"Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Teracino?”

“No!” I’m irritated as fuck and it’s coming through in my tone.

“Can you recount for me what happened tonight?”

“Why? I already told the officer on scene.”

“You did, but things aren’t adding up with the evidence and your statement,” he says. “Could you tell me again?”

“Why should I repeat myself when my girlfriend is in the hospital? Nothing has changed from earlier.”

“So you have nothing to add?”

“No, man. I just need to get to her. Please, could you question me there?”

I check my phone, but there is no cell phone service in here. Panic creeps in and I clench my fists.

“Why didn’t you tell Officer Devero that the other driver was Mrs. McEllrath’s husband?”

“I didn’t know who hit us.”

“Funny you should say that. Let me play you something.” He turns his phone towards me.

“911, what’s your emergency?” a female voice asks.

“I was just hit by another car and can’t pull over, I’m sandwiched in between traffic.” I recognize the voice right away. It’s Darrell’s and he sounds like a panicked little bitch.

He called 911 and pinned this shit on me!

“Can you pull over in the other direction, sir?” the 911 operator asks him.

“I’m trying, but he won’t stop hitting me and flashing his lights. He’s driving erratically and blocking—”

Then you can hear a collision and the operator asks him, “Sir, are you all right? He doesn’t respond and then there is chaos in the background, followed by silence, I’m assuming that’s when Darrell smashed into the pole and his car burst into flames.

“What do you have to say now, Mr. Teracino?”

“Nothing. My story isn’t going to change. Look at the damage to my car, I never hit him. He rear-ended me over and over, then drove us into the center barrier causing us to flip.”

“We’ve looked at your car, and it’s smashed to pieces, front to back.”

“What about his?”

“Mr. Teracino, you do realize that Darrell McEllrath is dead and Abby McEllrath is going to die, and both of those murders will fall on your shoulders.”

“Fuck you!” I shout and stand, slamming my fist on the table.

“Sit down, Mister Tough Guy. Your tattoos don’t scare me.”

I take a seat and look at the prick ass officer who is twisting this whole thing into a story that it isn’t.

“Get a crime scene investigator out there!” I repeat, my body burning with adrenaline.

“Why don’t you let us make those calls? So last chance...nothing to add?” I flip him off and he laughs stepping out of the room. My eyes follow him as he walks into an office congregating with another officer. Little fucking pussies, I say. On the wall of the office is a ton of baseball memorabilia and suddenly everything makes sense. They know that I am innocent, but they are trying to make me admit to something I didn’t do because this is personal. Someone here has to know Darrell. It’s got to be the only reason.

Looking at my phone, there is still no service and the clock on the wall ticks by slowly. Each minute feels like an hour and all I can think about is Abby and our baby. How could things go from being so perfect to so fucking bad?

Resting my head in the palms of my hands, I feel sick imagining the worst and I pull myself away from that dark place. I can’t go there. Abby is a fighter.

The door opens and in walk two assholes. The one who questioned me and one of the on-scene officers, who I don’t trust either. “We’re gonna cut you loose,” the on-scene officer says.

“For now,” the other adds. “But this isn’t the end. We’ll get an arrest warrant and you’ll be charged.”

I blaze past them as they keep talking, “Fuck you both!” and bolt out of the room, walking outside in a fit of rage. I flag the first cab I see. “To New York Methodist.” He pulls away from the station and it takes forever for my phone to get service. Finally it chimes with seven missed calls all from my grandma. Immediately I call her back.

There is panic to her voice the second that she answers, and her first words are, “Oh, God, Latch.”

“How is she?” I ask, frightened for the news.

“Her injuries are terrible, the doctors she might not…” she stalls. “You need to get here now!”

My insides break. I cannot believe her words. “Noooo,” I respond through a sob and sink further down into the seat, wanting to jump from the moving car as I hold on to my hair, like it’s going to fucking help me right now.

“It’s not good Latch…you need to hurry.”

In the background, I hear alarms and someone shouts, “McEllrath, code blue.”

“Noooo,” she wails. There is so much emotion in her tone as her voice cracks and my phone falls from my ear. I’m about to hyperventilate thinking of losing Abby. This terrifies me like nothing that I’ve ever felt. Looking down at the screen, I hear my grandmother’s sobs and I press the end button.

“To President Street in Crown Heights,” I tell the cabbie with a stone cold expression.

My breath is already slipping from me. I cannot live without her, she is my world.

Everything inside of me is on autopilot; my actions are involuntary, almost as if I have no control over them. Someone else is controlling my body and I grab my phone, sending a text to my grandma. I love you, thank you for everything. And then I drop my phone to the floor of the cab. Leaning forward, I rest my face in my palms, a pain greater than what I can take resonates inside of me. Deep down, I know Abby is not going to make it, my grandma said so herself. And I can’t bear to see her that way; my last visions of her are already tainted. I’ll be damned if they are ruined further.

The cabbie weaves through the city and the emotions inside of me are unreal. After all that we have been through, this is how it’s all going to end.

Finally, he pulls up to my house and I hand him all of the cash from my wallet before getting out. He looks down at it, shocked. Each step I take feels unreal. My body has been taken over, fire burns from deep within my soul, and I am not myself any longer, and that means that Abby has left this world.

I can fucking feel it.

Opening the door to my home…our home…I close it behind me. A picture of us stares right at me. I pick it up with tears streaming down my face and squeeze it so hard the glass cracks. Looking at her perfection, through the shattered mess, she’s so fucking gorgeous. She’s my world…my everything.

Why did things have to end this way?

Setting the picture on the coffee table, I reach under the loveseat and pull out my gun. The smooth black metal stares back at me, and I never imagined when I purchased this for protection that this would be how I’d use it. But the pain is too great and I know this is the answer. It’s the only thing that’ll bring Abby and I back together.

Looking at her picture one last time, I kiss Abby, rubbing my thumb over her stomach and then I pray to God, to bring us together after I pull the trigger. Placing the cold black steel to my temple, I am reassured knowing that this…is the only way…