Four Letter Word

“I’m the reason his son is in that wheelchair. How much do you love me now?”

I sucked in a breath and blinked.

“Twelve,” I whispered with a broken heart.

“Liar,” he whispered back through a smirk, reaching out and running his thumb across my cheek. “So pretty, babe. You should’ve been a lawyer.” He turned away and looked ahead, breathing deep like he was trying to calm himself.

“What happened?” I asked, giving his hand a squeeze.

Brian kept his eyes on the windshield as he spoke.

“I was already driving home when they issued the state of emergency. I was going about forty and I most likely pushed it faster hitting the incline. Like I said before, my truck got around fine in bad conditions. Didn’t have a problem getting up the hill.” He paused, and I felt the muscles in his hand tighten. “Wish I would’ve. Wish I would’ve hit that black ice on my way up and slid off the road instead of hitting it at the top like I did. Maybe it’d be me in that chair instead of the kid.”

Agony pinched in my chest.

“Don’t say that.”

“That hill, it’s as steep on the way down as it is on the way up,” he continued, his voice hard and unforgiving with himself. “You can’t see what’s over it until you’re at the top and I knew that. I’ve driven this way for years. I should’ve slowed down, especially with the conditions, the visibility, the fucking ice, it was everywhere, but I didn’t. I pushed up that hill like I always did and I lost control.”

I looked out the windshield then, finally turning away from Brian’s profile, and squinted, tilting my head down to see the top of the hill.

“Were they driving this way?” I asked. “Did you cross lanes?”

“They were on this side, stopped about a third of the way down the hill but not out of the road completely. Their back end was still in it. That’s what I hit.”

I looked at him again.

His eyes were cast down on the wheel.

“I was going too fast to slow down. I didn’t have time to react and it was too late anyway. I slammed into their car. Crushed the back end so bad it looked like a fuckin’ two-seater. Police had to use the jaws of life to get the doors open and get to the backseat. That’s where their son was sleeping.”

My hands tightened around his.

“Did anyone else get hurt? Did you?” I asked softly.

His eyes sliced to mine. They looked as cold as his voice sounded.

“Yeah, I had a few cracked ribs. My knee was a little banged up, but I could fucking walk. It was nothing. Same with the parents. They had minor burns from the air bags, a few bruises. But the kid? Owen? He was unconscious for a week. A fucking week! For seven days his parents didn’t know whether their kid was going to live or not, and then when he finally did wake up, they had the pleasure of telling him he’d never walk again. How fucked up is that?” He paused, shaking his head and breathing a choked laugh. “That kid fell asleep able to do everything. Then he wakes up a week later and he’s paralyzed. He’ll never walk again because of me. He’ll never do anything.”

“But you said you hit ice.”

“I did. It’s why I lost control.”

I studied him hard, reading his guilt and his blame and not understanding any of it.

“Then …Brian, it’s not your fault,” I told him, wiping the tears from underneath my glasses then regripping his hand. “You would’ve lost control no matter how fast you were going if there was ice. It was an accident.”

He sighed, rubbed at his face with the hand I wasn’t clutching, then dropped his head against the seat and stared out the window.

“Christ, you sound just like them.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Jamie. Jenna. Cole. Everyone who doesn’t fuckin’ know better.”

“Well, do you think maybe that’s because we’re all right and you’re wrong?”

His eyes cut to mine.

“I think it’s because none of you were there,” he growled, tilting his head up and leveling me with a scowl. “I was the one driving that night. I was the one going too fast coming over that hill, knowing I should’ve slowed down ’cause I couldn’t see shit, but I didn’t, my truck could handle the conditions so what the fuck did I care, you know? That was me.” He jammed a finger at his chest. “I was the one who smashed into that car. I was the one who saw the looks on those parents’ faces when they finally climbed out and saw what I’d done, and I was the one they looked to for blame. Their agony, their fear, their hate, they turned that right on me and they should’ve. I got it because I deserved it. They were screaming and crying because of me. Because of what I took from them.”

I shook my head and grabbed his wrist, trying to ease his finger away.

“They don’t hate you. I’m sure they don’t. It would’ve happened anyway,” I said. “It could’ve been anyone driving.”

He flinched.

“What?”

“That boy, what happened to him, it would’ve happened anyway even if you weren’t on the road that night. He would still be paralyzed, Brian.”

He looked completely dumbfounded, his eyes narrowed and his mouth slack.

“It would’ve,” I pushed.

“Get the fuck outta here.” He yanked his hands out of my grip and shook his head, then looked at me like he was struggling to see me in focus. “That’s …Jesus, that’s fucking crazy, Syd. Most of the time everyone just tells me it was an accident and I shouldn’t take the blame so I gotta give it to you for being original. Haven’t heard that one yet, but straight up, that’s some seriously fucked-up way of trying to make me feel better.”