Chapter 3

 

 

“Me?” Aura asked, pausing in finishing her ice cream. “How so?”

He looked away and then back. “I felt like if our date had been better, you would have wanted to be with me. And you wouldn’t have ended up in that car with Tim.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said with a snort. “You really thought you could have stopped my accident?”

“If our date had been the best of your life, would you have stayed with Tim?”

“Yes,” she said, and then grimaced. “Probably. One date doesn’t change things.”

“The last three years says you’re wrong,” Reed said.

“What do you mean?”

“I promised I wouldn’t let it happen to another girl,” he said. “So I promised you I would plan five thousand dates for other girls, and show them the standard they should expect.”

“You can’t be serious,” she said, staring at him. “Why five thousand?”

“One for every second I was on the phone . . . listening to you die.”

She held his gaze, shock momentarily binding her tongue. “You did that because of me?” Her voice had softened.

He shrugged. “It sounds a little stupid when I say it out loud, but for three years it dominated my life. I went on three thousand dates and never even held a girl’s hand.”

“Until Kate,” Aura said.

“Until Kate.”

She stood and tossed her bowl into the trash. “Tell me about her?”

Aura’s expression was conflicted, as if she didn’t want the answer. But she repeated the request so, as they left the mall behind, Reed began with their first date. He continued to tell the story of their dates in the car, filling in the gaps that weren’t on Ember’s blog.

She asked him to take her to a place where they could see the city, so he drove her to one of the parks on the nearby mountains, where a recent snowfall hadn’t melted. Covered in white, the slope stretched away to the twinkling lights of Boulder. Evergreen trees were covered in snow and ice, their green boughs dusted like the snow was powdered sugar.

He put the car in park and shifted in his seat. “Now you know the story.”

“I’m glad to see you happy,” she said, looking at her hands.

“Why did you want to come back?” he abruptly asked.

“You weren’t always this bold,” she said. “It’s a good trait for you.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

The questions that had bubbled inside of him boiled to the surface and he didn’t retreat. At first he’d been worried about asking too much, about hurting the girl he’d already hurt. But he could wait no longer.

“I don’t know,” Aura said. She didn’t look at him. “I guess I hoped there was a chance for me to make things right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you really listen to me die?” She finally looked at him.

He swallowed and looked out the window. The snow had just begun to drift down, a silent storm that muffled all sound, dampening the night and leaving them alone. He shook his head but the words would not be constrained.

“That’s what it felt like.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“They didn’t tell you?”

She shook her head. “The doctors thought it might be traumatic. Will you tell me what happened?”

“If the doctors didn’t . . .”

“Please?” she asked, reaching out to touch his arm.

He swallowed at the contact. It was light, but sent sparks up his arm and into his chest. He’d wanted her to touch him for so long, but the triumph was fleeting, quickly replaced by thoughts of Kate.

The snow continued to fall outside the car, forgotten as he looked into her eyes. He wanted to resist but there was a pleading about her expression that could not be denied, so he agreed with a nod.

“You called me because Tim wouldn’t let you drive. You were afraid.”

“I remember that part,” she said. There was a desperate need in her voice, a need to understand what had happened to her.

He looked away. “I heard his voice in the background, him yelling at you to hang up the phone. Then I heard the impact . . . and the crunch of metal and steel. Your scream seemed to last forever.”

She took his hand and held it, like she was comforting him. He swallowed as the tears came to his eyes and fought the rising emotion.

“And then?” she whispered.

“I used the house phone to call 911, but you had skidded off the road and they couldn’t find you. So I just listened to your breathing and kept talking, hoping you would respond. But you just got quieter and quieter.

“They said your car flipped six times after it struck the guardrail, that your car looked like a crushed can of soda. Tim was thrown free and broke his leg while you ended up pinned inside the car.”

She rubbed her chest. “I remember the weight of it pressing against me, of the roof against my head.”

In halting words she described the accident from her perspective, of the fragments of memory she retained. She’d felt as though time had stopped and light had been extinguished, leaving her in darkness, near death.

“I don’t remember much of the accident,” she said. “But I remember pain . . . and I remember your voice.”

“You remember my voice?” he asked.

“You told me someone was coming,” she said, her eyes distant. “You told me you where there. It’s the first time I ever heard you swear. You swore so much.”

“You were dying,” he said. “I was in agony.”

“You kept me alive, Reed,” she said, meeting his gaze. “You gave me hope that I would survive, that I would have a chance to walk again. Do you remember telling me that? That you would take me wherever I wanted? That you would take me to the beach and go hiking in the mountains. You refused to believe that I would die. As I listened to you talk I realized Tim was the one that took my life. You were the one to save it.”

Reed struggled to speak but she shook her head and leaned closer to him, her gaze holding him fast. “There is one more thing I remember,” she said. “You told me you loved me.”

Reed finally managed to speak, his thoughts leaping to Kate. “I did. Then.”

“Don’t you see?” Aura asked as if he hadn’t spoken. “You were right. We were friends for a lifetime and it took dying for me to see that we were destined for each other. That you would always protect me, always love me.”

“Aura . . .”

He didn’t love her. He’d felt it the moment he saw her at the hotel, felt it when she looked at him, when she smiled. When she touched his arm and hand. When he’d visited her hospital bed in July he’d said goodbye, and the only emotion that remained was friendship. Throughout the evening he’d sensed the vestiges of his love evaporating away like steam from a cooling fire.

He struggled with what to say, to help her know that their time had ended. Especially after what she’d endured, how could he crush her without leaving her broken? Mistaking his silence for consent, she closed the gap in a rush.

Caught by surprise, he froze for an interminable moment. Then his brain registered the impending kiss and he retreated, instinctively raising his hands to her shoulders so she could not follow.

“Aura,” he said, “this isn’t what you want.”

“It is,” she said, leaning forward again. This time he saw desperation in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We did spend a lifetime together when we grew up, that life ended. What I feel for Kate . . .”

Stung, Aura retreated and folded her arms, her body going rigid. “I’ve heard enough about Kate.”

“Aura,” he pleaded, “you have to understand. For you it’s been weeks. For me it’s been years.”

“So I mean nothing to you now?” she demanded. “Just like everyone else? I’m just someone from the past that . . .”

Her eyes filled with tears and abruptly she crumpled. Tears dripped down her cheeks and she wrapped her arms around her stomach, her hands clenched like they would hold her body together. Her body trembled as she sobbed.

“I’ve lost everything, Reed. My parents are different, my friends are gone. Even the house I grew up in is sold. Everyone I’ve ever cared about has moved on. There’s nothing left. And now even you are saying it was another life.”

He reached out and pulled her into a hug. At first she resisted, but then wrapped her arms around him, sobbing into his shoulder. He heard the pain in her cries, the fear and doubt that had plagued her for weeks. She’d probably put on a brave face for her parents and the doctors, but the helpless rage of what she’d lost had built within her, boiling until the pressure was set to explode. He wanted to speak, but merely held her as she wept for the life she had lost.