting with her. I decided to talk to him with our friends around, so that he wouldn’t feel awkward, and so he’d be telling the story to someone he’d never told it to. Paige and Kylie hadn’t heard this story before, and I thought he’d include details I hadn’t heard before if he were telling them about it as well.

 

He always sits at the edge of my bed with his feet pushing the drawer under my bed in and out. The drawer makes random growling noises as it gets pushed out, and pulled back in by Nick’s feet. We always have music on, and today, Paige was our DJ, playing songs we grew up to, softly in the background. The Bruins game was on the TV, but it was muted so we could focus on homework.

 

I started out with a general question:

 

“Tell me what happened.”

 

I didn’t know he was going to tell me about the bow until he started to answer my question. He kind of sighed, as if he were getting ready to sing a really long, continuous note. He didn’t shift like he was uncomfortable, he shifted his body as if he were getting ready to do a lot of explaining. After all his preparation to delve deep into his story, he finally replied.

 

“A bow exploded in my face.”

 

I expected this smartass answer, I already knew a bow exploded in his face. I rolled my eyes, and he decided to change his answer. He told me that he opened presents with his mom and his brother, Matthew, and he’d gotten the only thing he’d asked for: a compound bow. He went into the kitchen to see how it felt. He stood in the middle of his kitchen, which was mostly open, despite the small wooden table, with three chairs and a bench, a punching bag and weight bench in the far left corner, and his dog’s kennel across from it. He aimed the bow at their dartboard, which hung next to their door, and as he pulled the string back, the metal piece that held the pulley on the top of the bow (the grommet) broke off, sending the string, and millions of other small pieces of metal and plastic into his left eye, nose, arm, and his right shoulder.

 

“I fell down as soon as it happened. It knocked me on my ass. I was immediately dizzy and throwing up.”

 

Nick then proceeded to grab my face, each palm consuming half of my face, and told me that Matthew grabbed his face and started shaking it.

 

“He said, ‘YOU HAVE STUFF STICKING OUT OF YOUR FACE!’”

 

Clearly concussed, Nick ran into the bathroom and started to vomit. Immediately, his mom came running into the bathroom with a towel for all the blood. He chose this point to tell me that he instantly couldn’t see, and he still couldn’t see at this point. To the car they went, and straight to the emergency room. He threw up a few times on the way there, and continued to bleed steadily. They went to St. Joseph’s hospital in Bangor, which is where I worked. When he walked into the emergency department, the nurses immediately grabbed a wheelchair, and rushed him into a room, registering him as they ran.

 

He halfway smiled while he talked about his nurses. He felt the need to point out that he didn’t pay attention to if they were pretty or not, either because he wasn’t concerned about the attractiveness of the staff at that point, or to ensure that I wouldn’t be jealous. Either way, he says the same thing about all the other females he ever mentions. He always says he didn’t pay attention to how they looked. The nurses he had never left his side. They talked him through pretty much everything the doctor didn’t, just to make sure that he was as comfortable as he could be in his situation, and to make sure that he was staying calm. They did a basic exam of his face, arms, shoulders, and made him strip down to his boxers so they could check for any other injuries. Shortly after that, the doctor came in and did his own examination.

 

He rolled his eyes when he told me that the doctor said he had foreign objects lodged into his eye, arm, shoulder, and had a concussion. Dr. Captain Obvious also stated that the main concern was to get the foreign objects out of his body. Then he smiled while he tried to be all medical and technical when he told me that the doctor “used forceps to extract the foreign bodies from my hand, arm, and shoulder. Meanwhile, I STILL COULDN’T FREAKING SEE!” We aren’t sure why the doctor decided to start with the least important of the affected areas, but I guess vision isn’t important.

 

After the “foreign bodies” were “extracted” from his limbs, the doctor gave Nick low-grade pain medication, because he’s allergic to high amounts of painkillers. The cuts on his arms and shoulder were then covered with gauze, because the extraction made the wounds bleed even more.

 

Nick breezed over this part, he thought it wasn’t as interesting to talk about, but it was essential to the story.

 

Then they taped his nose up, so the blood from it wouldn’t get in the way of the rest of his face, and they could determine if he was bleeding from any other parts of his face. Dr. Captain Obvious proceeded to let Nick know that his nose was, in fact, broken. Still unable to see, the doctor decided to start examining his eye.

 

“They put dye in my eye to see if there were any cuts or bruises on my actual eye. Then they used a machine that activates the dye so they could see. Then they saw that the scratch wasn’t on my pupil or cornea, but my vision would be impaired for up to two weeks.”

 

Then it was time for the part where I come in. His amazing and caring girlfriend left Christmas at her house, and met him at his house when he got home. As soon as he walked through the door, he went to bed. Lights off, drapes drawn, and a blanket over the top of them. Not even a fan on. Nick keeps the box fan in his room on constantly, whether he’s home or not. He needs the fan to sleep, do homework, and even watch TV. He says it’s too quiet without it on. I walked into his room to find that I couldn’t even see passed my nose. It was almost like I’d lost my vision too! I felt my way around his brother’s bed, and the dresser, to Nick’s bed, and I sat on the edge, as far away from his face as I could possibly get. I didn’t want to hurt him any more than he already was. I grabbed his hand softly, and kissed it.

 

“How’re you feeling?”

 

“My face hurts. I need a new one.”

 

I didn’t mean to giggle, but cracking jokes let me know that he was going to be okay, and that was the only thing I’d been thinking about all day. I wanted to be there for him, and I wanted him to be okay.

 

The rest of the day and night, he was asleep. He didn’t eat, and barely got up to go to the bathroom. He drank a little water, but only because he knew he had to. I went home that night, and came back every day to make sure he was okay. His vision didn’t return for almost a month after. By the time school started again, he was okay.

 

While reflecting on this accident, he told me that he is a lot more cautious when using things, like bows, and he doesn’t take for granted that they work, and that things don’t always explode like the bow did. He also chose this time to tell me that if the pieces of the bow had hit him slightly to the left, he would’ve completely lost his vision in his right eye, and he could’ve even died. He said this nonchalantly, like the possibility of death meant the same to him as a wrapper from a candy bar he was throwing away. The possibility of losing his vision kicked under a rug in the back of his mind like a dust bunny. Did he realize what he could have lost? Did he care about the many ways this accident could’ve gone worse? I think he saw the disappointment and curiosity on my face, because he turned to me. His face suddenly turning into a small smile, with glassy eyes, as if he wanted to say more than he did, but couldn’t find the words to tell me how he felt.

 

“I realized how many people care about me. Like, I know my mom cares about me,  but other than that, I never really had anyone that cared about me as much as you do. You left your family on Christmas to be with me. You were about to come all the way to the hospital just to make sure I was okay. So I guess I realized how much you care about me.”

 

I guess this experience taught him a little about something. It showed him how much I care about him, and how I would do anything for him. He didn’t really see this until now, but better late than never. He also realized, again, that he has the worst luck in the best way. Yes, a bow exploded in his face  on Christmas, but if he wasn’t holding the bow the way he was, he’d be blind, or even dead. Worst luck, best outcome.