#Superfan by Jae Hood

with her hand. “The guy you’re in love with?”
    “The guy I’m in like with,” I concede.
    Madi snickers. “Yeah, fine. Whatever. Keep telling yourself that lie. Meanwhile, I’ve gotta head home and get ready. See ya in a few hours, ‘kay?” And with that, she grabs her keys and breezes out the door with a skip in her step.
    Ultimately I spend more time getting ready for the club than the actual amount of time I plan to spend inside the club. If anything, tonight’s a good excuse to experiment on my makeup. All those hours of watching drag queen YouTube makeup tutorials have not been watched in vain.
    Eight’s apartment is quiet, quieter than it’s been all day. I press my diamond-studded ear against his door and, sure enough, hear the low hum of muffled voices on the other side. Madi might have invited him out with us, but he’s shown no interest in joining our group.
    Disappointment floods my senses, but the emotion is short-lived. Tilting my chin up, I force myself forward. There’s no way I’m garnering his attention like Madi suggested. I look like a two-bit hooker on discount night.
    The banister is my saving grace on my descent to the lobby. How Madi talked me into wearing heels is beyond me. They’re normally reserved for life-altering formal events, like funerals and weddings, which are both pretty much one in the same in my opinion.
    There are no pockets on the skimpy, short jacket, and certainly none on this sleeve of a dress I’m wearing. So I toss my cell in the console of my car and shut the little door with a light thud.
    I’m about two blocks from the club when some punk kid on a skateboard jumps the sidewalk and into traffic a few seconds after the light turns green. The car in front of me attempts to dodge him, jumps a curb, and nearly takes out a group of guys on the sidewalk. The guys leap back, their curse words swirling into the cold winter air in wisps of steam-tinged smoke. The SUV clips a streetlight, and I slam on my brakes as the light pole titters and tilts. Someone plows into me from behind, forcing me off the road and into the ass end of the SUV on the sidewalk. The last thing I remember is my head slamming against the steering wheel.
    ***
    When I wake up, I’m blinded by a white light.
    “Jesus, is that you?” I say, or at least I think that’s me talking. My voice is thick and garbled. My tongue is swollen. A metallic taste sours my mouth. Blood. I sit up, spitting. Red spots splatter the gray sidewalk my butt is sitting on.
    My car sits in front of me, smoke curling from the crumpled front end. The front of another car is lodged into the back bumper of mine. A young guy stands next to the car on his cell phone, his worried eyes darting from me to the car.
    “Hey, gal, don’t move.” A man in his late fifties hovers over me, blinding me with the light on his cell phone as he stares into my eyes. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
    “Too late.” A dull, throbbing pain splinters its way across my forehead. “Who pulled me out of my car? You’re not supposed to move someone with a head injury.” Fuzzy minded, I’m grappling at what little information I know about injured people. All I’ve learned is self-taught from watching Grey’s Anatomy and reruns of House , so who knows how true any of that really is.
    “You didn’t give me much of a choice.” The man pockets his phone and pulls my probing fingers away from a split on my forehead. He sheds his coat and drops it on the ground, easing me back to rest on the denim material. “Either I pull you from the car and take the chance of hurting you worse, or I leave you in the car and hope you don’t burn to death.”
    I blink at the thought of burning to death. “Good decision.”
    “Yeah, I thought so.” The guy smiles. He’s missing most of his front teeth and he smells like cheap booze, but I’m not judging. The toothless, drunk bastard saved me.
    I reach up and pull him in for a hug. Losing his footing, he