Chapter Two
Time fragments. Milliseconds split then expand.
Arrested momentum as my trajectory changes. Pressure bearing down on me, swallowing me up.
Pain explodes in my left temple as the side airbag bursts through the ceiling. My neck snaps sideways, torso wrenches. The seatbelt holds.
The window beside me is sucked inward. A vacuum of pins and needles on my face.
The pressure recedes and I am flung to the side again, caught in a spinning, violent whirl. My head slams against the airbag and lights up with pain. The sensation erases all the rest.
Spinning. I am spinning. My brain jostles inside my skull. Through the spider-webbed windshield, another car catches me in its headlights, the car that hit me, a car hit me. I spin again and a tree comes into view.
In the eternity before impact, I see Alexis and Wren. Alexis’s cheeks streaked with mascara, eyes puffy from crying, a funeral-inappropriate dress. Wren, dark suit, somber face, pretending he gives a crap that I’m dead when really he killed me, ten minutes before I hit this tree. Rage goes off like a bomb inside my gut.
god you cannot let me die
The other car comes into view again, farther away now, and then the tree. Then metal connects with bark and I slam against the headrest and the spinning stops.
Abruptly, sensation returns.
i am not dead
My skull is lead and fire. Sticky feeling on my eyelids, on my lips. There is water rushing somewhere, like a pipe has burst. Every breath burns, acrid and chemical. Asphalt. Rubber. Gas. My wrist is pinned under something heavy. I can’t feel my face.
i am not okay
“Can you hear me?” a male voice asks.
I try to nod. My brain aches with the effort.
“You’ve been in an accident,” the voice says gently. “But you’re okay.”
Sparks of hope, and of doubt. there is no way i am okay
“What’s your name?”
“Jessa.” I barely hear myself.
“Can you open your eyes for me, Jessa?”
“I don’t know,” I say weakly. “They feel . . . heavy.”
Heavy is an understatement. My eyelids feel like they are caked in wet mud.
“What’s that sound?” I mumble. “The water.”
“You hit a fire hydrant. I need you to try to open your eyes.”
Eyelids lifting in slow motion. A face comes into view. A man standing beside the car. The door is hanging open. I blink, try to get the man’s face to come into focus. It almost does. He’s my dad’s age, dark crinkly eyes, curly black hair, a doctor’s white coat.
a doctor. My insides flood with relief.
“Good,” the man says. He smiles, and I realize we are eye-to-eye. I am not staring past him, or at the bridge of his nose. My eyes aren’t darting away like they always do. They are glued to his pupils, shiny black like wet paint. “Now let’s see about that hand.”
I follow his gaze and see that the heavy thing on my wrist is the steering wheel, bent to the side, trapping my hand like a cage. The doctor grips the wheel and bends it back. Pain ricochets up my arm as my wrist un-flexes. The doctor sees me wince.
“Pain is okay,” he says. “Pain isn’t permanent. Pain we can fix.”
pain. so much pain
My vision blurs. Woozy, I lean back against the headrest. A hand on my forearm. Two fingers on the inside of my left wrist. Another lightning bolt of pain as the man tugs on my hand. A loud pop as the bones snap back into place.
“So what happened back there?” he asks, conversationally, a small talk voice.
I am confused. why does he sound chatty? why am i still in this car? There is something dripping on my shoulder.
gasoline, it’s gasoline, the car is going to blow up
My eyes dart to the wet spot and see that it is blood. I wish it were gasoline. I hear myself scream.
“Jessa.” The man’s voice is firm now. “The glass from the window cut your face. That’s why you’re bleeding. I know it’s scary, but you are okay. Do you hear me? You’re okay.” He says it like it’s three syllables, oh-oh-kay.
he is lying. i am not oh-oh-kay
“The thing is,” he goes on. “The circulatory system has a way of overreacting to stuff like this. So we have to convince your body that it doesn’t need to freak out. Does that make sense?”
nothing makes sense
“I—I couldn’t . . . see it,” I say. I am talking about the other car. I am talking about Wren and Alexis. I am talking about this moment, which came out of nowhere and swallowed up everything else.
The man’s mouth moves, but this time his words float by me, unheard. My skull feels like the windshield, splintered, a tiny tap and the pieces would scatter.
Blood trickles into my mouth. Salt and rust on my tongue. Bile in my throat.
“Stay with me, Jessa. Just a few more minutes, okay?”
okay okay okay i am oh-oh-kay
In the distance, sirens wail.
“Is that your purse on the passenger seat?”
my purse, why is he asking about my purse?
He leans into the car. “I’m going to reach over you and grab it, okay?”
The man has my wallet now, is pulling my driver’s license from its plastic sleeve. He sets it on my lap and checks my pulse again. “You’re doing great,” he says. He says something else but the sirens drown him out. Red lights flash in my peripheral vision. Someone cuts the siren off. “The ambulance is here,” the man says, and rises to his feet. “I’ll be back.” His shoes crunch glass as he walks away.
Panic flutters limply in my chest. I am too tired for it to take flight.
Voices outside. Doors opening, the slide of metal, rolling wheels. I turn my head toward the sounds and there’s a prickling sensation in my cheek. Not pain exactly. But wrong. Something is wrong.
My fatigue evaporates, burned away by fear.
My hand floats to my face. But it’s not my face, it can’t be my face. please god don’t let it be my face. It’s not skin under my fingers but chunks of ragged broken glass. Pins in a pin cushion, darts on a board.
The bottom drops out inside me and for a moment I feel everything and then I sink beneath the surface and feel nothing at all.