Chapter 7 》Accident

Chase's POV

"Bill Nye the Science Guy?" I ask, remembering. "Yeah." she smiles into the thin air in front of her as I laugh. We're no longer speaking in our English accents. We left that I think a few minutes ago when we started smoking pot. "I forgot all about that shit." I tell her.

"I don't blame you. That shit is fucking crazy." she says before laughing and I join her. "I'm like, uncomfortably high." she announces when the laughs stop. "You know what I am?" I ask and she looks at me, "Hungry."

"We can go to my house and I could have Camila make us chicken nuggets?"

"Or we could go to The Nugget Spot." I point towards the diner right across the street from the random garage door Natalia and I are sitting in front of. "Makes sense." she agrees, before we both stand up and cross the street to The Nugget Spot.

"I've never heard of this place." she tells me. "Are you sure you've lived here your entire life?" I tease and she bumps into me playfully. "It's basically an industrial-chic fast food stop for fried chicken, pork, fish or veggie nuggets," I pause to emphasize the next part, "with choice of sauce." She looks up at me before commenting, "Thanks, Internet."

We get to the restaurant and I enter first. There's not much customers here, except three guys. "Hello, welcome to The Nugget Spot. How may I help you?" the older-looking cashier lady, Maddie it says on her name tag, asks. Natalia remains quiet as I order a bunch of different nuggets for us.

"That's a lot of nuggets." she whispers while Maddie gives the employee at the back our order. I'm looking down at her and I'm about to answer her when Maddie comes back, "Oh, I almost forgot. We have a couple special on chicken and waffles."

"I want chicken and waffles. Do you want chicken and waffles?" I look down at Natalia. "I want chicken and waffles." she answers, looking at Maddie.

"But, we aren't a couple." I say. "Oh, well you would make a cute couple so I'll give you guys the special as long as you promise to come back next week."

"Promise." I say.

"See you soon, Maddie." Natalia adds with a wink of her eye. I pay and the two of us sit down to wait for our food at one of the tables. "Have you ever performed in public before?" I ask Natalia. "I usually just perform at Mason's on Sundays, if I'm high enough."

"What? Then what are we doing here?" I ask. Just then, Maddie calls us to get our food. "You want me to perform now?"

"Yeah." I answer as we exit through the door. "Okay, I will. But only if you let me drive." I tilt my head to the side in thought, "Mm, no."

"I'm driving." Natalia says. "No way." I decline almost immediately. "I am." she pushes. "Not. And before you say you are, I already said no."

"And I already said I'm driving."

"Nope."

"Why not? I'm a good driver, I swear."

I don't say anything this time. "I'm driving. I want to drive. Chase, please let me drive. I am going to drive."

"Shit, Natalia. You're so fucking annoying."

She doesn't say anything. It's quiet...too quiet. I turn to look at her and she's not there. I look back and there she is, standing with her arms crossed in the middle of the street. "I'm not moving until you say yes."

"Natalia." No response. "Natalie, come on." Nothing. I even called her Natalie. "You're standing too close to the corner, you could get hit by a car, or a truck." She still doesn't move and instead looks down at her feet and uses her tongue to pick at her teeth. What more does she want from me? Shit, I know the answer to that.

"Fine, you can..." In the fastest second, a dude on a skateboard crashes into her. They both land on the ground, the skateboard next to them. I swear whoever saw that is either laughing their ass off or too shocked to do so at the moment, which is what I am right now.

I hurry up to the scene. "I'm okay." she says, touching her palm against her forhead with her eyes pinched closed. The guy next to her only groans. I look down right above her face and say, "Told you." Soon enough, she removes her hand away from her forhead and points her middlefinger at me.

I laugh before holding one of my hands out to help her. "At least you weren't holding the nuggets, right?" I say right as she takes my hand and I pull her up. "You sure you okay?" I ask her. "Mhm, it's him we should be worried about." she refers to the boy groaning on the ground.

"Hey, dude. You alright?" I ask him. Still only groans escape his mouth. "I say we leave him here." I suggest. "Sober me would totally agree with you, but this is high me and I'm saying, you can't be serious." she says. We look at each other for a moment, before I hand her our nuggets, "Here."

I move to pick the guy up from the back, hooking my arms through his hopefully clean armpits just to get him on his feet. Great, he stands by himself. "Hey, dude can you walk?" I ask him. He answers me by almost falling right back to the ground, but I catch him beforehand.

"Okay, let's get you to the hospital, yeah?" I try to sound enthusiastic but nope. "And you, you're definitely not driving now." I say to Natalia. "What? But you were literally about to tell me that I can drive." she says, walking beside us.

"Yeah, and then you got hit by a dude on a skateboard." I retort. "Touché." she says. We reach the car and I get the guy into the back seat. I even buckle him up for him. By the time I get into the driver's seat, Natalia's having a buffalo nugget. "This is delicious." she comments.

I take one from the bucket she's holding before driving off. "Where are you taking me?" we hear a voice from the backseat. I look at him in the rearview mirror and Natalia turns around to look at him. "Hi, I'm Natalie. What's your name?"

"David." he replies slowly. "Nice to meet you, David. This is Chase." I smile at him through the mirror. "We're taking you to the hospital." I inform him. "How're you feeling?" Natalia asks him. "Fine." he says, looking like he's anything but.

Natalia turns back to the front and whispers not nearly soft enough, "I think we should offer him some of our nuggets."

"I said I'm fine." he snaps. "I told you we should've left him there." I whisper purposely loud enough for him to hear me.

Soon after, we get to the hospital and I help him inside, Natalia holding our nuggets.